rafaelo

Hi,

About a month ago the 3 land crossing 15 day entry limit was lifted from 3 to unlimited. Does any one know fro sure if this is still the case? Or have they gone back to 3 land crossing entries .

Thanks ;-)

Psoriasis can be treated with hypnotherapy, NLP (neurolinguistic programming), bodywork, diet, and sea salt water baths, as well as emotional and mental stress release therapies. We are in the process of opening a specialized spa that offers all of the above services. pm for more details or check out My link. we are just getting started, so the website is still a mock up and our facilities are almost ready to open in early April.

that said we may be able to schedule a free consultation.

cheers

Rafael0

Job offers: need part time/ full time- House keepers, gardeners and masseuses (certified) for private spa just 5 minutes from Old Chiang Mai.

please pm for more info.

thanks

rafaelo

Sawaatdii krap.Is there still a limit to the number of entry stamps (by land crossing/border runs) a person can have on their passport in a 6 month time period?? I remember there being a certain number entries within a 6 month period. back when you could get 30day stamp by land. Is that still so?

I have I have US passport with ;

1 yr non ImB followed by 3 x 15day Mae Sai land crossings,

followed by a 1 entry Tourist Visa from Cambodia with a 30 day extension.

should I anticipate any problems at Mae Sai?

or just go to Vientiane for another Tourist Visa..

any words from wisdom and experience?

Thanks

I had a delicious burger at O'Reilley's (SalaDaeng BTS) but it was very expensive 280bt for the US Angus special with all the trimmings. I asked ofr it rare and it came well done... but it was the best patty, i've had in Bkk to date. The fries were mediocre and the onion rings terrible.

While I was waiting, a European man became quite upset, complaining that he wanted to call the police because he felt he was being robbed. The staff seemed to call the police but 15 minutes later the man got tired of waiting and started to leave.

The waiter tried to grab his arm but he freed himself and walked out the door. The waiter then ran behind the bar, grabbed a half filled bottle of vodca by the neck, ran out after the farang and proceeded to clubber him over the head! Then a waitress ran out with a what looked like the heavy end of a cue stick....

I thnk the man paid his bill but I gotta say I was unimpressed by the the show of bviolence on behalf of the staff for what couldn't have been all that much money. The police never arrived.

Anyway, when I got my check bin, I was shocked to see that I had been charged 60bt for a bottle of drinking water.. robbery! but i didn't try to walk out without paying...

I wonder how it would have turned out had the police actually come, considering the beating the farang received for what he considered to be an unfair bill...

Big Move Chaingmai Office: 87 Hue-kaew Rd., T.Suthep A.Muang Chaingmai 50000Contact person: Mr.KritEmail: [email protected]

these people offered me a quote of 22,000 baht for a pick up truck worth of small boxes when others have offered 9,500 for the same service.

which is already a bit expensive.

as far as i am concerned, BIG Move Chiangmai is in the business of taking advantage of farangs...

buyer beware!

How about posting them/sending them on a truck?

thanks, good idea. anyone have any reccomendations for shipping co.?

Anyone know a good company to help move house? Last time I hired a guy with a small pickup truck that had to make four trips. I'd rather do it all at once this time - someone with a big truck that can carry a couch and tables and a bunch of boxes. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

where are you going? if you're going to Bkk I'd be willing to split the cost.

Hi,

I need to hire a minivan (with or w/o) driver to move some boxes to Bangkok by the end of the month.

Any reccomendations for trusted drivers or services?

One way car rentals around town are very expensive.

I would be willing to ride down too.

Thanks

Rafael

0843746710

hi, i'm currently in the US and will be moving to Bkk in september. I'd like to know:

1) is there a functional gps navigation service for cellphones in BKK?

2) who are the local carriers?

3) what are the phones that work the best and how much they cost in BKK? Iphone, LG Dare, N95?

4) costs for say unlimmitted monthly access , service, etc?

5) are the maps in english? thai? both?

6) are you happy with your service?

