phuketsub

4 hours ago, Stocky said:

They covered it in tarmac! 

 

You think they'll landscape and clean up before they pack up and go?

It's not normal tarmac; I've never seen anything like it to be honest. There is still a lot of equipment at the sight, but no activity in terms of landscaping...

Channel

Here are some pix of the finished product I took about an hour after high tide yesterday. From the south, there is one section made of big stones running from the klong to the temple grounds, then another section of stones held together by some sort of plastic emulsion in front of the temple -- the likes of which I have never seen before. Needless to say the entire thing looks horrible up close, and will probably look terrible in time when it starts to erode.

It's obviously now too dangerous to swim there this time of year, as all easy access has been blocked.

I support the effort; it's gonna be a bit of a shock to wean people here off their crazy overuse of plastic bags...However, the specific time restrictions could get annoying in the same way that the idiotic alcohol sales times restrictions are. [don't get me going on that one!]

The real test will be if they can get this to work in wet markets, mom-and-pop shops and the like. Anyway, I'll bring a supply of plastic bags with me next time I go to the big city. ????

28 minutes ago, RedPill said:

Been to Lipe 3 years ago, good time, nice island. 

 

It's very very small, so in 3 days you have seen everything. You can walk everywhere ...

 

Try to stay on the Sunrise beach side, it's the nicest beach to stay. From all the beaches in Thailand, it was the clearest water I've ever seen.

You could see the stones through 1 meter water super clear. There are also many little food shops with more authentic local food.

 

 ... walk over to Sunset beach in the evenings for a sunset drink.

 

The main beach is overcrowded (they call it little pattaya), but good for some dinner/drinks in the evening if you want it. 

 

I had a great time there. I remember I stayed in one of the bungalows at Gipsy resort.

 

 

Clear water sounds great...where I swim here in Songkhla I can seldom ever see my feet! thanks

13 minutes ago, lemonjelly said:

Nice island, bit over swamped with resorts nowadays but still has a good vibe. Recommend Bobby’s Pizza in Satun town for a good pizza while you’re in that neighborhood as well.


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Thanks ...will try to check out the pizza joint too

Has anyone been to Koh Lipe in Satun? I am getting roped into a three-day visit there and would appreciate any must-see attractions, things-to-avoid tips, etc. It's probably the last major island tourism destination that I have yet to visit, so I hope it hasn't yet been fully ravaged by 'development' like all the others...

On 10/18/2019 at 11:29 PM, Gweiloman said:

Thanks everyone for your invaluable input. I will definitely chance it and overnight in Betong and try to get there before dark. Having said that, I’ve had many a time traversing Thailand’s mountainous roads in the dark on a bike, using the headlights of the car in front as a guide.
I drive to Msia about 3-4 times a year, mainly to enjoy the hawker food there. Have been using the Sadao crossing but decided to try other crossings. Planning to come back on the western most crossing - Satun?


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I did that trip on my Honda Dream in 1997 and still remember it vividly, especially since it was the first time I had ever ridden a motorbike. It was nice back then, but not sure what it might be like now. Please let us know...

That sounds a lot more entertaining the definition I found on urban dictionary: Papaya farm is an iPhone/ iPod Touch app that was recently taken off the app store. It is a game where you have your own farm and ranch and can plant crops and have animals.

Papaya Farm? Never heard that one before...

It sounds like he wants something like Soi Cowboy or Nana...the scene in Hat Yai is geared up for a different demographic, namely the Ethnic Chinese Malays....I have heard that Forte (Nipat Uthit 3 Rd ) is the closest thing to what you might get in the big mango, but can't confirm it personally.

Well, I went for a walk along the new seawall a few days ago and talked to some locals about it. The main segment in front of the temple is already being affected by the monsoon surf, but the takeaway from talking to the locals is that the 'sheet pile' segment which runs from the north end of the wall (see pix) is set to run a length of about four kilometers up the coast.

