phuket Mike

I have not actually travelled by taxi from the airport for some time but 700 baht sounds way over the top to me.

Metered taxi's are now operating from the airport so providing they use the meter correctly (i.e. it doesn't start at 200 baht) I would have thought this would be the cheapest method.

When you come out of the arrivals hall ignore all the idiots saying "Taxi sir?" because these are usually expensive limo drivers, head across the car park to the left and there you will find a group of metered (yellow) taxis hidden away. There is also a man behind a desk to take your booking.

Good luck

The only casino/hotel in Burma you could easily visit from Phuket is the Andaman Club Andaman Club Website I did exactly what you want to do on my last visa run, but I did all the driving.

Andaman Club do have an office in Phuket so they may be able to help (number on the website).

Its a very painless trip once you get to Ranong everything is very well organized, but it still costs you 500 baht for the Burmese entry stamp. As far as I aware you can only go into the real casino if you are a member or failing that pay a large entrance fee. Me and the wife spent the whole time playing the slots and automated Roulette machines which are downstairs and entrance is not restricted.

Don't expect anything Burmese its all very Thai.

If you need anymore help please PM me.

There's Food Glorious Food on Chao Far Road east, on the left hand side going to Phuket Town. Although there selection is fairly small they often have thing no one else has, also the owners speak very good English.

As for ham try Phuket Meat just a bit further up the same road on the left, before the second set of lights.

Robinsons in Phuket town sometimes has a different selection than the big supermarkets. There is also a shop in Kathu - Farang Food Paradise but I think its mainly Italian.

As for Pitta bread I make it myself, but failing that Phuket town will be the place but its just a matter of finding it in the maze of markets and shops. Someone is bound to be making it, they are making unleavened bread for kebabs somewhere so they will probably be making pita. The Deli in Patong used to sell it frozen but not any more. Isn't pita bread Greek? you could try the Greek restaurants and just ask them where they get there supplies.

For herbs, spices and cooking equipment there are two very good shops in Phuket town.

Okay this is a call to all you BBQ experts out there. I am looking at building a custom outdoor cooking area that runs on cheap local charcoal. It will be used commercially so an oil drum cut in half is not going to work.

Now ideally it will need two standard grill area an American style smoker or pit, food prep area and a roof for when it rains. I've looked around the internet and some interested stuff - the link below look very interesting

Dave's Brick Pit

The first question has to be are fire bricks available here? Now I live in Phuket so I would think there is not much call for them but they may be available other parts of Thailand.

I would really appreciate any help or links anyone can provide because if you look at some of food that Dave has cooked in his oven they make your mouth water.

If we can come up with a good design that can be built here it may be something others may want.

Well in opinion if you are thinking about living in Chalong you really need to stay there or at least very near it. Although Kata is a lovely place I think you'd be better off staying in Rawai/Nai Harn. There are plently of cheap (good) bungalows down in Rawai and its a good flat, straight road to Chalong whereas the road from Kata is a little hilly.

In my personal opinion you'd be better off looking for somewhere to live down in Rawai/Nai Harn its a much more friendly location with less traffic than Chalong. I lived in two different houses in Chalong and found it difficult to mix with the local community.

In Rawai there is a big expat community with a good selection of Farang type restaurants and bars, also good cheap Thai food. The locals are also very frendly even down to the village head man who lives just across the road from me. (Nai Harn)

If you need any help in finding somewhere or any other information please PM me.

Well Up2u I must bow to a greater authority, your knowledge of the process is obviously far superior to mine. I have heard of the blue flame but was not sure which was poisonous.

When I was in Saudi the rumour was that there was a book called the Blue Flame which was originally issued to British Aerospace employees showing them how to make alcohol, so that they didn't poison themselves, I don't know if its true or just an urban myth.

I didn't do any distillation because I lived in the centre of Riyadh so it would have been too risky, but strangly enough I also worked for a Swedish company - ABV Rock.

Anyway I would agree totally, stick to the Chang and sell the patatoes to make chips.

