A Blog about the Daily Life on the Tropical Island of Koh Samui
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A few Words about Me
 My name is: Olle
I am living in: Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, Suratthani, Thailand
I am originally from: Stockholm, the capital of Sweden
Doing for Kohsamui.org: Writing a blog about my life here
How about my life here: Please read my blog below, my friends |
What Is The Deal?
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Friday, September 18, 2009
Today we took care of some small tasks. Yesterday the guy supposed to fix our chair never came but this morning he called and said he was on his way. It took a long time before he showed up and when he showed up he happened to be the guy that went buy three times already. He came up on the porch with his only tool, a screwdriver which did not work at all and we borrowed a hammer from our neighbor but that did not help either. He said he would go to the store instead, and if he could not repair the chair he would get a new one. After just 10 minutes or maybe even less he came back with a new chair and I was very surprised and asked him if he brought the chair from Nathon. That’s quite far away. He laughed and said he brought it from their store in Lamai. I did not know they had a store here as well. I have seen the store and even been looking around in inside but I did not know it was the same store as in Nathon and they also have different prices. Now I can sit in the desired height and I do not have to reach for the computer.
When that part was done we went to the internet shop where Nui had the coffee shop and picked up some stuff. The large gas tank and some other things is still there and we will take care of that another day.
The new Tesco store is now fully visible since a few days back. The plates that been arranged as a wall is not there anymore and now it should not be that many days or weeks left until they open.
This afternoon we spent on doing some research. In the bank office here in Lamai I was that that transfers from other countries do not cost anything receive. My previous transfer to the same bank but to a branch on Phuket cost me 610 bath so even if it sound strange I believe they have different fees for that. It also cost money to use an ATM in provinces other than where the account is registered so therefore I figured it would be better to open a new account on Samui. While I filled out the paperwork we asked for various fees and it turned out that the office did have fees for receiving bank-wire transfers from other countries but only 250 bath. I also wanted to find out whether it was better to exchange the currency in Thailand instead of Sweden, so when we got home we called the banks customer service and asked about the today currency rate. The rate was extremely low and to make sure they told us the right currency we called the local office and they told us the same rate but with an extra decimal. Ok, maybe the customer service forgot to say the last digit. But the currency rate was so low I could not believe that it was right so I asked Nui to make another call and really make sure they understand that we are talking about a bank-wire transfer and not just exchange money over the desk in an office. This time she also gave an example stating we would like to transfer a specific amount and wondered how much that would be in bath. The result was exactly matching the currency rate that we had been given before, so now we just simply had to believe it. The transfer fee was said to be at 0.25% which result in a huge fee if a big transfer is made and that also did not rime well with the information we got before. We called again to talk to someone else and got told that it is true that there is a fee of 0.25% on the amount transferred, however the fee is never less than 250 bath or higher than 500 bath. The question remains how the small amount I had previously transferred could end up having a transfer fee of 610 bath. That we have to investigate on Monday. Perhaps the truth is that there are never rules without exceptions. I feel that I want to know what the deal is in this case and to just sit and nod my head without getting the pieces of the puzzle fit together will not work for me.
Now I will end this evening by enjoying a cup of to sweet coffee and maybe watch a movie. Tomorrow it is time for tennis again.
Have a nice weekend!
We Got The Bike
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Thursday, September 17, 2009
Today the bike had arrived to the post office in Nathon. After I had finished some work at home we took off to Nathon. The weather was sunny as it been most of the days. In the night we have heard a little thunder but only small and short showers been falling at some few occasions last week. The road along the west side of Koh Samui feels long and very boring to drive on when you just use it as a transport path. Along this side there were road works being carried out as well as on the east coast. It did not appear to be any widening of the road here. They were making a concrete trench at the side of the road in order to transport large masses of rain water. Roads all over the island are really being improved and it all happening very fast. Here they had already made a long stretch since I last drove by. The work seems to be very efficient.
