barrysandal

MCdonald's is closing down sown starbucks in the US with 1.49 coffee, maybe they have a master plan for Thai food courts so everywhere can be a hap hap happy place.

Live in a village - Drink more and longer!

Bangkok is a great city for disillusioned western refugees with lots of cash and strong libidos, though I doubt those are any of the contributors to the magazine. What did they see?

We are taking the buy out. Basically the Honda dealer will buy back the car at the sales price and we will get the difference from what is still owed, but not interest paid.  So the car ends up costing us a bit less than 5000 baht a month for a year and then its gone.

Honda said that its current used value is 500,000, a bit of a drop frmo the 815,000 a year ago.

Thanks to all who said "once a lemon, always a lemon."

And yes, they all do seem to remember the CRV story very well.

I don't know, there's always one isn't there? Sell them a perfectly good car and what do they do with it? Too heavy handed on the winder mechanism, breaking the door locks, even managed to break the pedal switch. Some people shouldn't be allowed the keys to a new car.

Ok, on a serious note as one poster mentioned, once a lemon...

Get rid of it any way you can

Today they offered to take back the car and return all of the money, less interest. My wife said yes without me, but I think the interest will be much more than the principal returned.

I really need some advice about my wife's Honda civic "lemon".

Eleven months ago my Thai wife bought a new Honda Civic. The problems began the first day out when the child safety door broke and trapped the passengers in the back. They fixed it

Then the driver side window opening mechanism broke. They fixed it.

Then the driver side rear tire budged and rubbed against the fender. That one scared the dealer and he replaced all four tires as defective.

Then a bolt somehow came loose under the hood, fell into the water pump belt, shredding the belt and making the vehicle inoperative. They towed it and fixed it.

Then the switch under the brake peddle broke, preventing the driver from putting the Honda Civic into gear.

They towed it and fixed that too.

The last two problems occurred in the evening when my wife as alone. A woman alone at night is not safe, particularly on the highway. She bought the new car to feel safe.

My wife contacted Honda and told them she would put an ad in the newspaper to look for people with the same problem as her. Honda sent three representatives from Bangkok and three more local representatives to talk to her. My wife asked for a new car and gave them one week to respond.

The dealer is very worried. He does not want to lose business in Chiang Mai. He offered the following:

1. A new car, but she must begin payments all over again or

2. Take the old car to Bangkok for a complete inspection and return it to her plus 60,000 baht.

There are two more years on the warrantee but my wife does not want to see Honda so many more times. Even the cleaning women at Honda know her now because she has been to the dealer for repair so many times.

What do you think? Do we hold out for a new car which may also have problems? Do we take the 60,000 baht or ask for more.

We need to give them an answer on April 4th.

I've always wondered why KANSAS is pronounced differently from ARKANSAS, or why the French put an X in Bordeaux? But be sure that 90 percent of Thais can not spell the name of the international airport. Forget about the Pali or the Sanskrit, that's for monks and people who think too much. Thai transliterate all of it into Thai language at their temples and read along like foreigners do at a Latin mass or a Hebrew service.

Be also sure that if you say AIRPORT to the taxi driver he will take you to Suvarnabhumi, not Don Muang, a big problem if you are flying on NOK air.

Btw, most Americans can not spell Massachusetts. Never think that the Thai hold an advantage on being dumb, that's universal.

Say what you want to say and leave a tip, they will all love you for sure.

You can take a flight to Mandalay from Chiang Mai. Once in Mandalay you can stay at a clean enough hotel for abut 10 bucks while wandering around a city forever trapped in the early fifties. From there you can catch a boat down the Ayerawaddi to Bagan and the night bus to Yangon. It’s a thrill; it’s cheap, and adventurous. You need about 5 days. Take diarrhea pills.

There are also direct flights to Kunming and, as mentioned , Luang Prabaung.

You know that the rates will double for sure. Last year they privatied the water in Chiang Mai. The rates nearly doubled and everything else stayed the same except that the profits went to a supporter of that guy who owns the British football team and all of the employees got a 30% raise as hush money. May become cheaper to fly, jus tlike in the USA.

What is happening to the high season air? It looks like March! I have been in CM for four years and I have never seen this before. Someone suggested to me that it is coming down from China. The air is too terrible to be coming from the tuk tuks and song thaews, though they have been belching a more opaque smoke this year than usual. The air should be pristine.

