Mae Sai 04/28/2010 More of a Typical Day

I got up around 5:00 AM, called my Mother in California to say hello and find out how she is doing. She is hanging in there at 88 years old. Her body have given out but her mind is still pretty good.

Then I called my friend Michael to wish him a happy birthday and see how Charlotte, his mate, is doing. I was lucky and got to talk with them both.

Daeng got up and helped me take the electrical wiring out of the bathroom area as the whole bathroom will be a wet room. The only electric will be the two ceiling lights and a light high over the sink. The switch and one plug will be up high by the far door, away from the shower area.

We then had some fruit and coffee together.

The re-model guys showed up and put the second bathroom door together, ready to pour in later today. Daeng and I took a little motorbike ride to the morning market, bought some vegetables and had breakfast. Soup, fried rice and fried vegetables with chicken was the fare of the morning.

When we got back the men were getting the kitchen counter top ready to pour with concrete. I watch with fear in my heart as the head man cut the tin with scissor that he borrowed from Daeng and then actually torn the corrugated metal using a 2"x 4" block of wood. He was holding down the board with his bare feet. Scary! TITwBT!

You can see the paper scissors he was using to cut the metal just below his left bare foot.

By the way, after he used the paper scissors that he borrowed to cut the metal I tried them on paper and I think they work even better. I'm amazed but this is "Amazing Thailand"!

Salad came by after lunch lunch time and we talked about how the water piping would run for the bathroom, the other 3 walls that he was going to build, the new rear door, moving the metal door upstairs to the roof and the electrician. I did feel better after we talked even though he kept saying, "Don't worry". When someone says: "Don't worry!" I worry.

We also set a time frame of 20 days as I know all the projects will run longer. That means the target completion date is May 18th. We will actually leave Mae Sai around May 29th.

The men seamed to be doing a good job putting in the re-bar for the counter top. We are going to hang out and watch the whole process.

After building the frame for the counter top and putting all the re-bar rod together, the boys started mixing cement. they filled the frame with about 3 1/2" of concrete and floated it off.

Then they carried buckets of mortar upstairs and poured in the other bathroom door. Yes, the new bathroom has two doors, one to enter from our suite and one to enter from the hall.

We finished, I say we because Daeng and I helped keep things clean, about 7:00 PM and called it a day. Daeng and I will clean up some more early in the morning.

We are starting to feel much better about this project.

Plumber/Electrician Water Heater Install

The electrician had removed the water heater from the old apartment on Sunday.  He was to busy to reinstall it in the new apartment then.  He said he would call Daeng when he could install it.

It was around 10:00 AM and he called

 and said that he and his assistant would be at the new apartment in about 10 minutes. 

 We put the rush on and made it before him.  

The jumped right into the work.  I felt a little uncomfortable as they kind of "bulled", the term I use, into the job.  The best I can describe the way they worked was like a new construction crew.  

Another way to describe the term "bulled" is to work like a bull in a china shop.  They did not worry about what was in their way or how much dirt they caused, they just did it.

My belief is "Always treat the customers home better than you would your own.  Always leave it cleaner than when you arrived.  Always remember you are working on the customers most valuable possession." 

They had to run about 40 feet of wire from the electrical entrance of the apartment to the bathroom.  Here they call it a water room. This apartment has dropped ceiling so they could run the wire over the dropped ceiling and it would look nice.  

No ground wire, just an anchor drilled into the masonry wall and the ground wire screwed into it.  

They hooked the new wire into the electric service where it enters the home live while standing on an aluminum ladder.  

When they got all done it looked pretty good and hot water came out of the shower head. Yeah!

The moving price was 300 TB but because of the extra wire it was 600 TB or about $18.00 USD.  Farangs, Westerners, always have to pay more anyway as Thai feel we have lots of money.  Now, compared to them, we do.

We were glad to get it done.  They also moved a wall fan but when we tried it the fan itself was bad.  Daeng took that to the fan repair shop and will know if it can be repaired tomorrow.