it can get cold in the northern provinces, Chiang Mai, Udon Thani... and have seen pics of villagers wearing jackets, but I have never seen, neither in the city nor countryside, any kind of heating device in use at home or for sale at the store. There are laundromats with clothes dryers. There are also pizza restaurants and bakeries with ovens, but have never heard or seen of an oven at home. BBQ pits are common, both elaborate ones, and small simple ones as the locals use them for cooking, but outdoors only. Usually wood brickes is sold at the stores. This last part is popular and you can see folks BBQ on the side of the road selling BBQ chicken, pork, etc. Even I have a small one, but never for heating.
adjusting from a working life to retirement can take a year or two. I call it "recovering from work", but slowly one realizes there are no deadlines, impatient customers, unreasonable bosses, etc. It's not hard to let go of the routine and even one's own expectations. The reality sets in... we are free till Kingdom comes.
I regret I have no experience or know about dehumidifiers. In the rainy season, we could not hang clothes to dry outside, so we had to hang them indoors in a clothes rack and have a fan blow on them overnight. The monsoon lasts nearly 6 months and one needs air circulation in spite of humidity.
same here. I thought I'd need so many things I had back home, but the reality was that it was all an illusion. We can live and be happy just as the common folk live here. There is one thing I miss dearly... Fritos Doritos!
I lived in downtown BKK in a common apt bld. It had air con, which I used to cool down the studio, then used the fan for the evening. After a few months, my books edges got moldy and also noticed green mold on the side of the studio's built in clothes closet. I hear if one keeps the air con on
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it helps out, but I did not want to go thru the expense. Two years later, moved south to Phuket, and the prob here was worse. I do not know how to quantify humidity but after opening and closing the fridge door under normal usage, there is lots of ice forming on the freezer and got to manually defrost every 5-6 days, and the water collected is about half a gallon. I tell my friends humidity approaches 100%. I sweat a lot, even sitting in the living room, fan blowing on me. Shower twice daily. Sounds terrible but I do not want to face a Norh American winter (I used to snow ski, but those days are past me).
starting a new life is also a door to discovery. I personally found out that after decades of playing guitar and not being good at it, am a better pianist and now use an electronic grand piano that cost me less than my best guitar. Same with painting. For decades struggled with watercolor, yet after switching to acrylics, I can paint what I could never do before. Just about all the topics I want to read about are online these days, and since am getting older and my eye vision is slowly failing, guess what? I can adjust the font size on the computer for easy reading. Enjoy your happy wandering!
Besides the usual two suitcases, I had a friend bring me a third one with my favorite books to read: English lit, novels, poetry, investment, computer, etc. Within two years of having a new life, I had read none, and most got moldy and the paped yellowed out because of moisture. Had to throw away most. Wortless effort. Leather belts, shoes, boots, and nice jacket also got moldy and ecky. Only bring totally irreplaceable items. Not things one can buy at any store, as this is a modern civilization. We have everything. Often at a fraction of the cost.
