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roiet

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Posts posted by roiet

  1. :o
    I heard of a spate of these raids happening around the Phu Sing area about a year ago. There have been raids involving kidnappings in recent years too. These bandits raid the bordering Thai villages for money or anything valuable, then quickly hightail it back to Cambodia once the Thai authorities appear.

    NL

    wow, and i thought she's safer at home than, say, bangkok

    Why not stay there as a permanent security.

  2. 802 sq/metres over 2 floors.

    That's <deleted> huge, man! 8,500 square feet! Sounds like a palace in the making! Are you gonna put 2 or 3 families in there?? :o

    In very rough numbers for estimating, my place came out to about 600 ThB per square foot, including 1 rai of land, up country central Thailand, but we haven't landscaped yet.

    Using the same figure applied to your place, that comes out to about 5M ThB.

    HTH, good luck!

    Spee

    I would be very interested to hear about the progress of your landscaping and house building upcountry central thailand, can share some information. My one is in Roi et, size is 2x180 m2

  3. Well done Ohlin,i was just going to start a forum on wells and you saved me the trouble. :D

    Could someone possibly tell me the diameter of the average well as the wife is worried children and cats might climb in. :o

    The average diameter of wells I have seen is about 1.5 meter. You will find many different opinions about wells. Loking at the wells here in Roi et and the problems about getting clean water I decided to do it the chinese-thai way. They install sometimes huge cement water tanks above ground to make the water debris settle slowly . I pump up the water from 15 meters down with a 1 hp above ground pump and let it settle in a 3 meter high cement water tank filled with 1.5 m gravel. The gravel is 2cm diameter and acts as a natural filter. I add a little leaves of wintergreen in the first tank. This green like Menthol smelling liquid is used here to kill bacteria in the water. The sand and clay leftover and sediments and copper etc settle at the bottom and can be taken out easily opening the valve at the bottom. Because I need 8000 liter water per day for my swimming pool and bungalows I added an other cement tank 3 meters high and installed a stainless steel carbon/manganese filter and finally a 2000 l stainless steel tank. This carbon/manganese filter is 30 cm diameter and 1.5 m high. It is very efffective and produces very clean water. It has the same backwash(cleaning) facility like swimming pool filters. I am very happy :D about this filter and the sparkling water I can obtain now.

  4. I want to help my girlfriend to get water, she live in NONGRAKANG near Sanom, Surin. Someone know a good combany or some people in the neighbourhood who I can get in touch with.

    Thanks

    Local water drillers you can find anywhere around in Isaan.

    Some of the local water drillers make 2-3 tests holes something like 6-8 meters down and then use the best location for water supply. In some Isaan regions the water level can drop by 5 meters in dry season :o , so a bit more down and you are on the safe side. Some of these locals will ask for 3000 bt and insist 8 meters down is sufficient. I payd 5000 bt for the 15 m hole and have a steady 8000 liter daily water supply.

  5. I always liked the local stuff like Naya in Canada better than the French stuff, but I have to agree that it seems to taste better in Thailand.

    Could have something to to with it being several degrees below boiling in the shade though.  :D

    My favourite has always been that cheap stuff in the  trnslucent bottles thats only 5 or 6 baht.

    cv

    EEEeeew! Can't you taste the plastic? I prefer Aura or Nestle Pure Life. I wouldn't dream of paying for Perrier. And I don't like the taste of it either. :o

    Most of the bottled water has the plastic smell because the water purifiers expose the water to long to the ozone. The ozone remains in the bottle and this enhances the plastic smell. Nestle Pure life has no plastic taste at all.

  6. Australian Financial Services Company is looking for an Agent (or Agents) in Thailand.

    We have been in business for 30 years and are looking to expand into Thailand.

    The person we seek would ideally have established contacts within the construction, real estate, hotel or project development areas.

    Our company arranges finance for the aforementioned business areas from a private source in Europe.

    It is envisaged that the right person would earn by way of commissions (only) in the first year approx. USD150,000. Earnings are uncapped and will reflect the right persons contacts and work ethics.

    In the first instance reply to [email protected] with basic information and contact details.

    We will be in Bangkok sometime in the next month to meet with prospective Agent(s).

    Sounds great, uncapped earnings by commision only. Looks like one has to close deals of more than USD 150 mill in Thailand for the first year looking at the standard commision rate. No expense allocation, all risk at salesman side of course :D . All expats apply and start dreaming :o

  7. i read about an expat who goes to los with up to 11 checked luggage.is it possible for one person to have so many checked luggages?i plan to have 2 checked luggages and 1 carry on bag and 1 computer bag.the airlines seems to have a 2 checked luggage limit so is the 11 checked luggages allowed by him paying extra fees?

