username45

An Information Directory notice.

I bank at UOB Bank and have UOB ATM card which entitles me to draw upto 40,000bht on one occasion per day. It makes no charge at any UOB bank ATM machine,but if I use it at any other of the Thai banks ATM I am charged 20bht. or more for the service.

I have used a UK Mastercard here and was billed in the normal way in the UK. I was charged £2.50 forex charge separate to the transaction and the exchange rate was that days Thai bank rate plus 5%.

I was thinking of using my Tesco Visa Card at Tesco Lotus to see how that worked. Tesco Lotus have a 1% promotion on at the moment. The alternative is to apply for a Thai Tesco Lotus card.

Have you an experience good or bad of using "plastic" in LOS ?

Hi,

I bank with an Australian bank, a necessity as the Oz government will not pay my pension into any other nations banks. Connected to my bank account is a visa debit card which I can use to withdraw funds from any visa linked ATM. I am able to withdraw a maximum of Aus$500 a day (I wish).

Charges, my bank charges me a flat fee of Aus$5 for every ATM transaction and then charges me a 2% fee on top of that as a foriegn currency conversion fee. All this means that I must take out just about all my fortnightly pension each time or I would be crippled by the fees.

It sucks doesn't it?

Hugh

Hey, what can I say?

To those negative people that responded, I have absolutely nothing to say, except 'get your fun where you can', even if it is at my expense.

To the more positive responces, thanks for your good thoughts and your understanding.

OK so I stuffed up and sent a post that caused some people to laugh, some to be offended and some to actually offer help.

All I can say was that it was early in the morning, I was missing no longer having a bike (something that only 'bike' riders would truly understand) and I tried something that didn't work and was charged, found guilty and chastised for offences against the forum.

Now it's time to forget about it all and get back to something interesting and as soon as I can think of something 'interesting' I will post again.

Regards to all, Hugh

Hi everyone, sorry for the previous post, I didn't mean to sound like a beggar! Just dreaming that's all.

Regards, Hugh

2005 was not my best year!

Up until March last year, my life in Thailand was wonderful. I had everything I wanted and everything I needed for a happy and enjoyable time here. I had my lady, Wun; I had my Apple Mac and my BMW R1100GS. What more did I need.

Only one thing has changed and since that fateful March and although in every other respect my life is still great, I do miss my motorbike.

Bought second hand in Chiangmai in September 2003 for 360,000 Baht, in the following 17 months I rode more than 34,000 k’s around Isan and Northern Thailand, including in one 5-day period, 2,500 k’s.

It was great to have my bike parked under the house; anytime I felt like a ride I could just jump on and see where I ended up.

However in March last year, the inevitable happened, I had what turned out to be a reasonably serious accident. An accident resulting in 44 days in hospital both in Kalasin and in Brisbane, Australia and 7 trips to surgery.

The bike wasn’t that badly damaged (see pictures on web-site) and would probably have only cost 100,000 Baht to put back on the road. However with the hospital bill here in Kalasin of 45,000 Baht and the necessity of doing my regular 3 monthly trips back to Australia to keep my approximately 28,000 Baht/month pension, I found I had no option but to sell the bike.

Taking it back to the place I bought it from, I had to accept his offer of 85,000 Baht as time was against me.

By the time I had paid the hospital bill and paid another 25,000 for my return flight to Australia, I had next to nothing left. Then, having to spend the next 8 months in Australia while I was undergoing treatment. Well, that just about killed me financially. I was really lucky that I could somehow manage to pay the extra to change my flight from a 60-day return to a 1-year ticket.

Still struggling somewhat now, to overcome the financial problems associated with last year and that accident.

The only reason I can keep coming back to Thailand and my lady is that I can live so much cheaper here, even taking into account flying to and from Oz every 3 months.

So here I am some 17 months after the accident and 6 months after my last surgery and I am now just about fully recovered.

However, that recovery has come at a price. During the period of time that I was not able to ride a bike, it was not too hard to handle no longer having my BM. But now when there is no physical reason not to jump on a bike I find that I miss being able to go for a ride and just plain miss having my bike. I guess only other dedicated bike riders would really know what I mean by that.

So, how can I get myself another BMW?

On 28,000 Baht a month pension and a 25,000 Baht return flight ticket to buy every 3 months it looks like, never and not possible are the obvious answers.

Still, I can dream can’t I?

