As I've mentioned previously the landlord wants me to buy the 4 rai and house. He keeps pumping the value of the 'orchard' and water supplies as good points.

Now that I've had some time to get my feet on the ground, STS, I wonder how he considers this an orchard. Yes, there are a variety of fruit trees but nothing commercially viable. There are 4 or 5 trees producing jack fruit, so what.

Additionally there are two trees starting to show chinese apple and there are 3 or 4 mature lon gon (sp?) trees and some bananas.

The rest is a mish mash of juvenile to seedling fruit trees. Mangosteen, more jackfruit and more bananas and lon gon. None of which are anywhere near fruit bearing age.



Oh, yeah a few decrepit coconut palm that are about ready to die. This 'orchard' was planted with the idea of driving the price of the house and land north of 1MM baht obviously.

The one decent feature of this piece of property is an old outbuilding with an old fashioned toilet and a lockable storage room. It has a nice open area that could make a decent woodworking shop or a pig sty.



Now that might be of interest eventually.

The 'orchard' is fully irrigated with a sprinkler for each of the trees so that's Ok but nothing earthshattering.

One possibility is to rip out all the fruit, grade it and plant something that is cash generating, makua, dragon fruit come to mind.

Of course all his family are nearby and keep stopping in to ask how we are doing and if we're happy and when are we going to buy. This is bound to go on for the year I've agreed to on the lease.

Like I mentioned we're really just getting our feet on the ground and finding out a lot about the area. Although the missus is from the village, she has lived and worked in Bangers for 10 years or so. Already I've looked at a couple of pieces of property, just to get an idea of what land is worth in the area. Two stand out that could be worthwhile if I was interested right now.

The first is a mangosteen orchard I've previously mentioned. Complete with Thai style 'house' (big cement leanto), water and it is fenced. 10 - 12 rai for 600K. The sale being forced by the bank.

Another we looked at the other day was 24 rai of Mangosteen and Durian, also fully irrigated with a decent house and water. No electric (minimal solar and a genset to run the irrigation pumps.) and its about 2 Klics from the main road, would cost a heap to get electric in. This one would also demand a big strong 4 wd to get to. Price 800K, again bank wants their money.

I do believe there will be a lot more sooner rather than later. Seems the bank is more than willing to lend cash for a new pickup with the land as colateral. Bangkok Bank will have lots of land pretty soon. With the dry weather predicted for the next year the fruit business doesn't look good unless you have a source for water.

Speaking of Bangkok Bank, what an idiot outfit. More later.

E. G.