When we arrived at the post office everything went smooth and quick. We just had to go into a larger room behind the normal delivery and sign a paper, then everything were set. I rolled the motorbike out off the building and Nui started it without any problem. We took off and after only a few hundred meters it stops. Not a single drop of petrol left. Talk about giving us an empty tank. Nui stayed by the side of the road with the bike at the entrance to the parking lot where people have to wait with their cars to go on the ferry in Nathon. I went to the nearest gas station to get some petrol. I asked a guy who worked at the gas station if they had any empty bottles that we could fill but they did not have any he said. From there I took a walk to the nearest convenience store and bought a bottle of water. I went by foot only because it is a one-way street and if I had gone by bike I had to go around the complete Nathon town. I did not know that there was no store nearby so I had to go a long way. When I came in to the gas station again I empty my water bottle and asked them to fill it. The girl that I gave the bottle to took it and walked away to a table some distance away where she threw my bottle and picked up two other plastic bottles. I got surprised since they just minutes ago told me they did not have any bottles and I had to go get new ones. Now they apparently had bottles and I asked if the one I had was not good enough. She said that she knew that the bottles she took had enough space to fill up 40 bath of gasoline. She fills them up and also managed to spill all over the bottles so they were completely soaked in petrol. I went back to Nui and as soon as I started to empty the fuel into motorbike a drunken Thai guy popped up from nowhere and he really stank of alcohol. He wanted to shake hands and so we did. It seemed like he was trying to ask Nui if we knew each other. He did not really get the grip about the situation when I arrived and began to fill petrol in her motorbike. We shook hands a few times more and he was alert to make sure that we tighten the fuel cap securely before he swerved off to a small group of men who sat across the road. Now the time had been running away very quickly again and I was a little bit irritated about having to deal with seemingly unnecessary things, but now we were ready to go home. Nui felt more confident on the automatic bike so I drove the new one. I must say that automatic motorbikes are much more comfortable and they feel more stable in some way. The advantage of buying a Honda Wave or another like that is that they go km after km without having any serious problem while the life span of an automatic bike is more limited if I have understood correctly. But to build a sidecar and attach to an automatic bike I really do not knew if it is works ok. With a side car you do not drive very fast and the guys who make sidecars know exactly how to attach the sidecar to motorbike the best way on a Honda Wave.
When we passed the shop where we bought the computer table and office chair we stopped and told them that it was not possible to adjust the height of the seat on the chair that we bought. The air just goes out all the time. They said that they would come home to us in the evening and if they could not fix it they would replace it, which sounded good but they did never show up. I guess they will come in the next few days and it will be nice not having to sit on pillows to escape the feeling of being a child. There are much more convenient to reach the desired height.
Full Throttle
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Oh, today the time just flew away. I worked a bit this morning but it I got interrupted and was not able to do that much. I had to go get water from the store but the store we usually get our water from was closed so we had to go to another place. Nui remembered that we were out of detergent so we went to 7-Eleven and bought that too. When we had been home for a while my stomach started to beg for food and I discovered that we did not have any chicken. Full speed off to Chaweng to buy new chicken. For a few days ago I listened to a couple of speakers at the Big C, which despite the cheap price tag actually sounded ok. Now, I thought it would be fun to see what is to be found elsewhere, so we went to Tesco, but began to visit the store Home Pro to see what they had something to offer in terms of speakers. Here there were other brands than what the supermarkets offer. I did not want to spend a long time here because we had other things to do, so I asked directly what their best system were and if I could listen to it. Of course, I could. It was a Yamaha system and I got to listen to a rock track. The sound was pretty ok. They had a set including two floor speakers, two satellite speakers and a center unit, no subwoofer. The price for this was 35 000 bath, approximately three times more than the speaker system I tested in Big C. I noticed that he had activated a subwoofer that was not included in the price and I wanted to listen without the sub, and suddenly the sound picture became lame. Hardly no bass at all, as if something broke. I asked the guy who showed me the speakers to gain the base frequencies and he threw in maximum base and it was slightly better but very weak. To make an acceptable comparison between these two speaker systems I have to bring my own music and compare the same song on both systems. Including the subwoofer the price was approximately 48 000 bath so I am very curious to see what the real difference between the speakers that they have at Big C, and this Yamaha system is. The price difference is quite big and that the Yamaha receiver gave an impression to be of better quality but that means less when it is the sound that counts. As soon as I get some time I will go off and make a proper comparison.