    It really depends on the airline. Just try to check in all your items. All airlines have rules but do not apply them. I used 14 different airlines in the last 5 years flying 300 000 miles and could always add extra weight and luggage without paying extra fees. A friendly approach always helps :o , a frequent flyer card helps sometimes and lots of small extra items can be checked in free. On some long distance flights I checked in 25 kg overweight and 6-8 items without problems. This is my experience.

  8. Here's one for the upcountry farmers . . .

    I'd like to buy some agricultural land - Por Bor Tor land documents.  The land is cheap and would be bought in my wife's name.

    I realise that PBT docs are only tax receipts & dont show the land boundaires etc - the local 'Pu Yai' and neighbours will all get together and agree the boundaries before any sale is completed.

    My only question is what sort of house can i build on it - if I so wish?

    A couple of people have told me that you can only build a farmers shack on the land and others have said that any type of house on the land is OK.  No probem to put plans for a proper house into the local planning office ( maybe have to pay a few baht in 'fees' to speed palnning approvl up but that's all.)

    Is there a definitive answer?  Does it depend on how well you know people in the planning office?

    Thx in advance for any info/ help

    My wifes land consisted of rice field patches and funny tax receipts like you mention. No official documents. She made the officials measure the boundraries, made them put official marker posts in the 12 corners and registered the land as Bai Chanot. Then we filled up 2.5 m high soil on this land and built the 2 floor house and the swimming pool later. Our house is just outside the city limit in a Muu or baan without any building laws. The local Pu Yai signed a paper stating that our buildings do not disturb the local people. Later I insisted to register the house in the land paper as soon as the house was finished.

  9. This post is absurd....Contrary to anything and everything Ive SEEN/READ with my own 2 eyes,either here or on MFA links.TROLL?,Gurus?, Anyone?

    He doesn't have a clue. You and I got O-A visas based on retirement, which is one of many categories of O-A visa. Since I submitted all the documentation required for a retirement visa, I have to assume that is what I got, even though the visa stamp doesn't mention retirement.

    Perhaps he didn't understand my post. Let it slide.

    Lets skip it.

  10. They did not give you a so called retirement visa. A retirement visa is for age 55 plus and Bt 800,000 on the bank or retirement income of this amount .You received a O-A 1 year visa which expires on Feb. 06 2006. So when you enter Thailand do not forget to report to the Immigration very latest 90 days after the visa was issued. ||| So have to report to the immigration around May 3. This is for address notification purposes. They will give you adress notification papers which you have to send to the immigration office every 90 days.

    Have fun

    This post is absurd....Contrary to anything and everything Ive SEEN/READ with my own 2 eyes,either here or on MFA links.TROLL?,Gurus?, Anyone?

    Sorry, do not get you ?

  11. The youngsters are all too busy fiddling with their mobiles, sending sms or playing games or whatever.

    I remember what it was like to be a 13 year old and in my day watches that played tunes were the in thing, and we spent all our spare time playing space-invaders/galaxian/asteroids.

    You just answered you own question.

    Times change, and the mobile phone generation will be replaced with something else in the future, just like the Asteroid and space invader gang was replaced by something newer and more exciting.

    Is it just Thailand? No.

    Try Japan.

    You find this all over the world even in the poorest countries. As said times change.

    In some very poor countries they do not have the so called fixed line telephones available. Only mobile phones are available to communicate.

  12. My Passport just arrived from Houston via FedEx. It has a Non-Immigrant O-A multiple entry visa in it, but it says nothing about "retirement". Is that normal?

    Is there something specific that I need to do when I arrive at Immigration in Bangkok?

    The visa says that it "must be utilized before Feburary 06 2006". I thought these things usually had to be utilized within 90 days?

    In any event, I'm thrilled to finally have it in hand and can't wait to depart on April 5th!

    :o

    They did not give you a so called retirement visa. A retirement visa is for age 55 plus and Bt 800,000 on the bank or retirement income of this amount .You received a O-A 1 year visa which expires on Feb. 06 2006. So when you enter Thailand do not forget to report to the Immigration very latest 90 days after the visa was issued. ||| So have to report to the immigration around May 3. This is for address notification purposes. They will give you adress notification papers which you have to send to the immigration office every 90 days.