There are several levels of organic produce in Thailand. As with most thing here, there are also many shades of compliance.

The most pesticide free and regulated produce in Chiang Mai can be bought at the ISAC farmers' market located at JJ Market behind Tesco on Superhighway. These farmers are certified by NOSO (Northern Organic Standards Organization. Open Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The problem with these farmers' markets is that they will supply only seasonal vegetables, which may also be considered a good thing too.

Next in line is the farmers' market at Chiang Mai University Multiple Cropping Center off of Nimmanhaemin Road. Also open Wed and Sat mornings, these farmers are trained in pesticide free agriculture. Some market Royal Project vegetables purchased wholesale. These are a bargain as vegetables with the Doi Kham label will sell at 2 to three times the price.

My girlfriend operates a produce stand in Thanin Market. She also sells pesticide free from farmers in San Sai, Doi Kham, and Royal project under her label.

Royal Project vegetables are pesticide free and are currently all being moved over to certified organic. These are the Doi Kham veggies available at all supermarkets. The Royal Project does a pretty good job at screening their produce grown by Hill tribe farmers in an effort to reduce poppy production.

There are many other vegetable labeled as organic and soon there will be a flood of "Organic Thailand" labeled products. The trouble here is that certification tends to be granted for life. Thai government certifying agencies will not check the quality of the product once it enters a supermarket and will not return to the field for verification. Supermarkets contracting these farmers will impose severe penalties for failure to meet supply quotas which leads to a certain amount of cheating. One report estimated that over 10% of organic certified vegetables in Bangkok were actually unhealthy.

Organizations like Greennet and NOSO will do annual inspections.

Anything produced by Swift Farms or River Kwai is 100% internationally certified.

On the issue of Nazism and, for that matter, almost anything historical and western, Thai people seem as oblivious to these subjects as well, say, most Americans are about Asian culture. Whatever they learned in school was done by recitation. What the Burmese did at Ayuddhaya was really terrible to them but I knew nothing about it in the states. Nazis don't rate in their memory next to events in Thai history.

That's a problem. Many of the posts I on this topic have mentioned being with Thai who have a fascination about the "power" of the Nazis. I've seen this too many times, especially at the universities. They think the symbol is both cute and strong. How many Thai students will take the time to read a book or do a google search about what the symbol means? None.

This school incident just goes to show us all that there is a wide open door for future Hitlers to exploit.

Some folks will do anything for a few hundred baht.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

T. E. Lawrence, "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"

Who are the three kings of the Three Kings Monumnet in Chiang Mai?

King Mangrai the Great o Lanna, King Ramkamhaeng of Sukhothai and King Ngammuang of Phayao

Why not keep the qurestions Thai style. I'd flip through the Lonely Planet.

We have all chosen to be here, for better or worse. I have learned to be a bit more spry and hang on to my place in line, if I care that much. Most of the time I accept Thais "improper behavior" as part of the package for great food, cheap prices, and good looking ladies :-)

Come check out superhighway between Lamphun and Chinag Mai. It seems they forgot where they put the steel and tried to build some underpasses without it. After three years the people have been told that it seem to be working fine as long as you use the cut-offs and turn-arounds.

Back in my home town of Los Angeles the city put 500 million into a school built on an earthquake fault and a site of naturally venting, underground methane gas. It was completed and now stands empty. The city called it the Belmont Learning Complex. White elephants and government officials make happy couples.

After a while I find that Thai people do all the same stuff people do back home, only with less expectation. As someone else said there is great pleasure in going to the open markets and mingling with the people. Thank god I have no idea what they are saying and I want it to stay that way.

If only the tuk tuks would all fly away.

Thanks for this expense break down. I will send this to my retiring friends. However, your costs are for central Thailand, particularly around Bangkok. Rents drop quickly as you head north and into the country. Also, the car is a big luxury. I bought one and plan to sell it after the rains. My retired friends do without cars. Location, location, location

I published a book and I need to find popular review venues in Thailand. It's a funny book with lots of illustrations about foreign men and Thai ladies. As I live in Chiang Mai I feel out of the popular loop. Web searches have been hit, miss, or page error . I'm sure you readers know where to find good book reviews. Please don't ask for a free copy - OK. It will be in Bookazine soon enough.