David006

DMAX,

I take your request for ideas very seriously as I have walked down this road for several years and as others suggest it is not easy.

Firstly understand yourself and your needs. How much money do you need to enjoy a meaningful lifestyle each month? Whats important to you, the person you have always been and the person you may wish to become? What are you looking for in your future life? Can you find that in rural Isaan?

That may well seem pretty airey-fairy but I have met people such as us who are attracted to Isaan but dont understand themselves or the environment they have placed themselves in. There is a huge gulf between the consumer based societies we come from and the basic need to have rice to eat which is all many locals here strive for.

I suggest that your question should be, How much money can I make in Isaan? Or indeed, Can I make enough money here in Isaan? The important word is "I", you will have to make it happen.

Those that surround me, have always been content to work very hard at planting and harvesting times, or about two months, but do little else throughout the year to improve their circumstances. With a tame farang around their lives become easier, fertiliser can be paid for with someone elses cash, friends can be employed to help do their work and they can relax with a monthly income for doing little and enjoy enormous face. Why wouldn't they smile at you? Beware of the crocodiles.

Whatever you decide to do, understand the nature of incomes here. They are small, nothing here makes a fortune easily or quickly. People here are risk takers and will jump into anything new, yet those same people resist change and will walk away from the smallest of obstacles. What may have the enthusiastic support of everyone to start with may well just simply run out of steam when the hard work starts. Stay clear of anything that relies on others that cannot be replaced easily. You do not want any uneducated "keymen" becoming critical to your business.

Equipment and improvements should be considered balanced against doing things the traditional manual way. Yes good tools make life easier and improve results, but reality is that many of those using them don't own them so will not treat your things with any care.

So base your decision on where to look to generate an income solely on what level of effort you are personally prepared to put in. Treat any assistance you get, for as long as it lasts, as a plus and be prepared to have an alternative to fill the gaps as they occur.

For those that read this and think I'm a hard nosed SOB, your not thinking Thai style. I have been personally disappointed many times by others and have learnt that if I fail, its my own fault, not the fault of people I try to impose my standards and work ethic onto. Nothing is for nothing here, why should we think differently.

DMAX, I hope you can find the answer to you next question, "What can I do ..... For me the answer is to earn as much as possible from as many things as possible. I grow rice and raise pigs, and I work hard producing compost from their manure and the rice straw both for sale and to reduce fertiliser costs. There are fish in our pond and a worm farm in the pig sty. We eat our own mushrooms and vegetables. We have made bacon and sausages. I am attempting to establish a fully integrated farm with a minimum external expenditure and sufficient income to enjoy a happy and contented lifestyle.

Whatever your choice is, be sure of one thing, to be successful you will have to work hard.

Isaan Aussie

Good advice from a fellow aussie. Very sensible approach. My only addition is - do something that you already have some knowledge of, or passion for doing. Coming to a foreign business world is hard enough, but without all the free encouragement advice and mentoring you may get in a western country, you are really going to struggle.

yup..always someone everyplace who will say with 'intake of breath'.."won't work, can't be done" etc..great incentive to prove 'em wrong....application and hard work... Had many Farangs tell me.."<deleted> do you know about rubber farming?"..."why don't you buy a bar" etc..."build a house on a mountain" .."good luck" !! Truth is never knew sod all about farming..still learning thanks to wifey and her family. Oh and building?....Not sure I would have done it if I knew how bloody hard and frustrating it would be, glad I did though.

Just a note on rubber farming ROI..after three years averaging gross 15%pa ROI.hence the producing parcel of land has almost paid for itself. The mature trees we(her indoors actually) are cutting (about 600)are not the greatest and probably better trees would have a higher yield. We will have some additional 3000 trees coming on line in a couple of years. The hardest work is the brush cutting and chucking fertilizer and of course collecting and carrying the buckets of latex...wife and sometimes family members cut the rubber trees.I am just the "donkey" man...tried cutting..wife shook her head and banned me after three attempts..lol

.costs for fertilizer cups/wires anti fungal, tools etc would only amount to about 30k a year for the mature trees...

"I'm out of here tomorrow"

The OP has had enough and he's leaving. Fair enough. Living in one of those backwater villages does become mind numbing fairly quickly though doesn't it. I mean, who can you have an intelligent conversation with and, besides watching satellite TV and drinking beer, what else is there for a farang to do in a place like that. I guess you could help out with the rice planting or ploughing the fields.

