Wow -a lot has happened since my last update!

I am writing this from Hua Hin but I have just clocked 1900 kilometres in less than a week. First off I started in Bangkok and had a few nights out with the lads. Good crack and banter and I played some awesome pool. I think I went unbeaten in Gullivers for over 2 hours - that is impressive. Also, bumped into Paul McGinley there too.... he was in town for the Europe Vs Asia tournament - which Europe won convincingly.

After Bangkok myself and Nang headed up North. The plan was to find high quality furniture at reasonable prices and then suss out if it would be worth sending it home.

The first night we stayed in Tak. The hotel was fine but there was a lovely Spa right across the road - a real little Oasis! If I was going to open a Spa I would do it like this one..... all the rooms were beautifully decorated and the ambience was just right.

Anyway, back to the furniture business. We stopped at a few places along the road and saw some really nice garden furniture. Some of it was teak and it looked really good - very unique designs and definitely something that I think would sell well in Ireland.

We headed on up to Chiang Mai and went out to the night Bazaar. It was good to see all the nick nacks and the inflated prices. SOme of the markups were astonishing and people were still buying them. In the factory a light would go for 160 baht and in the stalls they were selling for 600 to 800 baht!!

Finding a decent hotel - or one that wasnt full - was a problem in Chiang Mai but eventually found one right beside the train station. The next day we headed off to find the main area where all the factories sell their goods. Its in a place called Hang Dong but it is not east to find.

On a certain strip of the road there is about 3 km of shops - unreal!  Some of the stuff is really nice stuff.  I bought some for personal use but I also think that it would sell well in Ireland.

The biggest issues are the shipping and taxes.  If I can work out a cost effective way of getting the stuff from Thailand to Ireland then I am sure it would be a viable business.  So the next few weeks I will be working on the business aspect - sourcing the goods is no problem at all now!

I think this will just be a little sideline job for now - I will definitely bring one container home myself anyway - sometime at the end of February and I will also have to start applying for jobs too!