We are building a "small" place in Nakhom Pathom, just outside of Bangkok. Over the past 2-3 years, we've purchased 3 adjoining lots, all former rice paddy, from a lady who was hurting for cash.
The first lot is closest to the road and we filled it in and let settle for about a year. Then last year, we added another meter of fill in the general footprint for the house. Needless to say, it stayed high and dry throughout the flood. I give my wife all the credit for that idea. it was brilliant !!
The second lot has been a test of raising chicken, ducks, geese and fish. We dug a U-shaped channel around the lot and have about 500 catfish in there. They should be ready by the end of the year. We also tried a small garden, bt the ducks decimated it. We had some success in raising ducks and selling duck eggs. This lot did flood though, so we are going to add more fill sometime next year. We might plant a bunch of mango trees, as they seem to gve us a bumper crop from the other trees previously planted.
The third lot is still used as a rice paddy. The farmer pays us in rice for use of the land. We haven't decided what we will do with it. I'm happy, for now, to leave it as rice paddy.
Late last year, we decided to go with PD House as builders. We spent some time with them reviewing different designs as well as visiting several finished, or near finished, houses in the Bangkok area. One was identical to the model I was leaning towards. After seeing that one, I was sold on the design.
One of the things I like about their design is that the concrete pieces fit together with interlocking pieces. It's all pre-fab'd elsewhere and is then delivered to the site numbered. They they pretty much build it like an Erector set. There is some concrete poured on site, but that was mostly for the pilings and the ground floor.
Anyway, now that I'm past the 5 post minimum, I'll try to post some pics of the project.