The next step after finding your favorite fabric by visiting Chiangmai Fai Thong and selecting your buttons at U-Raiwun Shop is, of course selecting a tailor. I had three shirts of my carefully selected fabric made at Fashion King, 89/2 Room G, 113-114 Kalae Food and Shopping Center, Chang Klan Road, Chiang Mai, 50100. This was not a good experience. I provide exact models of the size and shape of the shirts I wanted and the tailors could not follow a simple pattern.
The first shirt I made was of a nice sweater like material. The owners complained that the material was “stretchy” and difficult to sew. The tailors actually sowed the buttons on backwards and tried to convince me it was more fashionable because the name of the buttons could be visable if backwards. Even though I provided an exact pattern, the shirt came back looking like a robe, it was at least three to four inches too wide in the shoulders and body. The owners tried to convince me it was fine!
I also provided an exact model of a perfect fitting long sleeve shirt and a beautiful weave from the villages outside of Chiang Mai. The shirt came back a bit wide in the shoulders, but that was OK. However, the sleeves were about 3 inches too long! At this point I became a bit exasperated and asked the owners why the did not check the shirts against the models I gave time, and they just argued with me, repeatedly. It too two more attempts to get the sleeves correct!
Finally, after many days, I got the shirts “almost right” but not the tailored fit I was expecting. The going price to make a shirt in Chiang Mai is around 400 Baht. You can get them cheaper if you bargain, but since I was asking and hoping for quality, I paid Fashion King 500 Baht per shirt. So, I paid 25% more than others tailors were asking, and found the Fashion King tailors could not follow a simple model without making excuses and complaining.
I saw many customers in Fashion King. Most of them were tourists in a hurry. My experience is that these tailors who cater to tourists do not really care about quality because the tourist are off to another city and they can’t really take the goods back very easily. By the way, this is true for many tailors and shoe makers in Thailand; so beware!
To make a long story short, I do not recommend Fashion King in the Kalae Shopping Center. Their tailors could not follow a simple pattern and the owners were more concerned about making their tailors happy than the quality of my clothes.
After you have selected some nice Northern Thai (Lanna) village fabrics from Chiangmai Fai Thong you need to pick out some buttons. This can be challenging, so I recommend you go to a small shop on the second floor of Warorot Market called U-Raiwan. This is a very small shop with a very large selection of buttons (buttons in Thai are called: kradoom).
I have been enjoying taking the best Norther Thai cotton fabrics I can find and converting them into shirts. Finding a nice fabric job can be difficult if you do not speak Thai and only have a few days in Chiang Mai. So, I recommend you visit Chaing Mai Fai Thong, 39/2 Kuang Men Road, Soi 2, Chiang Moi, Chiang Mai, 50300. You can phone them if you get lost, in Chiang Mai phone 053233419. They are open Monday thru Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM. Email, faithong.th@gmail.com The building has many floors with unairconditioned rooms of fabric, so best to come early morning when it is cool in the building.
If you are interested in tribal art, stop by and visit Rare Earth Tribal Art, Room 2, 2nd Floor, Night Bazaar, Changklan Road, Chiang Mai 50100. Rare Earth features antique textiles, ethnic custumes, old civer ornaments, ancient beads, and other rare objects of beauty. Rare Earth is one of the oldest and most reliable tribal arts shops in Chiang Mai.
Earlier we posted Lamphun Botanical Garden and Terracotta Arts and provided an early peek into this very large project, expected to be completed in 5 years. Here is a map of the general area in Lamphun for Suan Mai Thai (Lamphun Botanical Gardens and Terracotta Arts).
Folks in Lamphun, Thailand are developing a botanical garden on 150 rai (60.7 acres) of land. The project, still under development, features trees, flowers, plants and herbs from all over Thailand in a setting of traditional Khmer motifs cast in Lamphun terracotta. Here is a “first look” YouTube video.
We have stay at a number of places based on reviews on Trip Advisor in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai. In almost every case, the ratings and reviews on Trip Advisor did not resemble the actual property. In addition, when we submit accurate, factual reviews to Trip Advisor, they are not published.
Trip Advisor is simply a fraud. Most of the reviews are fraudulent designed by property owners to boost their ratings. The ratings have become so useless because of this fraud, that Trip Advisor should be classified as a fraudulent web site. You cannot trust anything you read there.
Making matters worse, property owners and managers manipulate Trip Advisor as a part of their normal business operations, working hard to inflate their ratings by posting fraudulent reviews and encouraging their friends and employees to do the same.
Recently we stayed at two properties in Chiang Mai where the mattresses were so bad, worse than any we have seen. When I complained to the manager of the Sira Boutique Hotel, his first reply was “we are highly rated on Trip Advisor.” He seemed to imply that my complaint was not valid because of his Trip Advisor ratings. Curious, I looked at all the Sira Boutique Hotel ratings and found that almost all of them were written by “people” who had created an account for the purpose of posting only one review. This is a certain indicator of review fraud.
When I posted out to Trip Advisor their review fraud I was surprised to see that instead of acting on my complaint of review fraud, they simply deleted my factual reviews. The simple fact of the matter is that Trip Advisor is a fraud. Be very careful when you pick a Chiang Mai hotel or resort based on reviews on Trip Advisor.
Today we took a visit to Sinativa Spa, 22/1 Nimmanhaemin Road, Soi 9, T. Suthep A. Muang, Chiangmai, Thailand 50200, Tel. 053 217 928, Mobile : 086 659 2545. to try their herbal steam treatment. Unfortunately, this spa was simply dirty and unclean. We found the environment not healthy.