I think you will end up with something like Irish Poteen which is great stuff - rumoured to cause temporary blindness. If you search the web for Poteen there are a few recipes about.

I was in Saudi for 4 years so I know a little. Basically you need to make an alcoholic mixture out of your potatoes - simply by chopping or crushing (without skins) then adding some acid (limes, tea, lemon etc.) sugar (a lot about 1 kilo per gallon of liquid), a large amount of brewers yeast or bread yeast. Let that baby ferment until it stops bubbling probably around 6-8 weeks. Be careful to keep it covered to avoid it turning to vinegar. In Saudi we used the big water bottles with a condom over the top to keep bacteria out, of course the condom needs a couple of holes to let the CO2 out. In Saudi this was the main method for a drink called Jeddah Gin. Its probably very similar to the process for rice whiskey.

Anyway once this has all finished you then need to extract the alcohol by distillation which is something I have never done, our Jeddah Gin was between 10-15% alcohol so that was powerful enough. I believe that alcohol evaporates at 60 degrees C so you will have to maintain this temperate to maximise your production.

After all that effort you will have some kind of pure alcohol, that should then be cut with spring water until its near 40% alcohol. It can also be used for running your car, cleaning paint brushes and poisoning weeds. Should you choose to drink it be prepared for the mother of all hangovers and such a high level of dehydration you could easily drink a swimming pool.

Good luck.

Well unfortunately for me I know a lot about this sad incident.

The girl Seeton as we call her was my wifes cousin and orginally came to Phuket because of us. I still have her two sisters and father staying with me (asleep downstairs).

What makes this interesting is that the police told her family that Scott was to blame and to claim compensation from his family. It wasn't until we got a local lawyer involved and the press that police came up with this story. The poiceman quoted in the newspaper told Seeton's father that Scott was on the wrong side of the road and the guy involved also told them this and was very concerned about the damage to his Mitsubishi. (to$$er).

Apparently two policeman attended the accident, one local senior officer (born in Phuket) and one new guy from Issan. The local guy obvoiusly knew the killer, sorry other driver therefore told the family that the farang was to blame. Nice Mr. Isaan policeman took the family to one side and told them that this Thai guy was on the wrong side of the road and suggested the family contacted the ant-corruption police in BKK, even gave them the address. Anyway at my suggestion they contacted a local lawyer,who to be honest has been a real star.

A few thing are missing from the press, poor old Scott only arrived that day. All their valuables went missing after the smash - modile phones, cash etc.

Anyway for anyone that is interested the Freedom Bar for donations is on Rawai Beach and in itself is pretty cool.

As for the rest of the story I will keep you informed via this thread. All I can say at the moment is we have a very good local lawyer and we will not give up. We may only be one farang and a group of rice and coffee farmers but we will fight.

I would like to thank the Phuket Gazette for extracting some truth from the Chalong Police and to warn anyone that may wish to threaten the saftety of Seetons family because of this case, they are not scared - you do your worst and we will do our best.

Sorry if this sounds a bit emotional but when two children are left without a mother and some t$ats only concern is the repair of his car, well you know what I mean - plus we've had a fair few Changs tonight.

Take Care.

Living in Phuket we don't have the luxury of Carrefour or Foodland so we have to suffer Lotus and Big C.

The first thing Lotus needs to do is to organize the shelf re-stocking in such a way that does not leave many areas of the store inaccessible due products been left stacked on the floor.

Secondly for such a large store the variety of food available seems to be limited, if you wish to choose from 30 brands of Soy and fish sauce or whole rows dedicated to packet noodles, powdered milk then this is the place. Now you may think that this is Thailand and that's what the Thais want - well I live in a house with 6 Thai people and when we go to Tesco these areas are just bypassed.

Considering the wealth of Tescos own brand products available in the UK its a great shame that we don't see many of these in Thailand. Again a lot of people may argue that Thai's don't want these products - well you just ask my wife who absolutely loved Tescos in the UK - the cakes, biscuits tinned goods etc.

So if anyone from Carrefour is reading this please open a branch in Phuket you would make a lot of money and a lot people very happy.