Maybe some of you Thaivisa Forum members would like to help me with that dream of getting another bike?

All it would take would be that some 3000 to 4000 (or more) of the 30,000+ Thaivisa forum members to donate a mere 100 Baht each (or more if you can afford it) and I would be able to buy another second hand BMW.

Hey, it would only take 100 Baht from some 9500 of you and I could even get a new one. Now wouldn’t that be nice!

If anyone is interested in helping me out, please PM me and I will e-mail you the details of where you can send your 100 Baht.

Can’t promise you any return on your money, only that if I am riding in your area that I will call in and say hello and share a beer with you. Obviously, anyone who donates that finds themselves travelling through Kalasin Province, stop in and say hello, the beer will be on me.

Regards to all, Hugh

Two good guys and good bars, both good mates of mine, they have just started a club up called the Buffalo Soldiers which i am a member, they are always looking for new bikers around Buriram Surin, last feb we all rode down to Pattaya Bike Week, good laugh and plenty of beer. looking forward to the next run, i think in August.

Hi,

Nice to read a positive posting after some not so. Great to hear your a member of that new club in Surin, I'll need to get a bike when i settle hear, or bring mine over from the uk. I met most of the club members when i was there, played some Pool too, i guess you wern't there at the time ? I'll be back in Surin next week again and plan to rent a bike here in Pattaya so i can join there next run out to Bua Chet and then on to the Chanta Buri event later this month before i have to go home. I'm a big bike fanatic and it's good to know i can enjoy riding in TL with you guys. Do you know if they have completed there website yet, i would like to be able to chat wlth them on it; by the way are there any other members on this site ?

Hi, I was hoping to read more about the bike touring on this thred myself. Being a confirmed biker (currently without) for many years, I can think of nothing I would rather be doing (right now!!!) than being on a good bike and exploring the Isan and Thai roads. For apprximately 18 months I rode (almost always on my own) a BMW R1100Gs localy and to Chaingmai a few times, clocking up 34,000 k's and 2,500 over one 5 day period.

Until the inevitable happened. For that story go to (URL removed)

Lets have more on bikes and riding in Thailand.

Love to ride. . .

In a car it's the dsetination.

On a bike it's the journey!

Hugh

Hi again,

I guess that my 20,000 Baht a month is not completely accurate, as when I first moved into Wun's house in our village Na Kham (60 km East of Kalasin) nearly 3 years ago, I had a little money and that I invested by lifting the her house and building a small shop and eatery. Total cost, maybe 300,000 Baht.

Wun looks after that business all herself and although it never seems to bring any money in, it pays for the electricity, gas for cooking, fuel for the car to make the daily market trips (36 km return) and feeds our extended family (mum, 2 children and 2 of her sisters children, Wun and myself).

The shop turns over approximately 2500 Baht a day, which for a small village is pretty good. But this is mostly because Wun's food is aroi!

We also sell some of the coldest beer in the area, as it is always stored on ice. I prefer my ice outside the beer, not inside as they serve it here.

So, if your passing through the region, from Kalasin take route 213 towards Somdet and Sakhon Nakohn and then turn right onto route 2336 (sign at intersection says to Na Mon) follow the road appoximately 20 - 25 km, until you see the sign (in English) Na Kham and we are on the 2nd left hand corner. Building has a blue roofed veranda. Drop in and say hello.

Regarding the lifestyle, well you could say that I live more like a Thai than a Farang. No air-con or other expensive luxuries. Only luxuries for me, UBC and dial-up internet and I pay for them.

Thinking of chucking the UBC and getting sattelite internet but even so at an extra 1000 Baht over the price of UBC, I'm still thinkin!

Hugh

Just to add my thoughts. . .

I get a pension from the Australian Goverment of approximately Aus$1000 a month which equates to about 28-30K Baht a month. Sound OK eh?

However to keep receiving that Pension, I am not allowed to saty outside of Australia for more than 13 weeks (absolute maximum) otherwise my pension is automatically cancelled and must be applied for again.

So, on average, it costs me 1 months pension every 3 months to pay for the airfare to keep the pension.

So from that, my income drops to about 20K Baht a month.

And that doesn't take into account that the month that I have to stay in Oz costs me an absolute fortune (for next to nothing).

However, I would not change my life here as even on 20K here in Isan I can have some kind of lifestyle, the sort of lifestyle that would only be a dream on the same money in Oz.