As we all know, mold is a very bad for the body, especially when we breath it in steam. The bath towels were moldy. I think the spa employess wash them and dry them outside in the humid air because each bath towel I used smelled of mold.
That alone is bad, but the herbal steam room was also very moldy. In fact, the thermometer on the wall was covered in fresh moldy slime. I could feel the mold on the walls. The staff at Sinative boasts of more than 15 herbs in their Thai herbal steam, but we found 15 herbs in the steam mixed with dangerous mold spores.
There are other problems with the Sinative Spa Club, but we don’t want to go into any further details because the mold problem was bad enough. I could not believe a spa is managed or owned by anyone who does not keep their spa clean and free of slimy mold.
I have been staying at the Holiday Inn Chiang Mai, 318/1 Chiang Mai-Lamphun Rd., Chiang Mai, 50000, Thailand, Hotel Front Desk: 66-53-275300 and Hotel Fax: 66-53-275299, for over a month. The Holiday Inn Chiang Mai, formerly a Westin and then a Sheraton, is a super value for the money.
Currently, I am booked at an amazing off season rate of 1360 THB per night using ThaiHotels.com as my discount agent. This is a great deal for a true four star property in Chiang Mai. Highly recommended.
However, we do not recommend using the Internet at the Holiday Inn Chiang Mai, it is both expensive and unreliable.
Recently someone asked about business in Thailand. Here is my first post on this challenging topic:
First of all, as background information, I learned the Thai alphabet (script with 44 consonants and 32 vowels) nearly 20 years ago, so I have have a pretty decent foundation for the Thai language compared to most foreigners visting or working in Thailand. I can read (slowly) and speak better than 99.99+ percent of all foreigners in Thailand. For this reason, I thought it was ”the right thing to do” to redirect my career to a “new challenge” in the business climate of Thailand as I continue to improve my foreign language skills. I wanted to help Thailand progress in IT and IT security, so where else would I go but where I have second language skills?
This was no small decision as you can imagine. Your career and life changes quite dramatically when you give up a long established consulting practice in the US and dive into business in a foreign land, seeking a new challenge. I can frankly tell you that it is more difficult to do business in Thailand (as a foreigner) than I expected, for a number of reasons. Here is my first off-topic post on this topic.
First of all, it is not legal for foreigners to directly own land in Thailand. Foreigners can ”own” land using a variety of legal loopholes, proxy owners and shell companies; but all of this is risky and not advised. Many foreigners lose a lot of money coming to Thailand and attempting to buy land via various “structures”. Some get lucky, but the entire process of foreigners buying and selling land is quite risky and not recommended.
Foreigners can legally own condominiums, under certain conditions, but this “foreign market” results in inflated prices for condos in Thailand that are traded in an “artificial market place” designed for foreigners. Condos in Bangkok and major resort areas that are up-to-par with condos in the US can easily cost more than condos in major cities in the US. Hence, the cost of living in Thailand is not as economical as some might believe when you visit Thailand as a tourist.
Second, business in Thailand can best be described as protectionism with discrimination where the government has placed many barriers to entry to foreigners working and competing in Thailand. Every foreigner must have a work permit and these work permits are expensive and time consuming to maintain. If you own a business you must pay high professional service fees for “auditors” to perform annual and semiannual audits regardless of how much income you have (including zero). Firms in Thailand charge thousands of dollars for these ”audits”.
Third, if you operate a business in Thailand, you must have a place of business (you cannot legally work from your condo you bought at high prices!), so you are forced, by law, to lease office space. Foreigners from the US, for example, must be paid a minimum of 50,000 Thai Baht per month, so the government will take 10 percent of that each month as their share of tax withholdings. Startups with no income simply pay income taxes against their personal savings to comply with the law. Therefore, to start a company and maintain the business in Thailand, you are required to pay significant startup, monthly, semi-annual and annual fees, permits, tax, leases, visas, etc.
Forth, generating incoming revenue in Thailand can be quite difficult in a climate of both protectionism and discrimination. In Thailand, it is easy when you are spending money. This is the ”Land of Smiles” that tourists see and experience. However, when you are legally permitted to work in Thailand and trying to generate in-country income, you cannot help but notice the protectionism and discrimination against foreigners working and living here. Many foreigners working in Thailand just “give up” because the barriers to business success are quite high.
Fifth, on top of the challenges of protectionism/discrimination regarding foreigners and foreign investments, which I have only just scratched the surface here, is the overall global business slowdown combined with a climate of political instability which I am sure you have seen in the news. Thailand has seen 18 coups since 1932. Currently, Thailand is under a State-of-Emergency which negatively impacts business even more. Sound challenging?
Most people who live and work in Thailand have the opinion that it is far better to enjoy being a tourist here. Working in Thailand is very difficult for many reasons. Being a tourist in Thailand is completely different than working here. When you are a tourist, foreign currently flows from you into Thailand, so life in Thailand as a tourist is fun and friendly, hence the “Land of Smiles” you have heard about or experienced. However, when you are working in Thailand and trying to generate income from Thailand versus bringing in foreign currency, you don’t see the “Land of Smiles” quite the same anymore.
Without getting into too many details in this post, I can simply say that a foreigner doing business in Thailand experiences both protectionism and discrimination. I came to Thailand hoping to contribute my experience to help the Kingdom. However, sometimes it feels like foreigners are only welcome if you are working for free, giving seminars for free, and bringing in lots of foreign currency here.
In a future post on business in Thailand I will dive into some details on a number of topics that might be of interest to readers who will never have a chance to come and work here.
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