NorthernRyland

It would be sad to not be able to speak Thai. I suspect many of the people here who become lonely and depressed are this way because they can't communicate with the people around them. It's debated but my experience is Thai's are already repressed and don't speak enough in public so it's already kind of lonely in that regard, but if you can't speak when you have the chance it's even worse. Just today I did a massage with the wife and I appreciate being able to chat with the massage ladies a little and complain about the smoke, heat etc.. Afterwards I got a Roti and ask the girl what the shop was with the frosted glass all the teenagers walking in and out. It's a vape store apparently. It's a little thing but that little bit of interaction helps to not feel as isolated.

Official shirt of the Chiang Mai expat.

So be it. It'll be a cold day in hell before I don't get my annual filthy bucket of water dumped on my head.

that truck crossed right over the right side lane and stopped, totally blocking it, so it's amazing another car didn't crash in to it going full speed. This could have been so much worse.

My thoughts exactly. I was devastated to learn the driver in the black car survived.

This one is intense, maybe the best I've seen so far. Very well captured and it illustrates perfectly why Thailand is a horrible country to drive in. Amazingly only the driver of the offending car was injured. There's a lesson here too. We see these kinds of recklessness drivers everyday in Thailand and obviously the useless police will do nothing about them. Since the drivers are too stupid to understand risks and think two steps ahead it's only a matter of time until their magic amulet fails them and they make a move this like. A ticking time bomb waiting to explode. It's all so tiresome.

Look at this video. Some guy burned his field and totally destroyed this property next to him. Madness they allow this to go on without more supervision.

The breeze is nice I grant it that. I'm going to continue exploring the south but I've not seen anything appealing yet. Honestly though I'd rather spend more time in the US but that's difficult too. You can still get an ok house in a cheap rural state in the US for like 150k. Sure the 5 mil baht CM house is bigger but Thai houses feel like prisons to me and property developers have captured the market so all houses going forward and in cramped projects where the US house will have some space. For right now I'm going to build a house in the mountains and get the F out of that city and that will give me clean air for the rest of the months (CM is always polluted unless immediately following a rain storm). When the smoke hits, the mountains are much worse than the city though so I need to find an escape. That doesn't solve the smoke problem but it solves the big city pollution, which I argue is a concern as well.

how much, what size house? I really dislike my wife's house in Mae Jo as it's near the highway but I don't think I can stomach the horrible little housing projects which are filling up CM at rapid speed. Getting an ok house now seems to costs minimum 3.5 mil, something you could build for far less on more land in any other city. Sorry for the negativity but I'm bitter with CM at the moment. 🙂

I just visited Hua Hin for 3 days to check it out and I didn't like it all. Ugly and congested streets like CM, miserable hot sticky weather and more expensive. Tourism was out of control too. It was better more south but still really touristy (drunk weekend Thai tourists from BKK) and outside the beach resort areas it was pretty rundown and had Cambodia vibes (yuck). I'm totally sick of Chiang Mai though, I would move tomorrow if my wife could leave her job. The city is overpopulated, ugly and hard to get around to do basic things. It was better in the past but it gets worse every year and is even a rip off compared to any other smaller cities in the north. So why stay? Well CM sucks but the north of Thailand is so much nicer than the south. I love the mountains which I cycle in and I'm living in Samoeng as much as possible now for this reason. I think I'd rather just give up on Thailand if I had to live in the south but that's easier said than done. Isaan looks depressing too but I haven't explored there much.

The entire north is surrounded by mountains that extend deep into Myanmar and Laos and they're all on your fire. Smoke is the worst in the north. You sound dismissive and angered by the assertion there could be some connection. Makes no sense...

Here's video evidence of this by a random YouTuber. He says he needs to watch his property so it doesn't get burned by neighbors but they notify him first at least. He actually lives with the hill tribe there (outside of Mae Hong Son I think) and mentions they burn for hunting too. Everyone knows this and always have. I challenge anyone to find an area with hill tribe that doesn't have burning along the road sides that goes up into the mountains. You will find their motorbikes parked by the side of the road too when they're back there foraging. Any official in Chiang Mai running their mouth about the smoke problem can STFU because at this point they're probably just lying so they don't have to actually do anything about it.

I took this picture the other day to show to my wife as a good idea for her company to build. Thai people just don't care about public property. They made this nice place to put your trash and morons throw garbage outside it anyways. Every other bin around this reservoir is the same thing. Bins with trash strewn all over the place. These are university educated kids too. LOL.

The Chiang Mai YouTube videos are pure cringe. They found some cute little cafe's and present them as if the city is some nature lovers paradise or something.

oh that was just one day. That stupid woman sweeps up leaves on the street in front of her house (shack) and burns them as they fall. It's just a culture of burning with them. In her mind she's doing a good thing keeping the streets clean. These are hopelessly backwards people but no one dare stop them.

See my previous post. Hill tribe and Thai Yai/Burmese people hunt and forage by burning the mountains. They live on the outskirts of society and have little regard for people outside their tribe. They start the fires from the road often and then once a path is open they can access the deep forest where animals live.

Exactly, no crops burning, people light the grass in the mountains and road sides intentionally every year and they won't stop until the rains start. There is a culture of burning with these people. Here's a video of this lousy woman I have the displeasure to live next to. They have zero disregard for anything outside their little bubble and if they could make a few baht burning the forest they will absolutely do it. IMG_1072.MOV

Does anyone see any actual crops burning? I haven't seen one in months. All I see are forest fires which they are still lighting up to today. I think the emphasis on crops is over stated and the bigger concern are hill tribes and other mountain people (Thai Yai/Burmese) who are up there foraging in the forests.

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Wait, how much does it usually cost for sex with the skanks in Pattaya? Was she really charging that much more than market rate?

I know of two 25 mil housing projects in CM in my area. I think these are speculative investments or money laundering schemes. One project finally sold (or they took the sign down at least) after 8 years or so (drop the price twice from 25 to 23. I never see the lights on ever, always empty. Could be a Chinese property scam for all I know.

The other week at the land office I saw the sale of a house which was listed at 7 mil and reduced to 6 after one year but I don't know how much they actually paid. It had 3 rai of land (Samoeng, land is like 1 mil per rai) but the house and landscaping was low quality if you ask me. I think the poor guy got ripped off but there are people willing to put down big money, just not many of them. I'd be curious how many people in Thailand even have 22 mil or access to that much credit. This is the top 1% of the country probably so there's not going to be many to go around and there's lots of luxury projects in the country.

I can't believe I forgot this. Just this week a Chinese owned housing project got busted in Hang Dong for using fraudulant nominees. Authorities are apparently on top of the Chinese taking over the housing market but I'm sure many people will slip through the cracks.

Btw, how much did you pay for the property 9 years ago? Curious what kind of inflation we're looking at here.

I have actually seen a little Chinese (Hong Kong) colony forming in Mae Jo. They really let you know exactly they're outsiders and put up flags and Chinese decorations. The authorities are obviously aware so they must have the corruption game down better than whitey. Chiang Mai has been targeted by the Chinese it seems. More reasons to GTFO.