Plus, and more importantly my lady Wun is here and with her life couldn't be any better!

Hugh

I am one of those happy fools that loves his Mac, even though on some rare occasions something doesn't work as expected.

I have Thai fonts on my Mac but can't seem to be able to use them in MS Word. For you Mac users, my little flag up in the tool bar, shows me both the Australian and Thai flags but when I go into word the thai flag fades. Probably something very basic that I have missed but if anyone can provide a solution, I would be happy.

On another MS Word matter, how can I change the initial document page to come up as A4 and not always as US letter. There has to be a way and it anoys me just a little that I have to go into page setup each time I start a document to change it to A4

Regards, Hugh

Hi, I envy you guys with your short visa runs! I have been staying in Thailand for the last 3 years on an annually renewed O class visa and like all have to cross the border every 90 days. My problem however, is that I am on an Australian Disability pension and I not allowed to spend more than 13 weeks outside of Australia at any one time, overstay in Thailand and my pension is cancelled. So it's 3 months here, back to Oz for a month and then back home to Thailand again. Costs me 1 months pension every 3 just to pay for the return airfares. Thankfully life in a small rural village in Isan more than makes up for the expence.

Hugh

//URL removed//

Well, I thought my connection was slooooow but this is the reading I got.

Your current bandwidth reading is:

10.80kbps

which means you can download at 1.35 KB/sec. from our servers.

This is because my phone line changes to a radio transmitter and back to a phone line in the 18 k's to the nearest exchange. They are supposedly putting in a new line (see bits of it here and there) but the job is happening on Thai time, so maybe by the end of the year. Otherwise I've been looking at ipstar but to afford it I wil have to cancel my UBC. Decisions, decisions. . .

Regards, Hugh

//url removed//

Hugh,

Not sure where or what type of composting facility you intend to set up, but I would do your homework pretty well and find out what already exists in the market. There are quite a few composting plants being set up at the moment, and it is actually becoming a policy to have "one composting station per tambon", although like many centrally-conceived projects it may nose-dive and die a natural death in a few months time. We'll see, but you want to be sure about what the competition and market is, before committing any funds to a scheme wherever.

The organic fertiliser plant would initially be set up for the international market, rather than domestic. The organic fertiliser fomulae developed by Ken are currently being produced in Australia with short term projected production figues running at about 2000 Tonne a week. The market for these products far exceeds the current production facilities caperbilities and with the quite possibly large reduction in production costs by situating a plant in Isan that market can only grow further.

Other projects, including work in organics with local farmers, including training and education are something that would come up after the first production facillity is open.

Regards, Hugh

You're going to export organic fertiliser from Thailand right? A couple of questions spring to mind. 1/ Where's your market? 2/ How are you going to get it there? 3/ By building in Isaan, you're further from the ports, so what extra margin will that add on? 4/ What's going to be your raw materials and do you know they're sufficient for 2000 tonnes/week? 5/ Where is the finance for this little venture coming from?

hope you don't mind me saying, but it all sounds a bit back of an envelope-ish at present, so just curious about these basic issues which you must have covered by now.

If everyone and his mate is getting into composting at the same time, there will soon be a shortage of raw material, which interestingly is one of the limitations of organic farming. On-farm residues are usually not sufficient for a farm's needs, so non-organic farms with excess organic wastes are actually essential to keep the organic farms going. This raises questions of sustainability in the long term. However, by judicious use of manures and composts (on mixed farms), and practising crop rotations and use of legumes, then the need for off-farm wastes can be greatly reduced. It is monoculture farms which are most vulnerable and least sustainable, but unfortunately monoculture is an increasing trend in Thailand, seen most vividly in Isaan with certain cash crops like sugar cane and rubber/eucalyptus plantations.

OK without going into too many details, yes exporting from Isan world-wide.

Re costs for transportation, even adding road freight to BKK with the much lower labour and raw material costs the price per Tonne here would be more than signicantly cheaper than the same product produced in Queensland and landed at say, Brisbane port for transport elsewhere.

Remember a Thai labourer will work a full day for the same money as an Australian labourer will work for 15 minutes. The tax breaks offered in the this region also make it very viable.

Re the market, not withstanding some of the comments in this forum, Organic products are very well regarded in the open market place and generaly receive a higher per kilo price than std farming produce. So consequently the demand for organic fertilisers and pesticide/herbicides is growing exponentially. The 2000 Tonnes currently being produced in Oz does not fulfill the demand and further production facillities are required.