I found this link on the Los Angeles Thai Embassy site

Importing Pets into Thailand

Now it clearly states that boths cats and dogs need Rabies, but having said that as with all things in Thailand ask 3 different people and get three different answers.

Anyway I always apply the belt and braces approach to dealing with the Thai authorities - get everything that may be required then you shouldn't have any problems.

I think it is actually down to the airline, Thai air would not allow my cat on board without an import certificate and he flew on the same flight as me. Below is an official reply from the Phuket Gazette.

Importing a dog

Am I allowed to import a dog from Singapore, which the World Health Organization recognizes as a rabies-free country?

If so, what are the proper procedures and fees, and how long will it take?

Tuesday, April 9, 2002 Bjorn Ostrom, Patong.

“If your dog is to be imported through Phuket International Airport, you will need to go the airport Customs office to obtain the form for importing an animal to Thailand.

The form should be filed at the Customs office 15 days before the dog arrives. You will also need to provide a recent veterinarian’s certificate declaring that the dog rabies-free.

If all the paperwork is in order, there will be no delay in allowing the dog into the country. The fee is 100 baht per dog. ”

Tuesday, April 9, 2002  Yusathira Bandukul, Chief, Animal Quarantine, Phuket Provincial Livestock Office. 

Now if may be different in Bangkok but my advice would be to get all the paperwork whether you need it or not because the last thing you want is delay getting your pet out of customs after a long flight.

Also I asked the Thai Embassy in London for the procedure and what they told me turned out to be totally incorrect.

Good luck.

Now this looks like a positive step towards road safety !!

Two group mentioned in the report, Tuk Tuk drivers and mini-bus driver are as we all know are real professional drivers who rarely, if ever commit a road violation.

This will just turn into a 'I don't like him because he has a better house/business/car/wife/job/skin colour than me so I'm going to report him' scenerio.

The local police are some of the worst drivers on the road so what hope do we have.

The only solution to the mounting problems on Phuket's roads is invest in driver education i.e. a new comprehensive tests for everyone and stiffer penalties for violations.

I'm not just getting at Thai drivers its also farangs. An old neighbour of mine a French guy was probably the most dangerous driver I have ever seen. People were constantly coming round to his house with police officers in tow, complaining that he had run them off the road. Was he fined ? Was his license taken away ? No No, he is still on the road causing accident after accident.

Other plans to improve the road include making the road wider with more lanes Ha !! As the average driver here has no concept of lane decipline this will cause bigger, faster and more deadly accidents.

God help us all.

Well I have to say its not that easy. I brought my cat with me a year and a half ago and had a number of issues. First of you need an import certificate that can only be obtained in Thailand. I had my cat transported by a London based company and they provided the information on how to get this document. Your cat must be immunised against Rabies and also some kind of worm I believe it to be Heart Worm or something like that.

I transported my cat in a very good quality pet box with all his paper work in tact and we flew with Thai Air. Do not arrive on a weekend as the official at the airport that deals with animal imports only works Monday to Friday. Even after we got him out of customs we still had to take him back to the airport for a vet inspection, although he has been given residency and does not need to do a visa run.

I would also recommend an injection against Mange because just about every stray cat here has it and your cat will get it very quickly along with all the other farang related ills, the runs, worms etc.

Now having described all the problems I can honestly say our cat has settled in very well. He is a lot bigger than all the local cats so has soon become the governer of our area. There are loads of readily available females for him as well as rats and mice etc. Snakes have been a problem for him in that he can't eat a full one, just eating the head is very messy.

Any more help your friend requires just let me know. If you look at the Phuket Gazette web site's Issues and Answers section information about the douments required can be found there.

First of all I would totally agree with mrmnp about renting in the area you plan to live before buying because you will certainly learn a lot about prices and about how the local system works.

Socondly I think mrmnp may have his Math mixed up, as far as I was aware 1 Rai = 1600sqm so one quarter of a Rai at 800,000 baht would equal 2000baht per square meter. 8000 per square meter may even make Mr. Toxin choke.

