Reader question: Bring kitchen tools to Thailand or buy them there?

You can always take a second suitcase with you. The price depends on which airline you fly with.
Ask the company in advance if you can take these items with you. Take a photo of the suitcase in question with its contents.

Dear Gustav,

Here you can get a lot of kitchen tools! And also at very good prices. At Robinson, for example, a large part of the kitchen equipment is now at minus 50% and even more.
One thing I haven't found yet is an apple corer and a cheese slicer, but other than that I wouldn't know what you can't get here.
Taking everything with you costs a lot, at least by plane. Depending on which airline, each extra kilo costs above a certain weight. I have already heard 30 euros per kilo, but sometimes less, but it remains expensive. Send it by post! That will cost much less. And the post here in Thailand works very well.

Hi Gustavus,

I also like to cook.

Just take it with you.
You can buy a lot here for little, but the quality is correspondingly.
Not everything is bad, but you really have to look carefully at what you are buying, because in the Thai dictionary, “guarantee” is absolutely absent.
Good kitchen tools are also quite expensive here.
Now I'm talking about various kinds of knives and Japanese kitchen utensils and electrical things.

Bought a good wok in Rotterdam with an electric wok etc., all taken with me.
A world business and to go completely crazy.

Also had it that I had bought things before we moved and that the price here was one fifth.

Now we had 2 times a container, so that was easy to take with us..
The first is free of tax.

I think calculate kilos and buy sturdy boxes.
But don't you have a container??

successful.

LOUISE

Gustavus,

I was 2 kg overweight at Emirates and I had to pay € 90 from AMS to BKK.
So think before you leap.

Good luck with your retirement in Thailand, I've been here for a year now and I like it very much.

Greetings Nico

Dear Gustaaf, you say that you are going to live here if you emigrate, then you can import goods without having to pay tax. We had 12 cubic meters transported by boat for (then) 1200 euros from door to door, that is what we call it and our business where we were attached to, among other things, many kitchen items... By plane it seems to me that the options available to you are very limited...
Regards Peter.

In North Pattaya behind BigC is a large warehouse of several hundred square meters where nothing is sold other than kitchen equipment and very cheap, you will find everything there every week.

Dear Gustav,
I understand your question very well and I would like to advise you, what you do with it is up to you.

When I came to live in Thailand, one of my main requirements was: a decent, well-equipped kitchen, according to Western standards. This kitchen was built PERFECTLY by Thai people according to my homemade plans. As an amateur cook you prefer to work with good comfort.

It's true: in Thailand you can buy EVERYTHING and sometimes even cheaper than in your home country. But, there is one but: really good kitchen utensils, and I don't mean that aluminum junk they sell here, durable stainless steel; copper pots, cast iron stew pots…. just look for them and if you find these in Roi Et or nearby, see what they cost. Good kitchen utensils or other tools cost money, there is no escaping that. Just look for decent frying pans to use on an electric stove ... I work in my kitchen with 4 electric and two gas positions, built into a cooking island .... completely different pots and pans are needed for that.

A piece of advice: if you have good kitchen utensils, take them with you. What else are you going to do with it? Give it away and buy inferior material here instead? Your annoyance will be greater than the profit you made.

What NOT to bring: microwave or grill oven…. they have that here in good quality.
plates, bags, glasses ... have here in all shapes, colors ... other small kitchen tools.
: coffee machine
: bread maker
: friesex

What you DO take with you: good cutlery because here you have an abundance of "folding forks and spoons"
good knives and if you have it: a knife sludge machine ... here they kill your good knives in the shortest time.
if you want to cook electrically: good frying pans and cooking pots, especially a cast iron stew pot - pan.
: a decent hand blender
: electric carving knife
: refractory dishes (pirex) to use in the oven
: potato peeling knives, may seem ridiculous ( the one from Solingen with a wooden handle ) Take only a few with you because before you know it they will be gone!

Applicable work tools. A craftsman wants to work with well-trusted tools. Yes, you can buy screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, drills ... for a small price here ... good for one-time use. Chinese junk that you could possibly use to stick out the weeds in the garden. Do you have good professional tools: ship it and after arrival it is best to put it under lock and key and do not lend it out. They don't use it in an appropriate way, leave it where last used…. They can use a screwdriver as well as a chisel and stripping pliers to cut steel wire, wire cutters (made to cut copper) to pull nails out of the wood ... and so on.
Be sure to bring a series of good drills, especially good masonry drills (Piranha).

How do you get that here? Not to be done in a suitcase, unless, like an acquaintance, you want to carry all kinds of things with you for 10 years and, everyone you know who comes to visit here, want to bother to drag this or that for you.

I had this shipped. 4m³ and a weight of 300kg. My entire radio installation was also packaged in it. The company Windmill (Dutch), just search the internet, is an absolute must. I paid 800Euro (+/- 30.000THB) for the 4m³ and 300kg weighing shipment in a shared container. Self-packaged in sturdy cardboard boxes and sufficient protection material. Picked up at home in Belgium and delivered to home address in Thailand (550 km south of BKK) and this in 3 months time. Everything in perfect condition, no customs formalities to do, no import taxes to pay, even if it was not a move with a Thai. Windmill arranges all that itself. I can estimate the equivalent value of the content at about 800.000THB (mainly because of the radio amateur transmitter installation). So the equivalent value was dozens of times the shipping cost and I have my OWN TRUSTED quality stuff. No joy about the low price, which is long gone when the annoyance about the poor quality is still rampant.

Gustavus, I hope it has helped you in making your decision.

LS Lung addie