Hard To Find Items Or Not So Good Quality In Thailand

[Kathe]

xbusman: Toiletries, especially deoderant and razors, are very expensive here. I dont think the Thais need or use either.

LOL

I'll tell ya sometimes it seems like living in Thailand is like living in a communist country. The selection of consumer products available for purchase here in Thailand is pretty bad/poor.

I dont think that living in Thailand is like living in a communist country. It is only you cant find things because you are living on very far outskirt of Bangkok or bigger town. There are also many good thai products selling abroad with English name too.

[Octaviousbp]

A question for those in the know... what about art supplies? Canvas, paints (oil especially), brushes, etc.? Are they comparitively expensive (with the West)? A friend is contemplating an extended stay and I know nothing of painting supplies.

Thanks!

[tourleadersi]

Here's a question.

If the OP buys all of these foodstuffs, linens etc and puts them all in a container, and then the customs boys at the Thai port open it up (which I should imagine they would once they see a farang name on the manifest) will he/she not get hit with the equivalent import tax that Tops, Tescos etc get hit with?

If that is the case then there could be a hefty bill to be cleared before they can get their goods home....

One other thing. When I moved from Africa back to the UK, all the electrical items that had rubber belts in them (video machine, stereo turntable etc) required fixing on arrival. It was the transition from blazing summer to freezing winter that caused all the rubber to fall apart (and we all know how scary it can be when rubber falls apart. ) Its just a thought.

[Sakeopete]

A trampoline and BBQ I would kill to get them for my house. Walmart please come to Thailand!!!

[tutsiwarrior]

Hard to find items or not so good quality in Thailand

Ok I + thai wife are heading back to Thailand in a few months time after the sale of our home here in US and planning to be there for about 5 yrs. We think there will be some room left in our 20 ft container. What should we also bring back with us that can be quite useful? I’m talking about normal household items. I’ve heard bed linens are quite expensive, is this correct?

So far I have......

bed linens

step stool

pancake mix

And what else?

I'd say think about the food that you like and that you prepare yourself. I like mexican, indian curries, middle eastern and etc. Then think about the spices that you need to prepare the food. When I returned to Thailand from Bahrain I took a load of basic indian spices (widely available; whole seed cumin, coriander, powdered tumeric, cardamon, and etc, etc with a small wooden mortar and pestle) because they are impossible to find in Thailand. I also brought back cans of prepared houmous and baba ganoush, also impossible to find (you can find eggplant for the baba but garbanzos in thailand are terrible for houmous...but bring back a large can of sesame tahini paste, just in case...garlic and lemon juice no prob).

you say that you are US...if you are from CA then be prepared to not ever have proper mexican food again. The best you could do is to bring a few 50 kg bags of masa mix to make your own fresh corn tortillas...but then you would also have to import the apparatus to fabricate the goods. Alternatively, you could sequester 3-4 mexican peasant ladies in your container (and their families) to hand pat the tortillas every morning and awake to their quiet chatting as they stand around the comal preparing the 5-6 dozen required for the day's consumption...their kids playing in the yard a delight and the husbands preparing for a days labor in the paddies ('work permit?... we ain' got no work permit...an' we ain' got to show you no stinkin' work permit!!!' - with apologies to John Huston) and also to stand guard to protect the padron/falang from inquisitive cops and neigbors...other ingredients such as chiles, garlic, tomatoes, avocados, fresh coriander abound for daily preparation of guacamole and fresh salsa ranchera...I can taste it just now...(fade-in a sentimental ballad from Javier Soliz)

a small price to pay for acceptable mesoamerican cuisine...

tutsi introduces a new dimension to human trafficking

[tourleadersi]

Hard to find items or not so good quality in Thailand

Ok I + thai wife are heading back to Thailand in a few months time after the sale of our home here in US and planning to be there for about 5 yrs. We think there will be some room left in our 20 ft container. What should we also bring back with us that can be quite useful? I’m talking about normal household items. I’ve heard bed linens are quite expensive, is this correct?

So far I have......

bed linens

step stool

pancake mix

And what else?

I'd say think about the food that you like and that you prepare yourself. I like mexican, indian curries, middle eastern and etc. Then think about the spices that you need to prepare the food. When I returned to Thailand from Bahrain I took a load of basic indian spices (widely available; whole seed cumin, coriander, powdered tumeric, cardamon, and etc, etc with a small wooden mortar and pestle) because they are impossible to find in Thailand. I also brought back cans of prepared houmous and baba ganoush, also impossible to find (you can find eggplant for the baba but garbanzos in thailand are terrible for houmous...but bring back a large can of sesame tahini paste, just in case...garlic and lemon juice no prob).

you say that you are US...if you are from CA then be prepared to not ever have proper mexican food again. The best you could do is to bring a few 50 kg bags of masa mix to make your own fresh corn tortillas...but then you would also have to import the apparatus to fabricate the goods. Alternatively, you could sequester 3-4 mexican peasant ladies in your container (and their families) to hand pat the tortillas every morning and awake to their quiet chatting as they stand around the comal preparing the 5-6 dozen required for the day's consumption...their kids playing in the yard a delight and the husbands preparing for a days labor in the paddies ('work permit?... we ain' got no work permit...an' we ain' got to show you no stinkin' work permit!!!' - with apologies to John Huston) and also to stand guard to protect the padron/falang from inquisitive cops and neigbors...other ingredients such as chiles, garlic, tomatoes, avocados, fresh coriander abound for daily preparation of guacamole and fresh salsa ranchera...I can taste it just now...(fade-in a sentimental ballad from Javier Soliz)

a small price to pay for acceptable mesoamerican cuisine...

tutsi introduces a new dimension to human trafficking

Dude that me quite emotional! Man I could kill a decent Burritto right now!

[monochaser]

A trampoline and BBQ I would kill to get them for my house. Walmart please come to Thailand!!!

walmart will never ever come here, no way no how. they could never offer great varieties of goods at low prices. you'll never see a walmart store with 2 warehouse sized aisles of each of these:

5 baht noodles

condiments

sauces

cooking oils

that's more than half of food offerings at stores here. walmart even pulled out of south korea

[Thaising]

A trampoline and BBQ I would kill to get them for my house. Walmart please come to Thailand!!!

walmart will never ever come here, no way no how. they could never offer great varieties of goods at low prices. you'll never see a walmart store with 2 warehouse sized aisles of each of these:

5 baht noodles

condiments

sauces

cooking oils

that's more than half of food offerings at stores here. walmart even pulled out of south korea

Wal-Mart is having a hard time with Tesco UK, if they were to set up shop here, Tesco and Carrefour will have them run on their money. Sam Walton will not like to see the same Korea closed shop history.