Our New Home in Mae Sai, Thailand 04/11/2010

Wow, we got a lot done here in the last two days. Yesterday, we moved from the Yeesun Guest House to our new place. All we moved were the four plastic containers that we have been storing clothes plus a few other things in when we are out of the country, along with our two suitcases and my back pack.

We hired Sai and his pick-up truck to make this small move. He picked us up at 9:00 AM. We loaded the stuff in his pick-up and headed over to Akoo’s Laundry to pick up the King Size foam mattress, a television and a TV stand that Tun & Hlong let us use. We were at the new place and unloaded by 10:15 AM. Sai charged us a 100 Baht ($3.00 USD).

We worked around the place for a few hours and the crew came to install the Satellite Dish so we can get English TV stations. They did a nice job but we won’t have television until they bring the control boxes and hard wire the Internet connections on Monday.

We did stop at the appliance place and bought a ductless air conditioning system to be installed, today. The one and a half ton system was 28,000 THB installed ($896 USD). We gave them 3000 Baht deposit and will pay the balance when installed.

Daeng was not felling well so we turned in early, like around 8:00 PM.

We slept okay but it was very hot in this concrete building! Also, this is one of the hottest times of the year here in Thailand.

Daeng said she still did not feel good but went to the market around 6:30 AM. She brought back melon, China pears, pineapple and sweet sticky rice with peanuts. China pears are like a cross between an apple and a pear. We eat and talked about the day.

The air conditioning guys and the electrician are both scheduled to come today. Thai folks work seven days a week; Sunday is just another day.

The air conditioning guys showed up right at 9:00 AM as scheduled. That is unusual in Thailand but is one of the reason we paid about 4000 Baht more than we could have at the “Cheap and Easy” place. They showed their professionalism right off by asking us how and where we wanted everything placed.

They checked with us for the exact placement of the inside unit and the outside condenser. We had them mount the outside condenser high on the wall so trucks or people would not run into it. This is also the first of a few that we will have installed and they will stack, kind of, over each other on each floor for the side rooms.

Just about the time they had the inside unit placed the electrician arrived. His job was to move the two hot water heaters, one from Daeng’s Mothers apartment and one from Daeng’s brother’s place. He had already been to their places and removed them. They don’t mind cool showers for a few weeks as it is now HOT here. If you take a shower in the afternoon even the cold water is warm.

He is also going to fix all the florescent lights and plugs as well as add electric receptacles on the roof and in the garage/outside cooking area.

I watched the AC guys and they did excellent work. If I could hire AC installers like them in California we would really be doing well. AC installed, system vacuum pumped, all wiring done, everything cleaned up and system started and tested.
It works perfectly! They even patched the holes the satellite installer made and completed the job in less than four hours. Yea, we have air conditioning for sleeping tonight.

The electrician worked all day to make everything work and put in the two new sets of plugs. He installed both hot water heaters as well. He had to replace several light fixtures. There are 27 florescent fixtures in the building.

Our friends Charlie and Jan came up from Chiang Rai and brought us a home warming gift, a set of Chinese Lions for keep the money inside and the bad people outside.

While they were here we heard a big crash and ran out front to see the first, for us, Songkron accident. A man was traveling east on our street and a bucket of water was thrown on him; he lost control of his motorbike which went down, crossed over the road hitting a girl on her motorbike traveling west.

She went down and was injured pretty bad as she did not have her helmet strapped on and when she went down her helmet came off and she hit her head on the pavement.

A rescue team came within 10 minutes and trucked her to a hospital.

After Jan and Charlie left we paid the electrician, 1,110 Baht for parts and 1,100 for labor, total 2,210 Baht ($69 USD) for a long days work.

We took a warm shower and dressed in a cool room. We then headed to Tesco/Lotus to buy bathroom tissue and a pillow. We had a little to eat and back home to sleep in a cool bedroom.

It was a good day, although not a typical day for Mae Sai.

I just wish Daeng felt better!