7) tips? suggestions?

thanks

rafael

sold!

not bad , 150 views, 3 calls, first call took it on the spot

HI,

I'm moving out of my lovely double apt. end of May - early early June.

Large bedroom, king bed, nice bathroom, spacious lovely full size living room with 2-3 distinct areas filled with plants and a fountain, kitchen w/large fridge, 3 balconies, mountain views, cable tv (incl), internet,....

Nicely located a block from Suthep Rd (Soi 5), next to back entrance of CMU , near Wat Umong. Lot's of places to eat/little shops within walking distance, markets nearby, 5 minutes from Nimmanhaemin, 10 minutes from Suan Dok Gate

The building is a bit old, but the condo is very nice, recently remodeled. The European landlord is very kind, helpful and attentive.

You can take over my lease until august 31 and then stay, or move on.

condo 7500

fees 1000

utilities from 1000 to 4000 depending on 24hr/day aircon and power usage... your milage may vary...

internet 500 - 1000 depending on speed. 500's fine 1000 a bit better.

Total about 10,000 -11,000 baht month TOTAL for a lovely home, hassle free, move in as early as June 2 or 3 - deposit required (2 month, or maybe less, negotiate with landlord...).

I've been here since September '07 and I will my miss my lovely home, leaving only because I have to head leave for the summer and won't be coming back to CM for at least a year.

Pm me, or call 0843746710 for viewing appointment.

Rafael

I am arrving in Chiang Mai early next month for an extended stay of 6 months to see how I like it before commiting myself longterm.

Without stepping out of line here what is it like in Chaing Mai for a single guy. is it possible to meet nice women around the age of late 20's early mid 30's, are they receptive to going out to the movies, dinner etc? day's out sight seeing...stuff like that.

I've been out of the dating game for quite a long time, and would like to play again! So any thoughts on the subject much appreciated.

I have been to Chiang mai before but just for a few days a few years ago so never got to check much out.

Thanks

yes, of course " nice women around the age of late 20's early mid 30's" are receptive to dating"

as with all women, you have to learn how to approach them. (it took me 3 months to learn and have been dating quite a bit). thai women are like across between wild birds and cats, very curious and very ready to take flight, so take it nice and slow

then you need to learn how to keep them interested, while inspiring them to be interesting... hehe work of a lifetime for me i suppose... hehe

read:

Thailand Fever - Chris Pirazzi, Vitida Vasant

Private Dancer - Stephen Leather

Even Thai Girls Cry - H. Gump

Heart Talk - Christopher Moore

the rest is up to you, speaking a bit of thai, a sense of humor and confidence help a lot .

oh and never forget, CM is a small town, gossip flies faster than the speed of light...

chok diii

This link is to a virtual map of Chang Mai which was posted on another forum by a guy called "Dirk"

http://www.mapjack.com/

I'm quite impressed with it. Hopefully in time, further Thai towns & cities will be added.

very nice, thanks

Couple of brief points here, as I fear you may not be seeing the woods for the trees, in the way you frame the argument.

Firstly, there are many other sound environmental, safety and public health reasons for not burning crop stubbles, incl rice, wherever in the world one is. Environmentally, the greenhouse gases one you use is spurious, esp. the argument that methane is produced in larger quantities if ploughed in vs burned, as much of the Nitrogen content of the straw will be trapped in the soil as organic N and not lost to the atmosphere as methane as you imply.

Secondly, there is the issue of large amounts of particulate matter or soot produced when rice stubble is burned. My basic understanding of this components role is that in the lower atmosphere it warms the air (ie. traps outgoing solar radiation), but if reaching the upper atmosphere (as in volcanic dust) it has a marked cooling effect, due to reflection of solar radiation back into space. Like with ozone, different effects are happening at different atmosphereic levels, so the situation is highly complex.

Also, don't forget the coughing, stinging eyes and dirty washing side of the coin!