So you've figured the grass is greener on the other side of the hill? No it's not. You're going back to a PC oriented world and that thing that sucks the life out of people - TAX. When you come back (and we all know you will), try doing it differently. Live somewhere that has all the facilities of the real world - modern shopping center, movie theatres, gyms, restaurant and the beach (Phuket is a pretty good option). Stay away from those backwater villages mate, you'll just get pissed off again.

Once you've been here long enough you'll become like the rest off us - emotional vacuums. Nothing will phase you because you just won't care anymore. That's when you can start enjoying yourself.

Well said. Living in the villages and hoping you found nirvana is a stretch at best. in fact the OP appears to have come unprepared. Regardless people quickly forget about what they are heading back too. Learning to live with less and enjoy it more is a tall order for people that have grown up in a materialistic high expectations environment. I moved from the US and hope to only have to go back to visit aging parents and a few friends. However with technology what it is, Might be able to webcam and wave.....

got it in one guys...all depends on what a person wants and needs or expects out of life...sure many of us rural types miss the treadmill and all the western style trappings..... one can always get a "fix" in Singapore or KL..

..think it's all about contentment...after being in the western corporate world yadda yadda...quite like not having to think too hard, being bound by the clock, bills etc.

..gotta say that emotional vacuum and not caring sounds a bit... er well overstated maybe.. okay yes I don't care about the problems of discontented Farangs..rather more "entertaining" over top of a coffee cup..."what are they whingeing about today".. "Webcam and wave"...love it! lol

Those look terrible! Sorry...

Orchids are easy to grow and flower all the time. Like another poster said, put them in coconut shells. Feed them once a week with orchid food. You may be over-watering them as well.

Our orchids took a beating with all of the heavy rain, but now that the rain has let up, they are doing much better. Of course all the rain brought many snails that were making the coconut shells home. We got rid of them too.

not shells ..husks!

These ones are the orchids you see for sale in big quantities - in a shade of purple or white. They sell them in the flower markets by the clump.

They do well if they can get a bigger root base. Try hanging them on a tree trunk and the roots will spread onto the tree and they will soon shoot and flower. They also like 50/50 sun. And some pellet orchid food would get them started as well as some fresh coconut husk in the pots.

Maybe good for the orchid, but not so good for the tree. Over-wet conditions on the tree trunk can create conditons for wood rot fungal colonization and decay; some tree species can take it, some cannot. If the tree is important to you, best not to mount orchids or other plants, wrap cloth, post signs or other obstructions that can trap moisture, harbor insect pest activity or impair regular inspections.

Oops, we've (missus & me) always just tied them to any tree around the garden we fancied? Various species of both orchid & tree, must have just been lucky? Never fed, never watered and all thriving. A few to such an extent I've learned to place them higher, they don't half get in the way when I'm mowing!

Speaking of which, I've heard pruning back the dead heads as soon as they stop flowering really helps them? I just leave them to their own devices currently...

seems to me ..me no expert!...shade and water and food....if they dry out... they is sticks...lots of different food out there but liquid sprayed on seems to on work on those of "her indoors".....

Very nice, afraid ours are the non blooming variety

Just got back yesterday from Nakhon Si Thammarat 'fair" Buddhist holiday... Sept every year Though our orchids were good...never seen so many.....wifey bought a shit load of little ones and spent today with bits of hardwood and and wire placing 'em...me cutting and drilling bits of wood lol...

if your in the south in Sept worth a visit sooo many plants, orchids and fruit trees...plus foood , furniture and teak /hardwood stuff...good day out....

Had the whole f..g family in in the back of the truck 10 kids and three adults inside ...sat down under an awning with ...guess what ......Wifeys'..Thai style spaghetti sauce and western spagettini ...got a lot of strange looks..... lol

Wifey said if she had million baht could have spent it on orchids ..no problem... .. got away with 2500baht... Think she was gonna have an orgasm looking at all the orchids......

....wifey always says if you have a shop sell rice,eggs and great big prawns when you can get 'em...

makes sense... who can resist buying a kilo of big fresh prawns..even if you were shopping for a lawnmower..

...been in retail for the ex three times...learned eventually...Never again!!! too much like hard work...fixed and variable costs too high and returns low..buying yourself a job...make sure you have a lounger,a TV and cable lol.....good luck anyways...

Finished our crude shade house a month or so ago to house wifeys orchids..can't take any credit for them ...lol AND can't name 'em!