    Have fun

  13. I guess you lot should mosey on down to lil ole Surin..and we know what's there. :D

    It's nearer then bloody Udon that's for sure

    Lampard

    Since you are the farang connection in Surin you could give me some advice where to find a nice hotel with swimming pool in Surin City or around there. Or maybe a standalone swimming pool. I want to go to Cham Pang market again and on the way back relax in beautiful Surin City. Thanks a lot :o

    Roiet

  14. I have been lucky, I have built two houses in Buriram one like a palace for 2 million Baht, and the other a bungalow with 5 Rai of land, my wifes family built them, now my brother in law is in great demmand by other ferrangs in Buriram.

    It was built 4 years ago, so no idea what it would cost today, check it out on my site.

    www.gandajones.co.uk

    So you are one of the lucky ones in Isaan. I built my nice 300 m2 house last year near Roiet/Yasothon for 2.5 mill bt. The swimming pool was built by a Pattaya runaway builder. The bungalows by a local stay here builder. The big house was designed by a government building designer from Sarakam. Beautiful design, but the builder(also a government) builder did a lot wrong. Usually 20-30 smaller which seems to be the standard in Isaan. Luckily we just stayed across the road in the parents house. We made him brake the construction :o every 10-15 days and build it as designed. Slowly words spread around about him, he felt very shy and got help from others and finished everything in a good style. :D

    I am happy my wife did not give up and kept insisting :D to correct everything.

  15. I invite you for a beer :o if you can give me some names and locations of EM farm supply stores in Isaan. I need this also for my 500 m2 grass.

    I am in Amphur Huai Phung in Kalasin Province. The farm supply store in our town usually carries it for about 60B/liter - and the mollasses that is supposed to be mixed with it. If you still can't locate a source where you are let me know.

    Interesting stuff, that EM. It smells something like homemade wine. It's supposd to be good for lots of things, like reducing odors from septic tanks. I just use it for composting.

    I'll take you up on that offer of a beer sometime.

    Bryan

    Bryan

    Thanks a lot for your help. I need this EM because the soil in my place has more than 30 % clay. I planted grass and trees and flowers around my swimming pool but the manure treatment helps only little.

    I am in Phanomprai, 60 km east of Roi et. I will come to Huai Phung soon.

  16. is there some kind of guide that will teach them how to control their monthly income or are they all into blowing the lot very quickly on wild spending sprees?

    you can plot a graph of their income and expenditure and its a few peaks and many troughs !

    is there a remote possibilty that you can get them to live within their means ? :o

    Are you talking about their own hard earned...or, funds that you throw at them?

    If it's your finances they ( I presume tgf) are blowing, take control and make your g/f or wife realise it will dry up one day. If it is a casual aquaintance, they will make sure it's short term cash....and find plenty of reasons to live beyond their means!

    If she has learned to earn her own money really the hard way and has already satisfied all the family demands she will (as a wife) be able :D to control the finances. But she should also share the family budget, has some part time job which keeps her busy. Others will only learn it when financial supplies are dried up for long time.

  17. I wish too purchase a new digital camera but don't want it to cost the earth.

    I guess that many forum users are owners of digital cameras.

    What camera would you recommend if you were to purchase again. Would it be the camera you already own or would you but a different Brand/ model.

    State reasons why.

    Thanks.

    Slippery...............................

    have a look here

    www.steves-digicam.com

    www.photoexels.com

    www.tohome.com

  18. I agree about the deep holes for growing trees. The clay soil gets like concrete later in the dry season and the tree will wilt and die if the hole is not large enough. After placing the tree and adding cow manure, rice straw and leaves should also help to keep the soil from hardening again. My wife and I have also found that almost all trees grow faster when we use food compost - garbage from leftover or spoiled food. The last couple of years the farm supply stores have been selling a solution called EM (enhancing microorganisms) which introduces helpful bacteria and fungi into the soil. That also helps break down all the straw, manure, food garbage, etc. that you might add.

    I invite you for a beer :o if you can give me some names and locations of EM farm supply stores in Isaan. I need this also for my 500 m2 grass.

  19. Having built over 25 houses here in Thailand the double wall, cavity option makes a huge differance as well as providing additional sound insulation.

    There is an Israeli ceiling insulation system that reduces the heat factor in most rooms by up to 5 degrees.

    A sticky coating that actually goes on top of the ceiling plaster baord, very goodin palm tree areas if a coconut goes through the roof tile it genrally will alnd on the ceiling with the force of it taken out.