Lastly, anyone who argues that California has some of the strictest environmental standards in the world and then starts talking about rice farming examples for me is quite entertaining. The very notion of farming rice in California is a travesty of water management principles (where does the water come from?) and a perfect example of a farming system with a massive ecological footprint and a classic case study of non-sustainability. Talking about whether it is environmentally sound or not for it to burn rice straw, is a bit like pointing to some rare bugs around 3 Mile Island power station as proof that nuclear power is environmentally friendly form of power.

yes, it gets copmplex doesn't it..

1) there is no Nitrogen in methane... i never meant to imply that.

2)burning looses 'fixed' Nitrogen to the atmosphere and needs to be replaced with urea, a naturally occurring N source, our bodies even make it ..

3)composting results in bacterial production of methane which adds to the greenhouse considerably. well rice farming in general is a major methane gas producer.

4) lots of evidence points t the need to burn rice fields, if only for disease control

CA and water.. yes i agree a problem but that doesn't have anything to do with rice straw management, the point of this post, which is about... i suspect that people started farming rice in CA before air pollution was rally an issue. since CA rice farmers have some of the greatest yields.. well it would be difficult to stoπ them, just like it would be difficult to get people to enforce clean vehicle emissions...

the point about CA was to highlight that even in places where today the air quality standards are high, they still burn rice when the atmosphere can take it away from harming people...

what to do to reduce the immeadiate effects of burning too much during unfavorable met conditions resulting in too much smoke, stinging eyes, etc...

stay on topic?

as for nuclear energy et al...

it turns out from studies of chernobyl and Bikini Isl and other places where we obliterated life with nuclear energy,

they have become some of the healthiest ecosystems around. the nuclear energy drove all life away and then kept humans out.

we humans, jsut our presence are the number one greatest impact on the environment , more so than nuclear contamination...

but really lets stay on topic or not...

Well, considering that bovines are the biggest contributors of methane to our atmosphere through their flatulance and pigs are large contributors through their waste products, I feel that the small amount produced from decomposition is fairly insignificant in the scheme of things.

Would you suggest that all bovines and pigs are eliminated or just told to stop farting and poo-ing. Methane production has been with us through natural processes since the beginning of time.

really where's the data for that?

actually. my understanding is that rice farming is a much larger contributer to methane gas production than bovine... a lot more rice gets consumed than beef or pork world wide and those rice paddies are continuosly 'farting'

since i eat but a few pounds of beef/pork a year and barely a cup or 2 of rice a week, i would argue that even more strongly that

well it's humans that are responsible for increasing greenhouses gasses beyond the balance that has maintained itself for the last 12,000 year or so.... since the last ice age that is..

the topic was about education regarding the need for reconsidering the useless burn ban...

Sorry - reposting is not allowed. It's called spamming. See the rules.

I will now move to Farming as it has no special reference to Chiang Mai.

well, i would have rewritten it to apply directly to farmers post, so it wouldn't have been 'spam' even by your 'rules'

this was about informing the CM people who whine and moan about the farmers that ignore the ban that there may be other factors to consider.

I read recently of an aerobic bacterial additive made by a Phillipine Ag scientist which is added to the paddy and ploughed under straight after harvest along with the stubble,it is reputed to turn the stubble into compost in about 4 weeks, evidentally it allows three crops per year as long as water is available.

Extra fertilization would be required to maintain soil condition but if the other fundamentals are in place it sounds like an excellent way to added profitability from small holdings.

I imagine these bacteria are similar to those added to sewerage farms around the world to speed up decomposition of the waste products.

what studies have been done to monitor long term environmental impact of adding what i am assuming are non native/indigenous bacteria to your soil?

would a rice farmer in California be able to do this or could this wreck havoc on the rice (or other crop) farmers ecosystems?

and of course you are still producing the greenhouse gas methane at considerable levels?

or not?

Having moved the topic, I can now put my thoughts and experiences on record.

In Esarn our family has some 400 Rai of rice paddy. Some five years ago I introduced the aerobic method of cultivating rice. We plough all our rice stalks back into the soil and add composted manure to the ground as a fertilizer. Turn it over again and plant individual rice seeds in rows. The land is then covered with water for a short time and allowed to drain off into ponds we constructed to take the runoff. If it doesn't rain, we pump from the pond to the highest paddy and allow the water to gently flow back to the pond. This is done about four or five times during the growing season.