After that we drove to Macro and bought 3 kilograms chicken fillets that should be enough for 4-5 days. When we passed the fish section I thought be better buy some since we have not been eating fish in a long time, we mainly feed on chicken all week long. We looked around and picked out two kinds of fish that we bought, two smaller ones and one a little bigger. Both were cheap, less than 50 baht / kg which by a little reflection is very cheap. There were also more expensive fishes but most were larger and we do not have that much space in our small freezer. I think it is exciting to try different kinds of fish so the next time we will buy a fish type that was about the same size but which cost around 150 bath/ kilo. Interesting to see if the taste is much better. Today we had one of the two smaller fishes and it tasted really good. If I remember correctly the name was "Pla Nin" and I think it only cost as little as 34 bath/ kilo. I thought it was too small, about 20 cm and fairly flat, but Nui wanted me to taste it and as I wrote it was tasty, but there is not that much meat on them, but on the other hand those are crazy cheap. It was good to get some variety from the chicken and after I came home from the gym, I also ate half a dragon fruit that I have not been eating for a long time.
The time was running so fast that Nui did not have the time to call and check it the motorbike had arrived to Samui. Earlier in the day she tried but could not get the any contact with the mobile network in Bangkok. I think we will go to Nathon tomorrow and pick up the bike.
What Happened With The Electric?
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Power cuts are a phenomenon that is not too unusual on our paradise island and those power cuts often occur without any bad weather and I do not have a clue what the reasons may be. This morning we woke up late. I went to bed at 4 last night after I finished some further installations on the computer and then I had so much in my head that I could not sleep until 6 in the morning and just before I fell asleep I thought about whether I would work instead but I realized that I, despite my insomnia, would not be able to do anything good. When I woke up just before 11 it was extremely hot and the fan was switched off. Maybe Nui had put the timer on. I better get up and work I thought, but discovered that there was a power failure which makes it difficult to work. Outside there were some men that was about to build a road bump which might be a good thing to do since many people tend to drive really fast on the little road.
The blackout proved to be because of the beautiful palm tree that has grown in a leaning position out over the road. Now it had become too heavy and it had started to lean against the power lines. Probably they turned off the electricity before any accident happened.
Instead of sitting and staring into a wall, which makes me crazy, I went to the beach myself. Nui was lazy and I had already had enough of the boredom. I went to Thong Takian which is one of my favorites. This Monday it was extremely quiet on the beach even though it was midday. The tide had also done the shallow beach super shallow and I walked far out in the water. The water was not crystal clear but quite lovely nonetheless. Because it is shallow water near shore it gets really hot as it crosses the border to lukewarm. A little further out it feels almost cold after you waded through the hot water. I stayed in the water for 15 minutes or so and then I went home. The electricity was still off and we decided to go down and see if there were many people on the little road leading to Hin Ta Hin Yai. It was pretty quiet there, Nui have been curious to know because it might be a good place to sell burgers. We went on down to the wonderful land we so often visit only to relax. Today we found out that the municipal building that is the only building that is nearby actually are manned around the clock, and therefore we could now erase the fact of worrying about a higher risk of burglary because the site lies in a desolated area. On the lot and all around there were lots of buffalos with their calves carefully watching our moves.
When drove around today I saw that there were people who worked with opening up the wells along the road in the south of Lamai on the way to Hin Ta Hin Yai. I hope that they will arrange for new ones because these are not ordinary wells but concrete chunks with a few tubes in to lead the water way. These blocks are not very safe to drive on since some are placed to low while others to high. Not only that, but the shape of them are made in a strange way making only that I big danger. Now they had just started the work so it was not possible to see what they would do precisely but I cannot think of anything else than that they will improve the road.