I have yet to ask the Tak Bai Company about it; I assume it's construction is under a different contract that the one they are working under.

Anyway, I met some workers who were installing it and they told me the concrete piles are about .45 meters long, so I don't really think there will be much of them left at the end of the monsoon season since they don't appear to be buttressed by anything other than  shifting sands...which are no doubt going to get a lot shiftier when the monsoon winds inevitably start to roar.

I talked to a few locals and they said the project did not restrict their boat access to the sea and that their they had been taken into consideration.

It was low tide when I took the attached photos, but seawater was already lapping up against the wall in places. Who know, maybe it will serve as an artificial reef at some point in the future....

On 9/28/2019 at 9:24 AM, surfdog said:

your transcription makes it quite unreadable, however some words like เหย็ด obvious, but not particular to south

I-pray better transcribed as E-praet

Also transcribed previously from Sanskrit as " Preta"

and is favorite foul language for us southerners

อีเปรต


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Good one...can also use ไอเปรต...
อีเปรต is generally for women; ไอเปรต can be used with either gender. So nobody is out of range...

5 hours ago, Stocky said:

If these are the same comedians that have been buggering around with Samila Beach the last few years, the chances of them being finished with your wall in two months is vanishingly small!

Perhaps it's more 'efficient' than paying someone to dig a hole and fill it in again -- because the hole gets filled back  in for free (and with 'interest').

I finally found the office responsible for the project, and the irony is that it is located just a stone's throw away from my house, in the middle of Ranode Town.

There was only one administrator in the office, a nice girl who is from Klong Daen District in Ranode.

The construction company she works for is called Tak Bai Company, based out of Narathiwat. I am pretty sure it is the same company that has done similar (and ineffective) anti-erosion projects along Samila Beach in Songkhla.

She assured me that the project design took into account with the local drainage network into the sea.

We had catastrophic flooding in Ranode for two years in a row (2016 & 2017) when they were widening Rt 408 to be a four-lane highway, which also served as a major barrier to flow that was responsible for untold millions in flood damages.

She told me that the project designers were well aware of this and had taken it into the design.

I also asked if there would be access to the sea for crazy people like me, the only recreational sea swimmer I know of in Ranode. She said there would be both stairways as well as boat ramps, but she couldn't give the exact locations.

In brief, the project will consist of a huge 500-meter seawall made of rock and polyeurethane (there was probably enough plastic garbage on the beach before they started to dig it up to build the entire thing) ..she said the polyeurethane was to provide some elasticity so that the stones wouldn't be eroded so quickly by the monsoon waves smashing them into one another.

This segment (see pic in initial post)  will start at the access road to the beach that you get to straight from the Pak Tre 4-way intersection on Rt408 and stretch north, near the border of U-Tapao Temple...continuing north of that there will be smaller, less-conspicuous "sheet pile"  seawall for a stretch of 300 more meters.

She said there hadn't been any resistance to the project among the locals. This is hardly surprising since the high-tide mark in this area is about 20 meters inland from where it used to be about 70 years ago, according to elderly local residents. Landowners are obviously down with any attempts to protect their properties,

I did a story on this topic once before and officials in the area at the time told me they thought the main cause of the coastal erosion was poor land use management and not global warming. I can attest that all the shrimp farming in the area has ravaged the landscape, which as Stocky correctly pointed out, was underwater back in the colonial period.

The completion date for the project was initially set for Sept. 15, 2019, after which time the Tak Bai Company was set to face fines of 133,500 baht/day for non-completion.

However, the government gave them a 77-day period after tropical storm Pabuk blew threw here in January. (Personally I think that 'storm' was the most over-hyped, blowhard 'weather emergency'  I have ever witnessed and when it came through here the winds were actually off the land.)

Anyway, she said they hoped to complete the project in about two months, although it is obviously going to be more difficult with the onset of the west-moving winds of the monsoon reversal that kicked in last week.

Time will tell.