The yield from the land has more than doubled over our previous, chemintensive "normal" farming methods. The rice is also far better quality, with grains an average of 30-50% larger. Fiscal return is about three times more than before, but expenses are also higher. We provide employment to full time labourers who have to weed the field manually. Weeds are collected and composted before being returned to the soil..

A side benefit is the ponds in which we raise Tilapia. We need to supply far less food than normal because so much is carried to the ponds in runoff from the fields. I am told the fish are better tasting because of it.

Our cultivation methods are fully discussed and highly recommended by the Philippine Rice Research Institute from whom we downloaded PDF's in both Thai and English with full instructions and discussions of the benefits and pitfalls of this method. I shall try to find the link - or upload the PDF here.

wow this is very interesting

but you are actively increasing methane levels and contributing measurably and significantly to global warming.

is this added cost part of the calculation?

i agree and i can repost it on the farmers forum

please post leave this here. it's our problem too as well as our responsibility.

the latest post about the air quality has over 2500 views, how many of these people read the farming forums?

i posted this in hopes of getting as many lay people better informed.

if the farmers where presented by a well thought out alternative they would respond.

just ignorantly attempting to place bans are always met with defiance, thankfully too.

how many people are supportive of the burn bans without being more informed?

i wasn't. am i the only one? i doubt it

anyway, do as you will

i know where i stand on this issue until new evidence provides an even better solution.

that's a good idea, though i would hope that they already know this..

my intention here was to educate myself and pass the data around that more lay people be better informed about the issues that effect us all. there are thousands(billions?) of concerned people that never bother to look deeper than what they hear on the streets or read online... hence this discussion.

we are all responsible for the air quality of our planet.

it's a little more work to till it in and the they only need to buy the special ploughs once ... so it would probably result in a net gain in the not so long run and if the ploughs were donated or subsidized by the king, the net gain would appear quickly.

lower costs for the farmers and less smoke in the air.

I am seriously out of my depth here, having no agricultural training or experience, but anyway: I googled "plough rice field" and found the following article which seems to make a compelling case for why the straw should be ploughed back into the field, rather than burned.

www.metafro.be/leisa/1997/13-3-18.pdf

It would be very interesting to hear the opinions of anybody with more agricultural know-how than I possess.

By the way, particulate matter pollution and the release of greenhouse gasses are two distinctively different problems, albeit related. And another note: What you find through googling is seriously dependent on what keywords (search phrase) that you use

/ Priceless

yes, Nitrogen fixation is another factor. fields that are burned need to be replenished with 'fixed nitrogen' such as urea.

this means that the rice plant cannot utilize the nitrogen in the air (N2) as is( the atmosphere is about 70% N2), . specialized soil bacteria change ('fix')this N2 into other forms that the rice plant root tips can then absorb and utilize. burning kills them too.

so what's worse, a little urea (20-25 kg per hectare) vs (i don't know how many) kg/hectare of methane gas....?

as for particulate matter.. yes this is the main gripe but can be resolved by postponing & reducing burns until favor able met conditions.

so maybe a more feasible solution is to do a combination of all three,

1) collect some straw for other purposes/ better met conditions

2) incorporate some straw as needed, being sensitive to green house gas emissions

3) burn fields only when needed, to avoid diseases

this still means we need to burn, albiet a lot less

we cannot sit at home and 'ban' burns and expect farmers to comply.

we need to create a program that is more in balance with the environment.

cough cough hack hack

I hate the filthy haze that settles into every nook and cranny during the burn season.

my guess is that you do too.

my other assumption is that the Thais hate it as much but that they haven't actually found a better alternative.

it may be that no one has yet. please consider the following and then do a bit more research if you are interested.

i did a bit and found a lot of information that actually supports controlled burning of rice fields for very important reasons, and alternative uses for remaining straw.