When we got home the nice palm were cut down and lay along the road. The electricity was back as well as the contact with the outside world.
The motorbike had not arrived today. Nui phoned her brother in Bangkok and he checked the system and said that it did not arrive yet. It is not the slightest bit of hurry but just as good to pick it up as soon as it arrives.
Been Looking At Land And Had Computer Problems
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Monday, September 14, 2009
 
Monday and a new week. The weekend was not really the weekend as I expected. My evil computer started to mess with me again and I had enough. I decided to do the classic command “format C”. It is a laptop and to restore the hard drive to factory settings takes over 4 hours. Unbelievable. After that being done it is time to start installing all the programs you need. It went ok and I have already installed pretty much everything except the music programs that takes a while to fix. Surprising that computers can go nuts and suddenly be ok again. It was not so long ago that I was about to reformat the computer when it after two days if messing around with me suddenly became normal again. I have a problem with my web browser which suddenly stops functioning. I found out that all other programs that are working through the Internet did not have any problem at all. The problem is not the firewall or anything else like that. Very funny but I have read about others who have similar problems.
While I installed and formatted I had time to read a little science and learn about both how to produce stem cells in other ways than by taking the fetal stem cells and also about ants unique collaboration within their super-communities. I had no idea that for example the leaf cutting ants had such an advanced society and that old ants perform the dangerous work since they do not have as long to live as the young and that they only use the leaves to produce a form of fertilizer for their fungus cultivation. There were a lot of new things that I found very fascinating. Then I had time between the installations to look at some Thai television. We saw a show where they strapped a guy in an execution chair and then attached rubber bands across his face while he should try to answer questions. It was actually really fun at time. Normally, I do not look much on TV and Thai soap operas are not my favorites and those have a big part of the timetables. We also looked at a little hidden camera which was fun as well. A celebrity girl who devotes much of her time to help dogs and donates food to the temples where people left dogs they do not want any more. As she visited a temple which had 600 dogs, two boys came to leave a dog. The girl told them to be responsible and not leave the dog here and the guys argued a bit and said that the dog has previously been white but now when it got older it turned black and that they did not want a black dog. Pretty funny argument. The girl literally lifted the big dog and dropped it into the arms of one of the guys and told them to leave. The guys took off but stopped after a few meters and released the dog and took off while the girl just could not do anything. She thought it was more fun when she knew she had been fooled.
Yesterday we went looking at a piece of land. The land was in Taling Ngam and was at only 200 square meters and when we arrived we also noticed that the plot was wedge-shaped which made the land feel even smaller. It is always good to look at different lands in different places so it did not feel it was a waste of time even if we did not find it interesting. The truth is that the more places we look at, the more we like the relatively large piece of land that we have been thinking about for a long time. Just by looking at other lands we realize even more that we really found a great piece of land. Now that the bath has become cheaper again after being very expensive compared with the Swedish crown, it will probably become the ultimate timing to transfer money to the optimal exchange rate when we decide to buy.
The day before yesterday I was playing tennis. Last Saturday I did not have time so it was a really longed tennis hour. The weather could hardly have been better either. After a hot sunny day the sky got filled with clouds while I went off to the tennis court and it was mostly cloudy during that hour we played, which makes it a lot more comfortable compared to play in the sun. When I got home I saw that our neighbor buffalo had a gang of birds who was sat and chatted on his back. They did not really felt like being on picture and when I raised the camera most of them flew away but some courageous ones stayed.
Tomorrow it is possible that our motorbike arriving from Bangkok. It would take about five days so we estimated that it would be here at the beginning of the week so it will be exciting to see. We will go to the post office here in Lamai and see if they can ask if there is a motor bike waiting for us in Nathon or if we have to wait a little more.
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