As far as information and prices go some local Real Estate broker maybe helpful but you cannot beat local people. We learn more from the local hairdresser and shopkeeper than anyone else, and you can't get that information unless you are living in the area.

Well in my opinion this land price is way over the top.

I live about half a kilometer from one of Phuket's most beautiful beaches in a village that is over run with expensive farang houses and you can still get land for less than you have been quoted.

We also bought a 2 rai plot last year in my wifes village for 200,000 baht. Its right in the middle of the village with road access both at the front and rear. The village is just outside Buriram in the North East. I also got another plot on the edge of the village for 8000 baht. None of this was rice fields so it is ready to build on.

Is the land owned by a relative of your gf? In my experience, often relatives see it as acceptable to inflate prices for the farang. A friend of mine bought a truck from his girlfriend cousin, without seeing it, he paid 450,000 baht for what he was told was a 2 year old Toyota. When he got it he found it was 5 years old and had been heavily clocked. The gf was too afraid to cause a family problem to say anything.

Anyway sorry to be a bit negative but I don't think you should be paying that sort of price for land up there and I would certainly make some discrete enquiries to find out the actual value of land in the area.

Good Luck

If you want to do the Ranong/Burma border run F1 (Mike's Bikes) in Chalong is without a doubt best, you get breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea all for about a 1000baht.

Personally I don't like sitting on a mini bus for that long while someone else is driving plus you have go in a boat across to the border. The last time I went the prat at Thai immigration said my visa stamp was dodgy because it was from Sadao (Malaysian border) and would not let me out of Thailand.

So I decided to go back down to Sadao and go over the border there. I easily did Phuket-Sadao back in a day at my own pace. Also at this border there is no dodgy fee for your stamp (at Ranong they want 500 baht). My last visa I went to Pedang Basar which is next to Sadao and there is a lovely duty free shop between Thailand and Malaysia. So if like the odd drink you can almost reclaim your costs by stocking up on duty frees.

In terms of a scenic drive there's not that much to see, you could always make a weekend of it like I did once, drove to Ao Nang on the friday night with the wife and daughter, stayed there friday night. In the morning I drove to the border and was back to Ao Nang for a evening swim and then dinner.

So anyway my opinion Pedang Basar is longer but less hassle.

Good Luck

Pidster

Thanks for your suggestion, unfortunately I have already tried this method and it works out very expensive. I got a large box of goodies sent over at Christmas but these expat shopping sites will not invoice the shipping cost seperately so, say you send £70 on goods, the shipping will probably be another £70 and Thai customs tax you on £140 so in my case at Christmas it cost me another 3500 baht in duty.

So I think the sane option is to wait while I in BKK again and so to M&S and get some of their tea or wait for my friend to bring some from the UK in August.

No argument with O'Reilly they are excellent books. In fact Macromedia include the O'Reilly Pocket Reference for ASP.NET, CSS, HTML, Javascript, PHP and SQL within the online reference for Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Normally I would agree with teach yourself in 24 hours books, but the PHP one I have already mentioned breaks down the major language components into manageable one hour lessons with good examples. This makes it a good reference book.

Also if you need books Amazon will ship books to Thailand if you can't get them locally.

Phuket Mike

Well no one else seems to be offering much help for you two so I will try having gone through the process of learn PHP and MYSQL over the past three years.

Firstly MYSQL if you have any previous sql database experience this is going to be a big help. MYSQL is a very good database engine that will run on just about anything and when combined with Apache and PHP it provide a very powerful development environment. Good reading would be MySQL by DuBois published by New Rider.

Its probably also very useful to get a gui database design tool that works with MySQL such as DeZign for databases by Datanamic. This gives you a very easy graphical interface for creating your database design. It then creates SQL script files that you can then execute in Mysql and create your databases.

As for PHP I would start with Dreamweaver MX 2004 it will automatically create the PHP code for connecting to a MYSQL database, allow you to insert dynamic content into your web pages and generally take away a lot of the ball ache. A good book for this is 'Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development' by Gareth Downes-Powell. This has a lot of step by step exercises as well as creating a full blown system.