fact 1) burning straw produces little greenhouse effect

look it up yourself, Carbon in rice is fixed from the atmosphere by the plant during photosynthesis. that means that the plant takes all the CO2 it needs from the air as it grows and releases it in almost equal amounts after you burn it or eat it or do whatever to it. there is little net gain in CO2 levels after burns. CO2 emmissions from fossil fuels are the only ones we need to be conscerned with as their combustion releases CO2 from prehistoric atmospheres, resulting in a net increase of CO2 in our current atmosphere.

fact 2) composting rice straw produces methane, burning does not produce methane

methane gas is 20-25 times more greenhouse than CO2. the net effect of composting vs burning is 10 -15 time worse greenhouse effect to composting... interesting huh?

fact 3) rice fields need to be burned to decontaminate the field of weeds. fields that are not burned need herbicides to produce rice. the weeds will continue to become more resistant, so not burning means more and more herbicides. same for pests that would ruin rice crops. rice plants are susceptable to stem rot and other diseases that if unchecked could devastate the economy/ crop/ etc. i mean, what would people here do without their rice... gin mai khao! hehe

what's worse? smoke a few months a year or lots of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers all year round? i don't know. need more info....but i'm leaning towards the smoke, at least i can attempt to escape it, ... spraying would be so much worse overall for the environment imho.

smoke from burns is only a problem if it accumulates over our heads. if burns could be alternated and waited for better meteorological conditions, the smoke would be less, or no issue for most people.

this has 2 components.

a) collecting the straw and waiting for more favorable conditions, maybe just before rains or whenever the haze, smoke, dust etc is carried by the wind. remember no net gain in CO2 so it's no the burning itself that is a problem, it's breathing the concentrated smoke, right?

sterilizing the rice fields... this may be a problem or it may be that fields don't need this to be done after each harvest. it maybe that they can be burned every other year...or maybe, the bulk of the straw can be collected for later burn/other uses and then the fields are burned but with a lot less straw...

finally, their are other possible uses for rice straw like ethanol production for fuel use and many other possibilities that have so far, been too difficult or expensive to carryout in large scale production. the studies are all very old and not much new research or data...

i 'googled'

rice farming burn alternatives

crop burns pros and cons

and i found many sources

here are a few links to get you started.

CA EPA Air Resources Board report on rice straw

Rice into Ethanol

UC Sustainable Agriculture- rice ...

the fact remains that if we are to grow rice we must burn the fileds, no way about it.

one thing is clear is that the thais are very good farmers and sensitive caring people who are appreciative of their health as well as pretty good at making money.

i like to believe that if they had a better solution they'd use it.

a complete ban will never work because it will result in the destruction the rice crops in this area.

therefore it will never happen.

stop asking for it?...

rather that complain about it, i choose to do some research and offer up ideas and possible solutions. i haven't found anything better.

that said,

even in California, a place with some of the highest environmental protection standards in the world, rice farmers still burn their rice fields when it is essential for disease control.

i would love for this to become a thread for people to brainstorm and discuss possible solutions and maybe we can actually help improve our lovely Chiang Mai.

if you agree or disagree with these points, please provide some data/links/resource for us all to evaluate

as for the people burning trash, other plant materials and recycle-ables and plastics et al.. you can shoot them on sight if you like, no matter what time of the year, just don't let them fall into the fire, compost them!

hope this helps ..

clear the air

about rice field burns in CM

hi,

i have a 90 day student visa and the consulate that gave the the visa (Bali) assured me that i could get it extended for upto a year without having to leave the country as long as i went to immigration at least 21 days before it expired, with letter from my school.

my school is willing to give a letter but it is clueless as to the process...

where do i go?

office hours?

what's the procedure?

what do i need to bring?

passport copies? letter from school? photographs? etc?

what are the costs?

any and all info will be appreciated

thanks

hmmm.. so, nobody has the an answer to any of these questions?

i'm the first person at my flying school to get a student visa, so they don't know the procedures..