Raw materials for the fertiliser would not be a problem, however I cannot at this stage go into what the main ingredients are, for the normal reasons.

I completed a full study of the feasibility for this project last year, taking into account all the points raised and can tell you that it is extremely viable.

Regarding the investors for the project, the main ones are the current manufacturer, my partner Ken (who currently receives a royalty per Tonne for his formulae of Aus$100 a Tonne, an income of some $200,000 per week) and a group of large scale Organic farmers in both Australia and Japan. So I don't think money will be too much of a problem.

Hoping to get discussions underway towards the end of this year with the facility up and running by mid next year. This is a project that has been in the pipeline for some 18 months now and we are just about ready to take it to the next stage.

Hope this answers some of your points.

All the best, Hugh

Hi to any other Mac users out there, If you have recently upgraded your OS from 10.3 to 10.4 and have the original 10.3 disks, I would be very interested in purchasing them from you. As an Australian pensioner that is forced to return to Oz every 3 months to keep the pension, I am on a very limited budget (costs me a months pension every 3 months just to keep the bloody thing), so can't afford to pay much. Regards, Hugh

Hi, If your touring through the Mukdahan Province and looking for somewhere nice to stay for a night or a few days. Checkout //url removed//Run by an Australian David and his Thai wife Noi, its definately worth a look and even more a stay. However, I must indicate that I am writing this for self interest as David is a good friend of mine and I was his web-site developer. But please have a look anyway.

Hugh,

Not sure where or what type of composting facility you intend to set up, but I would do your homework pretty well and find out what already exists in the market. There are quite a few composting plants being set up at the moment, and it is actually becoming a policy to have "one composting station per tambon", although like many centrally-conceived projects it may nose-dive and die a natural death in a few months time. We'll see, but you want to be sure about what the competition and market is, before committing any funds to a scheme wherever.

The organic fertiliser plant would initially be set up for the international market, rather than domestic. The organic fertiliser fomulae developed by Ken are currently being produced in Australia with short term projected production figues running at about 2000 Tonne a week. The market for these products far exceeds the current production facilities caperbilities and with the quite possibly large reduction in production costs by situating a plant in Isan that market can only grow further.

Other projects, including work in organics with local farmers, including training and education are something that would come up after the first production facillity is open.

Regards, Hugh

Hi to those who answered me and to vegimite, I am the Hugh that you refered to. At least I guess so, as I can't imagine many Hugh's in Thailand that have undregone bone grafts. Mine through an accident on my BMW motorcycle (how unusual) just outside Na Kham last March. Unfortunately I encountered a (poor - is there any other kind?) farmer and his 2 wheel tractor and trailer after dark with no lights. By the time I actually saw him, I threw the bike to the right and managed to miss hitting the trailer but. . . The irrigation pipes hanging out the back I didn't. One piece of pipe smashing through the headlight and hitting my left forearm breaking it in 2 places. For the full story go to inevitable.html Re the injury, after a total of 44 days in hospital both in Kalasin and Brisbane and 7 times in surgery things are now pretty good. I guess You must have heard of me, vegimite, so who are you? Regards, Hugh

Hi, It is interesting to read about the Organic farming projects for NE Thailand. Later this year I will be looking at getting an Organic fertiliser plant up and opperating in the area. My Australian partner Ken, an Organic agronomist, has been working in the organics field for more than a decade and has been developing a range of organic fertilisers that are the equivelant of any commecial fertiliser. We expect that a production plant in Isan would make the proposition extremely cost effective too. Regards, Hugh

Hi there, I was just doing a search for satilite internet when I came across a post from a while back about Farang's living in Isan. I have been living in a small village called Na Kham which is about 50 k's from Kalasin, for the last 3 years and love it. One of the replies to the post refered to satilite internet access and I really would like to know more about it, cost etc. As here in Na Kham our phone changes to a radio transmission a few k's from home and the very best dial-up speed I can get is a mere 16800bps but mostly around 14400. OK for e-mail but a real pain in the but for browsing the net or for uploading files for my own web-site () or for the first of my commecial web-site projects for another local Farang and his Isan Resort ( ) So if anyone can give me some info on a faster internet service, I would appreciate it. Regards to all, Hugh