If you have some you're proud of I would love to see photos and discuss...problems food,sourcing etc. Wifey always buys teeny ones from a grower in Krabi that comes to a local market plus have daughters' suitor keeps turning up with boxes of 'em from his farm, also we "borrow" and exchange with rellies friends... I think we have some that are supposedly "restricted?"...

So here's a couple of our boasts..pics not great as camera was about to give up the ghost... and now has...

HMMM...well just got back from foraging for veggies, fruit cuttings etc at MILs farm and in front of her house in the obligatory CPAC "pot" was a small plant which looked exactly like the OPs......except it was a variegated leaf bougainvillea with very unusual small delicate beautiful pink mauve bracts. Camera "tits up" so no pics..next time..maybe.

edit: oh and wifey says that some varieties do not have flowers/bracts

Hi David,

I have a variegated bougainvillea and like most bougainvilleas the thorns would be evident along the stems even at a young age. They may have developed a thorn-less variety but i haven't heard of one yet. Also the varieties of bougainvillea that don't produce bracts or flowers are quite common but when time and the plant is right , then they will produce the coloured bracts. It is usually the non-cultivatar spp of bougainvillea that will do that or sometimes they are just too busy throwing shoots to flower which ,in that case , adjust your fertilising regime. Very similar to a fruit tree that is grown from seed and will be erratic in producing fruit.

Xen

Thanks mate good info..one thing I have found with all our bougainvillea is that they seem to do better in pots? Okay we are on a mountain and the soil is probably not great, every plant we stuck in the ground even with lots of compost seems to slow down. Recently potted one again with compost, ash etc and it's taken off...

,,,,of course took a cutting of MILs variegated (no thorns)..stuck it in a pot after dipping in some hormone powder...we will see..lol

this two weeks after potting again...very sad before..

DVD ...Eagles ....Rod Laver Stadium Melbourne.....never get tired of it...dam_n missed 'em ...wish I'd been in Melbourne still...

HMMM...well just got back from foraging for veggies, fruit cuttings etc at MILs farm and in front of her house in the obligatory CPAC "pot" was a small plant which looked exactly like the OPs......except it was a variegated leaf bougainvillea with very unusual small delicate beautiful pink mauve bracts. Camera "tits up" so no pics..next time..maybe.

edit: oh and wifey says that some varieties do not have flowers/bracts

Don't care what anyone says about locally made pies, Fray Bentos are the ultimate pie, I'm drooling over the keyboard thinking about them.

Perhaps there is a good business opportunity to be made importing them, they are tinned so they would last for years!!

I have imported a couple of Frey Bentos pies ,but the trouble is that they weigh heavy and the postage means that they end up costing over 7 GBP a time....but I have to agree that they are unique and have never found any pie to compare.

One poster had agrued for Lady pies...apparently one of the mythical Australian'best pies in the world'...........;Krapp.

Anyone from Bristol will tell you that Clarks pies are the best .

Why isnt anyone importing Ginsters Cornish Pasties?

Everyone knows Aussie pies are the best in the world!!..runny obscure contents with a dollop of sauce in the middle....what could be better after a few dozen VBs...yum...lol

Seem to remember FB was soggy with less identifiable contents ...disgusting....not to mention the tin cutting your hands as you scooped it out with your fingers..but that was a looong time ago.. maybe they've improved along with all the other POME cuisine? Don't Marks and Sparks still market good foodstuff in addition to y fronts??

thanks guys....wouldn't want to try the "drop test" on that baby then..

We have a rubber farm but we have planted many fruit trees...Banana , Papaya( they just grew!) etc around the house.

After three years we now have lots of fruit from these and maybe in a few years we will also have Mango, Mangosteen etc add nauseam. Also the wife's twin sister and MIL have farms ( they sell a lot of their fruit)and thus we have a supply of fruit coming out of our ears in season.

So... we eat a lot but end up composting a lot too..we give it away, feed the bees/butterflies and even our shepherd.The wifey fries bananas...excellent!

Question: ideas for preserving, recipes etc.

What about freezing, canning,jams jellies, compotes, breads,cakes, wine? etc... anyone doing it?? Is it worth it? .

..Wifey says "we have many, why/what you want to do?"..yes maybe I am just making work...but all seems such a waste...must be the dearth of exotic fruit post war cockney kid in me..lol

cheers

david

Yeah.... and it'll probably be dead the next day......

Nah.........they just like kipping on their backs.

Well........Norwegian Blues do, anyway.

I just opened this post to see how quick....