Another good book is Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours by Sams, although it took me a bit longer.

There are a lot of good websites around with tons of PHP tutorials and how tos, it just a matter of getting out there and reading them. Also if you have project to need to create that also a good way of learning. One excellent fact about PHP is that just about everything has already been done in it, so there's no need to re-invent the wheel just go and download it.

good luck

phuket Mike

Thanks for the replies folks.

Unfortunately I forgot to mention Twinings which my local Tescos does have. Its okay but a little expensive. Its really an export brand and a little light in flavour for my taste.

I know what you are all thinking this guy is never going to be happy. Well the problem is once you have tasted the real thing you are never happy until you get it again. Now if Tescos had never tried their own brand that was designed for the British market I would probably have been happy with Twinings or even Liptons (double bagged of course).

Anyway thanks again for your input, I will just have to wait until my friend comes from England and brings me some PG Tips or better still Yorkshire Tea.

phuket Mike

Does anybody know where I can buy good quality English style tea (not Liptons).

The Lotus/Tesco here in Phuket for a very short time stocked there own brand Premium Blend which was excellent. When they were asked why they still don't stock it the answer was 'it didn't sell'.

Now I must admit I find this hard to beleive I bought 2 boxes of 80 tea bags immediately and when I went back for more a week later they had already sold out, indeed a very slow seller.

I did manage to get some Malaysian tea bags on the last visa run but they have now run out and to honest they were not as good as the Tesco brand.

So any help would be greatly appreciated.

phuket Mike

I had the same issue my daughter was born in England. You need to go to the Thai Embassy/Consultate in Sweden and ask for a certificate to allow your child to enter Thailand as a Thai. Its not difficult to get a part from the usual Thai paperwork. You have to get this just before you depart because it not valid for very long.

Once you have this piece of paper you can then bring your child to Thailand, you will be interviewed at the airport but its no big deal.

Once in Thailand you then need to get a birth certificate and get your child on to a house certificate. This is the fun part depending on where your house is, my wifes was up in Buriram and it look a whole day of hanging around and few 500baht handshakes.

Once you have got all this done you can then apply for a Thai passport either in Bangkok or one of the provisional offices.

If you bring the baby in on a Swedish passport and then try and do you will run into a lot of problems.

You might want to check out the Phuket Gazette site in there issues and answer section this has been discussed.

Good Luck.

phuket Mike

Muay,

There are loads of e-commerce solutions out there and a lot of them are free its just a matter of finding one the does what you want. A lot of hosting companies offer solutions pre-installed so all you have to do is go into the admin page and add your products and prices.

Freepagehosting.com is one that has a number of scripts that you can install into your webspace. Also if you register a domain with them they will give you some webspace. Freepagehosting.com

I would recommend you go for a PHP/MYSQL solution because these are often free and offer a good range of features. Try this excellent site for a solution

Hotscripts.com

If you need any more help please PM me.

Phuket Mike

You need to double-click on one of your images within Dreamweaver and when the images properties box comes up, check that the 'Relative to' option at the bottom is set to 'site root' and not 'document'.

You may also want to set the site properties so the your remote web site is included. The will enable you to use the publish facility within Dreamweaver. The advantage of this is that Dreamweaver will automatically change the URL to point to the remote site.

Hope this helps.

phuket Mike

First of all as far as I know farming is an occupation reserved for Thai's only.

Having said that there is a Swedish rice farmer in my wifes village, and the locals think its very funny to have a farang rice farmer. I talked to the guy once and to be honest I think he needs a 'check up from the neck up'.

Having witnessed rice farming first hand I would not be in any rush to help out on the farm, its back breaking work and to be honest you will probably just get in the way.

My advice would be to tell your new family that you would love to work on the farm but Thai Law forbids it. Then find a nice tree where you can get a good view of the rice field, get a nice comfortable chair, a few bottles of Chang and sit, relax and get happy. Personally I love picking rice, I can watch it for hours.

On a more serious note in the eyes of the Thai authorities it doesn't matter if you get paid or not you require a work permit, even for charity work.

Good Luck

Phuket Mike