Another Day - Mae Sai - Visit to Chom-nom

We have been working on the house with Mi everyday for the last twenty some days except for a little trip to see Chom-nom, a few days ago.

The old place is looking nice as the third floor of the small section of the house is now completed, everything painted and new drapes. 

When we say: "small section" or "little house" we are talking about the single shop house that we bought next to our double shop house and did a cut through joining the two together.  That is what gives us 8 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 inside kitchens, 1 outside cooking area, a laundry area, inside motorbike parking, an office or TV room, a huge front room of big house and small front room for little house.  We use the front room of the little house as an inside garage.

The front room of the "big house" is the sales area and ironing area of Tun's (Daeng's Brother) laundry.  He is open 7 days a week from 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM, seven days a week.  He does close for Songkran (Thai New Year) and Christmas.

Hopefully we will remove the fencing and red & white overhang from the front of the small house this coming week.  We think that will make it look much better from the front.

We also ordered new drapes for Boonrean's (Daeng's son) bedroom and the hall windows of the big section of the house.  They should be ready to be picked up Friday.

Our daily routine is up around 6:00 AM, trip to morning market for fried chicken, sticky rice, Pa Thong Ko (Thai Donut) and coffee.  Daeng buys fruit then and we eat It all day.  Pineapple is about 12 US cents a pound,  a bunch of 19-20 bananas are around forty-five cents and small watermelon are around 10 US cents. 

Here is a picture of a banana flower that is good to eat, also.  Daeng cuts it up and uses it in soup.  It tastes like chicken. Just kidding, Daeng says it tastes like a banana flower.

We then stop and workout for a half hour on the exercise equipment along the road, a block away from our home.  That brings us back to the house around 8:00 AM to meet Mi and get busy working. 

I have lost seventeen pounds since Mi started working with us last month.  We are working on the third floor and the temperature is above 105 degrees Fahrenheit.  We drink lots of water and just stay wet as the humidly is high, as well.

Sunday we did take a little trip to visit Chom-nom as he is being released from his incarceration on May 10th.  He says he wants to go back to try and finish the children's shelter in Ban AYO.  We are going to help him as long as he helps himself by staying clean. 

Staying clean in Thailand takes a little work as there are drugs every place and someone selling them.  We live in the "Golden Tranigle". You can buy a shot of rice whisky or a beer in almost every shop or 7-11.  Besides Opium, Yaba is a drug that is used widely here, also.

Most folks work to make money for their families.  If they take this pill called Yaba they can work longer, faster and are not hungry.  If they stop taking this methamphetamine drug all they do is go to sleep, called crashing.  They don't get sick like they do when they stop talking Opium type drugs and they haven't slept in a while, anyway. 

The person's mind says: "What wrong with this drug?  I can work harder, have more energy, I'm not hungry, can help my family more and I don't get sick when I stop using it.  The government must just be telling me it's bad to make money." 

What's not thought about is after using Yaba it abscesses the mind, takes over the body and kills the human spirit.  Unless you do the drug you do not what to do anything! 

There are other side effects involved also are episodes of violent behavior, paranoia, anxiety, confusion, and insomnia.  That is why they call it "Yaba" or "Crazy Medicine" in Thai.

Because huge quantities of this drug come across the border from Myanmar (Burma) we did get stopped at the check-point just south of town.  They did have us open the trunk and looked in one bag.  I told the officer in charge they should be using rubber gloves before touching other folks stuff.  He said they were just looking a little, what ever that meant, and told us to have a good day.

We stayed in Lampang at the Asia Lampang Hotel and had a good nights sleep.  There is a nice picture of the hotel sign in this story.  CLICK HERE  I was pretty tired from climbing the stairs working on the third floor.  I also must admit that my body is wearing out and my hips, knees and back get really sore and have some pain.

We had a nice Thai breakfast at the hotel, I added toast, and headed to the prison as visiting hours in the morning are from 9:00 to 11:30.  Chom-nom was looking well and said he will call us the day before his release so we can be sure of his date.

I did take a picture, on the prison grounds, as I don't see a camel and goats together very often.

To try and rehabilitate the inmates at this prison for drug addicts they teach the inmates how to grow plants and raise animals. 
The 80 Km drive from Lampang only took about an hour.  We had a little trouble finding the furniture store that we wanted to buy five pieces for the guest room.  I had been to this store many times but my mind is going.  I was only one street off but being close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and slow dancing. 

We had made arrangements with our friend, Brian, who lives in Chiang Mai, to deliver the things to us.  He has a pick-up truck and was making the 300 Km trip to Mae Sai immigrations on Tuesday. 