..... it took seven posts!! :cheesy: :cheesy: :cheesy: "...I got a slug...."

It's a fair question that I have alreay thought about, now that I am still able to think

I refuse to die slowly and painfully nor do I want to put my loved ones through it...with each labored breath of mine, they at my bedside will inevitably start to forget the happier times and instead focus on the misery, pain and despair before them. Remember me at my best, not at my worst.

When the time comes, I know I shall be at a little clinic in Zurich, where a painless and dignified end awaits...at my timing and on my own free will. Thank goodness for countries which provide an enlightened non-compulsory option.

Between 'becoming dependent and 'when the time comes' there can be many years inbetween... not sure if I would feel safe here, and back home there's growing complaints about the poor and unpersonal elderly care.

Perhaps Thaivisa can set up an elderly care home in Thailand, find sponsors and staff... (prefer near the sea)

But hel_l that could become a very unpleasant place to stay, with all those old and demented Thaivisa members stuck into quarreling and complaining about internet speed and bad girls etc.

:cheesy:

..."it's scary out there!"..Granpa Simpson

my sons were calling me Granpa Simpson ten years ago...!

read somewhere that euthanasia drugs can be bought at the vets in LOS and were even advertised in Bangkok??

F..d if I want to die in a place stinking of old people like me......although the Canadian ones seem to be like bloody five star hotels! atleast in BC...

..nah!!! I like the "keep swimming" idea...probably wouldn't get far...easy just to swim off Kata/Karon beach in the westerly trades/wet season....seems almost a guaranteed solution...

....time for my pill..... :sleepy:

Okay ..good timing..my Olympus is on the blink..suspect it was dropped with lens out by "wasn't me" kids.as sounds like focus wheels slipping?

So how much should one expect to pay for this super machine????

Cheeks... in the Sand

TO's in the water

SX on the Beach

Wet Dream

Bubbles

Brain Freeze

Warm Rain

Beer O'clock

Last Baht Saloon

Stars on the Water ( ..sorry Jimmy)

Thongs 'n Blacksocks

Last Beer for 50Metres

Banana Republic

Brown Belly's

Mr Creosote

Faulty Towers

Bath and Turtle (a bar in BVI of same name)

Clinks

Socks and Sandals

You're Shout

...the suggestion ...bar "Fine" is a really good one ...lol

Cheeks... in the Sand

Wet Spot

TO's in the water

SX on the Beach

Wet Dream

Bubbles

Brain Freeze

Warm Rain

Beer O'clock

Last Baht Saloon

Stars on the Water ( ..sorry Jimmy)

Thongs 'n Blacksocks

Last Beer for 50Metres

Banana Republic

Brown Belly's

Mr Creosote

Faulty Towers

Bath and Turtle (a bar in BVI of same name)

Clinks

Socks and Sandals

You're Shout

...the suggestion ...bar "Fine" is a really good one ...lol

do they stock wholistic dog food? like that "wild salmon, fresh bison" type foods, typically coming out of California.

:cheesy: :cheesy:

.. Your Joking Right??

Do people really feed "dogs" like that?

Seems to me most dogs eat like Mr Creosote..."in a bucket!"..couldn't tell a Bison or Salmon from offal and rice....

...well suppose it's not a lot different from our shepherd eating bananas...but only if we peel 'em first

buying/looking at shoes guaranteed to bring a smile to any woman anyplace!

Our contractor did 330m x 4m for 135k baht ...rolled gravel, overlaid with sand , mesh rebar, 2/300mil concrete.

They did not put in expansion gaps as I would have thought. Have one lateral crack but think that was because of acute gradient..

if you wear a watch...keep it on another time zone..."suns over the yardarm someplace"

Nice to get up at 2am sit and look at the stars, listen to the frogs and insomniac cocks crowing.... with a glass of your favorite tipple...hey life is NOT that long!!

....as for the nay-sayers......whatever ....

best of luck mate..

never been to Samui though it's only a relatively short trip..better go and see what all the fuss is about...so many bad comments on TV !!

Sad...

....everything grows so quickly!! ( that is if I plant something it either grows into a ten foot tree in a year or becomes a brown "stick" in a day...lol)

.borrowing a line from Death at a Funeral..............."everything is soooo green"....

To play safe, IMHO, all people are advised to leave Thailand. I am not saying that violence could happens, what what if . . . . There is an English saying. Better safe than sorry.

What??...like everybody??????

another saying.."practice what you preach"...

Where did everybody go???