My daughter says most of this is not really Southern Thai.

on หยดแหมะ , she confirmed what I thought, that หยด is just the central Thai verb for 'to fall' and the แหมะ is just an onomatopoeia (word based on a sound) used to describe the sound of dripping water, akin to 'drip-drip' or 'pitter-patter' in English.

She said that น่าเห็นดู is just a Southern pronunciation of น่าเอ็นดู , and said that it really means precious or cute, as I suspected, but can also carry a sense of pity as well.

I was in there last week to do my 90-day (no problem) and ask about my TM30 status, because last month I went to Phuket for a few days and I didn't know if the guesthouse I stayed at had submitted info on me (they did ask to take a copy of my passport). The girl just looked it up and said they was no record of it and not to worry because "Phuket doesn't do that", and she added the the TM30 procedure was likely to be scrapped in a few months' time anyway.

Maybe the next phase will be microchipping...

Oh, I assumed it was the same time frame the Phuket one, which goes over 10 days if I remember correctly...

Interesting...last time I was there I saw they had started incorporating aspects of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival (self-mutilation, trance talking to spirits, etc.) Will check it out tomorrow. PM sent too...

I'll have to check with the experts on that one. The Phattalung accent has a reputation for uniqueness even in nearby, surrounding areas.

I always though น่าเอ็นดู meant something like 'cute' or 'precious'; something you would typically find describing a young child.

Anyway, I will let you know later. Thanks Surfdog...

About a month ago I went for my morning run/swim on the beach at U-Tapao Temple in Ranode, Songkhla, only to find the beach was gone -- and a new project underway.

After asking a few locals, I found the blue sign announcing the project all torn up and strewn over the sand with all the other plastic trash and garbage that mars what could otherwise be a pretty nice beach.

It turns out that the project is a seawall funded at 133,500,000 baht.

The obvious rationale is to stop beach erosion, and I know from a previous story I did [back when print media still existed] that the erosion has already moved the high tide mark in the area about 20-meters inland.

In fact, many of the old people who grew up in the area point out to sea when asked where they were born.

I always thought the erosion was mostly due to all the prawn farming in the area, which has totally ravaged the landscape. Officials said as much, but I guess global warning could be playing a role as well.

Anyway, I originally thought the project was just to save U-Tapao Temple, but now it appears that the entire beachfront of Ranode (from Paktrae north to the border in Huasai, Nakhon Sri Thammarat) is going to be walled in , affecting hundreds if not thousands of families. I still need to learn more and confirm if that will be the case, however.

Anyway, I know there aren't many posters living in this area, but I just wanted to document this since there is no mention of it anywhere in the media, Thai or foreign.

I will try to continue to update and add info as I learn about it, especially if this 'development' strikes any interest among other posters in this forum.

Not sure if Namaste is vegetarian or not. If it is, this carnivore will give it a miss. The good news is that I did get some of the spices for Garam Masala as recommended by Stocky. I found them at Makro. I kind of feel like I have opened a culinary version of Pandora's Box now...

20 hours ago, Stocky said:

There's only one Indian restaurant in Hat Yai that I know of, that's Namaste on Nipathutit 1 (the colourful buildings street). It's southern Indian, Tamil cuisine, which I don't much enjoy.

 

As for Indian spices, if you can't find what you want in Kimyong, then a trip to Malaysia is probably the best option.

Thanks Stocky, I subsequently found out through Google that Namaste has a second branch (at least I assume they are related) near PSU, but they require you to book a table and order a day in advance. I think I'll just pop my head in there first and have a look.

Kimyong definitely seems to be the place to pick up all the more exotic stuff...will definitely give that a go.

Does anyone know of a good Indian restaurant in Haad Yai? I am also interested in buying Indian spices and trying my hand at making it myself.

Does anyone know where they are available? I grow tumeric and ginger in my garden, so have plenty of them, but I still feel like something is missing.

Anyway, any help much appreciated as usual...