tom_a

You guys do know that there was a significant solar flare that caused all this don't you?

Tom

Thank you guys for your feedback. Johnny b, I got a good chuckle out of the listening to my wife too much comment....thanks, I'll make sure to tell her I'm not listening to her anymore cause Johnny says I don't have to!...lol. Seriously though, you guys are right, my wife and I should plan on signing up for the 2 courses you have recommended, and it makes sense that, at least trying to speak a bit of the language shows respect, and of course will also help us get around a bit better. With living in Chiang Mai for at least a year, it seemed to me that we would be cheating ourselves by not getting as much as possible out of our time their. Agsin, thanks for your time. i'm sure I'll have a few million more questions to ask, but I'll try to only ask a few more as next summer approaches.

Tom

I looked over a variety of posts and I have to say, the Chiang Mai forum seems to be the friendliest and most useful/informative compared to any northern focused forums. My wife and I plan on visiting northern Thailand next year and stay for about a year just to sort of look around and get a feel for the place and see if this would be a good place to retire. My wife has visited Bangkok a few times and I've never been to Thailand. Neither of us know any of the language, and my wife says that we really don't need to know any of the language because many people can speak some English. From what I've been able to gather here in this forum is that we really do need to knowsome ofthe language to get by, is that a correct assumption on my part? If so, how should we prepare before moving to northern Thailand? We appreciate any insights into the language barrier. I know for myself, I'm not to goodat picking up a foreign language, so I'm hopeful itis easy to learn. Thanks for any feedback.

Tom

Hi Klikster,

I admire that your taking the time to develop a budgeting system that can not only help people already living in Thailand, but it will also be an extremely important tool for people who are considering moving here. This idea of yours is in my opinion, the one best tool that will be on this site. Please don't let anyone deter you from your goal. I can offer you a few styles from another site for you to review. This site is a Philippine site that I'm talking about, so I think it will be okay to state it here because thereis no dirrect competion or anything like that with this site and theirs. you can find the site on yahoo.com and go to the list on their that says groups and highlight thst, and then type in the nameofthe group you want, which is cebucitytoday . That board actually works together for allfellow members, andjust maybe, you can turn this siteinto something personal, and very useful for all of us.. Please let me know of how I can help;

Tom

My dad used to make stoves for his friends. He would use two tracker trailer rims, and weld them together, end to end, and then weld a plate on the end, and order a flue and door kit and weld a plate on the front with an opening to assemble the door, and then blow torch a hole where the flue assembly wouldgo and assemble that...the finishing touch was welding on four pieces of angle iron for the legs. Far as I saw, he and various friends used them all the winter as their main source of heat in the Winter time in northern Maine.

Tom

Thanks to the people who shared their pictures with us. They are very nice and the scenery is great. Thank you again.

Tom