Thailand uses the metric system as does most of the logical world. But the Thais have their own system of weights and measurements that may confuse the newcomer. One example of a Thai-specific unit of measurement is the baht.

     Of course we all know the baht as the Thai monetary unit. But like lots of money around the world, the baht originated as a unit of weight. Even today the baht (15 grams) is how gold is weighed in Thailand. If you like to wear a lot of 'bling' then you might buy your gold by the tamlung (4 baht or 60 grams). The baht is sometimes referred to as the tical (pronounced tickle). About 40 years ago, when I first arrived on these shores, prices were often given in ticals as well as baht. In the marketplace you might hear something like, "Please give me 5 ticals." That always brought a laugh.

     Those of us living here will need to become familiar with a number of Thai-specific units of measure. If we are going to rent or buy a house or condo we will need to know the size of the house or land we are interested in. Land area is always given in square (talang) wah. A wah is 2 metres, so a square wah is 4 square metres. A hundred square wah is one ngan and 4 ngan is one rai, a little less than half an acre.

     The price of land is always quoted by how much it is per square wah. When you ask the price of a piece of land the answer will be something like, "That's 100 talang wah at 20,000 baht." You do the math. Just to complicate things, the size of the insides of condos and houses are given in square metres. Go figure.

     Lumber is sold by the sawk, which is the same as our ancient 'cubit', the distance between your elbow and the tip of you middle finger (standardised to almost 50 centimetres). We buy things at the market in kilos but smaller amounts are sold in kheet, one tenth of a kilo or 100 grams. Race horse tracks are measured in sen. A typical race of 25 sen is one kilometre. The horses I bet on never seem to run fast enough however the distance is quoted. Rice is sometimes measured in kwian, the two-wheeled ox cart (2000 litres). Litre (leet), kilogram (kilo), metre (met), centimetre (centimet), and kilometre (kilomet) are all common Thai words and common units of measurement.

     But my favorite Thai unit of measure is the ongkhoolee. The onghkoolee is the distance from the tip of your index finger to the first joint. It is named after the ancient villain of Buddhist stories, Ongkhuleeman, the mass murderer who kept the severed fingers of his victims hanging around his neck and who eventually was enlightened by the Buddha. Why is the ongkhulee important? It is how you measure the depth of the water in the rice pot when steaming rice (regular pot or rice cooker, it doesn't matter). Pour in water until you can touch the rice on the bottom with the tip of your index finger and the water comes up to your first joint, one ongkulee. With a little experimentation and variation even big farang fingers will give you perfect rice every time.

For a good measurement conversion table try:
www.convert-me.com
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