Chiang Rai - Dentist, Ice Plant & FUN

We had a fun trip to the dentist in Chiang Rai, about 60 Km south of our home here in Mae Sai.  Why does "Fun" and "Dentist" not seem to go together correctly?

We left around 11:30 AM and stopped at the chicken place by our friend Peter's house.  Peter is from Australia and has retired here in Northern Thailand.  It is good for both of us to talk in English as there are only a few folks around this part of Thailand that can understand us.

We picked up the bar-be-cued chicken along with some stick rice and vegetables and eat together in Peter's patio.  Peter mentioned the new ice factory just a little ways from him.  It was a coincidental as Daeng's son, Boonreang, has stopped going to school about three weeks ago and is working part time at an ice factory.

After we said our goodbyes to Peter we drove around the corner and stopped at the new ice factory.  They are still building it but the lady knew of Daeng and showed us around a little.  From what I'm told Boonreang works on a team that provides ice for large events like marriages and funerals. 

They come in the late afternoon, get everything ready for the next day, sleep in a little house in front and then leave very early in the morning and set up the coolers and ice for the event.   The coolers are huge.  You can see the blue one behind Daeng in the picture above. After the event is over they clear everything, load it on the truck and bring it back.  It makes for a long, hard day but with a fun crew.

I'm happy that he is doing something constructive as I was very worried about him dropping out of school.  I explained to him that I did not like school when I was his age so I stopped going after High School and did okay working for a living.  We hope he can find a career that he likes.  I have found that if people like what they are doing they do well.

We also stopped at the little house in the front which Daeng kept calling the "Gift Shop".  I thought it was a shop you could buy gifts but what it really is a "Gift Shop"; that is a shop that makes gifts.  They make them here but don't sell anything retail.

The big project that was going on was the "bottle girls" were recycling small, glass bottles to be reused.  What they do is for several days they soak the bottles in big concrete tubs and then they, in an assemble line style, remove the labels and clean the bottles sparkly clean. 

I don't know what was going back into the bottles but they were all laughing and having fun.

After we said: "Good-Bye" we drove the rest of the way to Chiang Rai and checked into the Diamond Park Inn Hotel, right in town.  It is a nice hotel with plenty of safe, well lite parking and is close to the Night Bazaar and the dentist's office.

We took a little nap, showered and drove over to the dentist's office for Daeng's 6:00 PM appointment; yep, 6:00 PM on a Friday night.  For the last month or two, Daeng some times has been having a little pain from her back tooth.  She had some periodontal work done in this area a few years ago by this same dentist.

When the dentist came out to get her we all laughed because on Tuesday she sat next to Daeng on the plane from Bangkok but we did not recogniser her.  She said she laughed, inside, at us as Daeng and I were kidding about things in English and she speaks and understands English.  It is a small world!

After an x-ray and exam she stated that Daeng needs "Root Planning" on her back tooth.   We said okay and she gave Daeng a shot so she would not have any pain and proceeded to treat her.  I watched and it was a lot of work.  She also showed me part of what she removed. Daeng was in the chair for over 45 minutes to do the root planning.

When she was finished she showed us a book with some pictures to let us know exactly what she had done.  The pictures made everything understandable.

By the way, the total charge was 1,700 Thai Baht (about $56.00 US Dollars).  I'm very happy that Daeng could wait until we got here as I am sure it would have been hundreds of dollars in California.

Daeng felt pretty good so we went to the "Night Bazaar", eat some Thai food and split a home made ice cream, banana split.  By the way, here they just call "Thai Food" by the name of "food".

After a good nights sleep we met our Canadian friend, Charlie, at Jan's Coffee Shop. We had coffee and brought each other up to current speed with all our lives.  Jan is Charlie's girlfriend, as well.

We had a good drive back to Mae Sai and Daeng is playing Bingo with the neighborhood ladies while I'm writing this blog.

Life is Good!

Shopping for bedroom furniture

We had visited every furniture shop in our small town of Mae Sai without finding bedroom furniture that we liked. Daeng and I decided we would go south about 60 Km to Chiang Rai and see what we could find there.

Due to my knee surgery, about six weeks ago, we decided that Daeng would take her sister-in-law, Hlong, to Chiang Rai on her motorbike and I would take the bus. Hlong wanted to visit family there.

They left bout 7:00 AM and I had Kit, Daeng's nephew, dropped me off at the bus station around 11:00 AM. After we got gas in the bus, the 60 Km trip took about an hour and a half with stops. When I arrived I walked over to the Jansom Hotel and rented a room for us.

I called Daeng and she met me. We had a little lunch at the vegetarian place we like and started visiting furniture shops.

We visited about seven furniture stores. We saw some things we liked but nothing we were really crazy about. By six o'clock we were pretty tired so we called it quites, returned to hotel, showered and went to bed after a little food at the corner restaurant.

We got up around 7:00 AM and took the motorbike to Jan's Coffee shop by the bus station. We were happy to see her busy and in good spirits. We talked for a while and then went over to a huge furniture and electronics store that she recommended.

It was a big place and after spending several hours we found some bedroom furniture that we really liked. The only problem was there was one piece, a two door wardrobe, they had to order. We told them we would look at some more stores and come back if we wanted them to order it.

We went to three more shops and then came back to the big store. We gave them a deposit so they could order and deliver to Mae Sai in 18 days. We also bought a microwave oven which they delivered the next day.

We were beat after all the shopping so we called it a day and early to bed for the night.

The next morning we got up early and had toast and coffee at the hotel. Daeng put me on the bus and she headed home to Mae Sai on her motorbike.

I sat in the back of the bus with a little Thai boy and his Mother. At first, he was afraid of me as a farang (non-Thai) but after a while he started laughing at me and warmed up to me.

It started raining hard about half-way. Daeng called my on mobile phone to tell me she was going to hang out in a little town about half-way to Mae Sai.

When I got to Mae Sai bus station, Daeng's brother, Tun, picked me up with his motorbike in the poring rain. Yep, you guessed it, we both got soaked but it was a good trip.

THIS IS THAILAND!