Mae Sai 04/23/2010 Shopping

Everything went pretty mellow today. We got up about 6:30 AM and did the typical things including coffee and fruit.

The roof tile men came around 8:00 and we talked with them about raising the emergency roof drains and the threshold of the staircase. The boss man nodded his head up and down like he understood.

We then went to the tile supplier and picked out the tile for new bathroom and kitchen counters/cabinets. The cabinets will be made of tile except for the three sets of doors.

We were going to have cabinets made out of wood, like we have in California but we will not be the only folks living here so we decided to do them the Thai way. Daeng picked out a multicolored, cream/brown/blue tile for bathroom and a little different multicolor for kitchen.

We then moved on to HOME MART for the fixtures, doors, door jams, two white toilets with seats, white pedestal sink, toilet spray, two round ceiling lights, faucets for bathroom and kitchen sinks with shut off vales at walls and all hook-up materials.

We bought the extra toilet as the downstairs toilet has a crack in the tank. The new toilets are 6 liter (1.6 gal.) flush toilets as well. That will be much less strain on our cesspools for the toilets. The Thailand way is to use a cesspool for each toilet. Septic systems are just starting to be used in Thailand.

By the way, that is why you can't drink the water in most places of the world, except areas like the United States and Canada. A cesspool is just that, a covered pit or pool that the toilet dumps into; kind of like an outhouse with cover and a plug that a pumper truck can come and pump out the solids when needed.

Here, sink and shower drains go to the same drains that the rain goes. This is sometimes called "gray water" drain.

Remember, "DON'T DRINK THE WATER!"

We are not going to put a bathtub in now but are leaving room for it. It will be a free standing tub, like the old, ball footed, cast iron bathtubs from the 20's and 30's in America.

During the process we picked out some deluxe faucets but then Daeng said to just buy standard faucets as no one living in the house will appreciate the deluxe ones. It is really great that she is frugal.

Our total expense for all the above was 9705 THB (about $303 US dollars). We took everything on the motorbike except the two toilets sink, sink pedestal, two doors and jam set. Those will be delivered later today.

After we dropped off the faucets and things at home we went looking for a shop-vac. We found vacuum cleaners at Tesco/Lotus but no one knows were we could buy a "Shop-Vac" style wet/dry vacuum. When we ask we just got the glazed over looks in their eyes.

The delivery truck from HOME MART came about 4:00 PM but only brought one door and one set of door jams. TIT!!!

They did come back about an hour later with the other door and jams.

For some reason I was beat, maybe because I dis-like shopping. Daeng said she was going to the sauna at the Temple. I took a shower and went to bed watching "Oprah".

Daeng woke me up about 7;30 as Hlong, her sister-in-law, and a pick-up brought a load of stuff from here sister's place in Chiang Rai to sort, give away and store. With over 5,000 square feet of floor space we will probably will get lots of this type of thing. Maybe we should start a second hand store. I'm just kidding.

The above reminds me of the time, about 30 years ago, that I told my Mother we were going to sell the house and move. She asked me what we are going to do with all the stuff we had stored in boxes in the garage. I casually said: "We'll have a garage sale." Well, for the next couple of weeks she went out everyday and bought stuff for the "Garage Sale".

Yep, you guessed it, I paid movers to pack the stuff and move it.

All together we had a good day. Salad "maybe" will come tomorrow to start the bathroom. "Maybe" is synonymous with "Thailand".

The tile men will "maybe" finish laying the tile on the roof tomorrow and groat it on Sunday. Most folks work seven days a week in Thailand. Some local banks are even open.