Well, after looking at the furniture we wanted for the last two year, when we arrived the one large piece (a wardrobe) had been sold last week.

It reminded me of a saying that goes something like: "The best laid plans of mice and men......."  We just looked at it as maybe it was a message that we really didn't need it.  We did buy the desk, mirror and one bed stand.  They all fit in the car we were renting. 

It was nice to spend the evening with Brian and his wife Noochy.  We left early in the morning, stopped at the hot springs on the way home and soaked our feet in the hot water. 

Back to work!  I like to work as doing things that look good and are useful make me feel I have accomplished something.

Onward through the fog into another day in paradise. 


Life is good!

Trip to Chiang Mai

Tuk-Tuk to NEW Bus Station and VIP Bus for the 2 hours and 40 minute trip to Chiang Mai. Then Tuk-Tuk ride to the guest house we had planned on staying in.

We found the Guest House was partially torn down so we went over to the "All-in-1" Guest house to spend the night.

On Monday we had to move as the guest house was already booked full. That was interesting as most of the other hotels and guest houses are still complaining of no business. We moved over to a nice, little, family owned place called "Phada's House" for 450 TB a night. Air conditioned, quiet, clean, sit down toilet and hot water; what else could a person need?

On Tuesday we rented a motorbike and drove to the north-east part of Chiang Mai to see our friends, Brian and Noochy. All thought they live in an area that does not show on our Gamin GPS Map, we found their house after two telephone calls.

Brian is in the jeweler business. His website is http://www.aajewel.com/. One of his specialties in un-treated Burma Rubies. Noochy has a sewing business that makes high quality clothing items ranging from hats to tie-dyed, long-john underwear.

After visiting a while the girls went shopping for hair products and us guys went for an lemonade.

The place we went for a lemonade was quite interesting. It was a 1971 International Harvester Bus set up on blocks. The engine had been removed and an air conditioning unit has been put in place of the engine.

To help keep the bus cool they also had water running over the roof of the bus and they cascading down over the sides of the bus. Thai ingenuity.

Later that day we also saw a sign for dental implants with the price of 36,000 TB (about $1,090 USD). It noted that the dentist is a UCLA graduated Dentist.

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand. Bangkok is first with about 12 million people. Chiang Mai is second with almost 1 million folks. According to http://www.asianinfo.org/ Chiang Mai is 49 times smaller than Bangkok.

I will add that it is two different worlds. All of the people in Thailand are very friendly but northern Thailand is still the friendliest.

The cost of food is a little higher here in Chiang Mai then it is were we live in Mae Sai. I would say maybe a third higher. Here is a menu to give you some idea of food costs in a local resturant. Remember 33 TB to the USD.

Daeng loves to shop in the outdoor fruit markets were she can buy apples for 15 US cents a pound and China Pears for 60 US cents a pound. Pineapple is around 20 to 30 US cents a pound, too.

The Thai girls, and some of the guys, like gold better than any other form of jewelry. Maybe because it is also used as a commodity. There is a gold shop on just about every corner. You can buy and sell gold in any of these shops.

They usually have a buy price and a sell price written on the wall so there is no question about what you will pay or what you can get if you sell. It does pay to watch the scale.

In this picture the price in Thai Baht per Baht of 96.2+ percent gold is 17,850. A Baht of gold is a hair over 15 grams.

Tomorrow we are on the plane to Bangkok and then on ward to the City of Pattaya.

Good Morning Mae Sai

Another morning in paradise. We got up and took our morning walk. this morning we walked down our little street and under the bridge that goes across the river to Myanmar (Burma). The other side of the river in back of us is Myanmar.

The border is watched closely by armed military. They stay very low profile but there are around.

We walked down the road a little and stopped to watch the concrete men empty a cement truck one bucket at a time.

Then onward to the little vegetarian restaurant we like to eat at when we walk on this side of the village.

After we ate we walked the long way back to our room, showered and took a nap.

When we got up we, yep you guessed it, we ate again. This time we had a BIG fish cooked with a very spicy sauce.

The rest of the day was nice as we just hung out walking, talking with folks and laughing.

We stopped by the Rudy processors and watch them separate rubies. They handle thousands of small rubies everyday sorting them into piles by quality an size.

I can't tell the difference between them at this stage but I'm told the difference in price between one pile and another is 20 times higher. These rubies are used to make jewelry and have to go through many more stages of cutting and polishing.

Another thing I am amazed at is the quantity of fruit that grows everyplace in Thailand. The fruit that Daeng is pointing to gets to be the size of a basketball.

We retired early as we had walked many kilometers today. We needed to walk to burn off all the food we had eaten.