    Depend sthough on the builder you are using, you will ahev to source the product direct from Bangkok.

    [/quote

    Here in Roi et it is sometimes 38 degrees. I visited some falang houses here with same design as you describe. This design reduces the heat factor inside really by 5-6 degrees. One falang built the house and the roof the same way you did but the roof with a 45 degree angle and 2 very small windows on both side of the house just below the rooftop. Like this the wind can blow trough the rooftop and act like a real aircon.

    He also built the house the chinese way facing east-west the major wind direction. The result is amazing: :o 35 degrees outside, 28 degrees inside.

  20. As the Gas Bottles thread has run it's race I thought it might be a good idea to start a new thread concerning problems we encountered during the construction of our houses.

    One that springs to mind was drainage in one of our bathrooms.

    The original house design had the shower as a sunken recess only. This seems to be the norm in Thai domestic buildings from what I have seen. We opted to install an enclosed shower unit in this space without think too much about the implications. The contractor installed the unit and plumbed it directly to the original drainage for the existing shower recess. What this effectively did was block the drain in the recess, leaving the water that gathered nowhere to run to.

    If you are doing similar to what I have done please be aware of this and perhaps place the shower unit on the oposite side from the drainage hole and install a separate drain.

    gallery_5463_86_61033.jpg

    I have not been home yet to see how it was remedied but aparently my wife had the contractor in to fix the problem. I am now worried that all he has done is open the pipe under the shower unit to allow drainage. This would mean that the shower water will continue to run out onto the floor to drain away later.

    The water volume of your shower is very high and will always exceed the capacity

    of the drainage. I think your drainage pipe below is the standard Thai 1.5 inch. You need at least 3 inch drainage pipe to allow a fast disposal of the shower water.

  21. What will be the best option if you want a monthly bill? AIS or DTac?

    Whatever you do STAY AWAY FROM AIS.

    I had a prepaid AIS card with a great number so when the opportunity came I make it postpay. At the time we weren't sure which plan to make but the office in Sri Racha said "no worries, you can always change plan later.".

    Now I want to change plan - and they tell me I can't.

    Bah. Even with my great number I am in a right mind to tell them to get stuffed and get a DTAC subscription.

    Taking AIS would be a bad decision for any farang. At least DTAC have two farangs on the board, presumably caring minimally for our interest, whereas AIS just have TOXIC TOXIN who clearly doesn't care having us as guests or customers.

    DTAC cares and has the best network coverage according to the network coverage plan on the Internet and using a Nokia mobile phone gives you always 5 bar maximum signal. Using other sexy styled cheap mobile phones can surprise you sometimes: 1-2 bar signal outside cities

    Happy DTAC :o Nokia combination. PS: If you travel upcountry you can really test this winning combination.

  22. I binned norton and McAfee in favour of AVG.

    I like it.  Uses less resources and its free.  I like free.

    I have never tried Kaspersky so cannot comment on it

    I tried all of them and most of them slow down your PC. Now I use Mcafee firewall, it stops IP attacks extremly well. Spybot Search and Destroy is also pro active, it stops all the attacks via Internet explorer. And the best is AVG Antivrus scanner with real fast upgrades. And all of them are free downloads and upgrades and my PC runs faster than ever.

    PS: I do some defragmentation sometimes, makes my PC running even faster.

  23. The first line is the person's name. The second is a village name. The third should be spelt as "Changwat" which means province or area. Good luck - I tried finding a girl in 1989 with that sort of address in another part of Thailand. I spent weeks and $$$ for zilch !

    You will not find her in that village in Surin. The first line indicates Bakdai which stands for nothing. Kingamper or Kingamphoe can be a major district anywhere in Thailand. Sorry you lost here. :o

  24. An old Aussie avocado grower told me one of his secrets for getting avocado trees to fruit quicker. A lot of the soil I’ve seen in Issan might benefit from his methods.

    He used a post hole digger to dig a nice deep hole. He filled the hole with cow manure. Then he placed about 6 inches of soil on top of the manure before placing the seedlings in the hole.

    He claimed by the time the avocado roots grew down to the manure, it had lost all its heat and the trees had a nice supply of rich fertilizer to allow then to grow faster. He said this method allowed his trees to bear fruit up to 2 years quicker.

    NL

    To plant fruit trees in Isaan soil is sometimes very troublesome if the clay in the soil kills the tree :o . The above cow manure treatment is the best in my experience. PS:The Thais dont like to dig deep holes, do it the Aussie way, you will be rewarded.

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