Church at Childlife

We got up early, about 6:00 AM, had coffee and Pa Thong Ko at the Bann Pa Meat morning market. It was a little overcast but you could see the mountains from our bedroom window.

By the time we got to Childlife the sun was starting to come through the clouds. When we arrived we could hear someone

playing the drums in the worship area. Yep, it was Pastor Lota.

We talked to some of the kids as we sat around the table outside the building that we would meet in. They are a great bunch of kids. It is always wonderful to spend time with them. They are also growing up very fast.

The church service was a happy, fun service as Pastor Lota has lots of energy and the kids just get into singing and

having fun. He believes as we do: "If you don't have fun in what you are doing you probably won't stay around very long."

Here is a little one that looks like her sister that we

featured in another story. To read that story just CLICK HERE.

We said goodbye to everyone as we are leaving for Bangkok on Tuesday morning and then America the following week. We will miss them all.

On the way home from Childlife we stopped along the dirt road to watch the farmers trash the rice the old way. Most of the rice in Thailand is harvested by machines except in the

smaller rice patties that the machines can't get into.

This little country of Thailand is the largest exporter of rice in the world. Jasmine rice is from Thailand.

It was a wonderful morning.

New Doorway!

Back in March, before the earthquake here, I started cutting in a doorway between the two shop houses we have. That way we can walk from one into the other without going outside and entering through the front door.

These shop houses are three story concrete buildings with the first floor built to have a retail shop or restaurant. The second floor could be used for the shop or as living area. The third floor is to live in.

We originally bought the double shop house on the East side of the complete building. Then Daeng talked with the

owner of the center single unit and bought it. We then re-piped the drain lines of both units as they had a water problem and that is why we could buy them at such a good price.

You can read about those stories by CLICKING HERE and CLICKING HERE.

Daeng's nephue started to help me at the beginning but like most young folks he got bored and drifted off to

doing something more fun.

At the start we talked about how dirty this project would be as we where going to use a rotor-hammer to drill many holes in the masonry wall. then we would use a 4" hand grinder with a diamond blade and cut both side of the wall. After that we would break out the the wall that was made with small red bricks laid in mortar.

We marked the wall and put up a plastic sheeting tenting around the area we were

going to cut out. It was very dusty and I could only work for about five minutes at a time when I was doing the cutting. It was during this period of time that Kit, Daeng's nephue, got bored and wondered off to do other things. I did all the cutting as I felt it was too dangerous for him.

After that Daeng helped me break out the wall and put all the brick and cement in bags to haul away. It did look good and made a great walk though. It was a bigger job than I originally figured but that is usually the case.

We spend a few days talking about putting in a set

of wooden door jams or just rendering the opening with plaster and painting it. When we talked with Mi he said he could render it with cement and if we were not happy with that we could put in the door jams.

Well, he did a great job with the opening and we are very happy with the way it looks.

You can now go anyplace in this building with 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 kitchens with outside cooking area, TV room, storage room, eating area and both shop areas without going outside.

We think we will use the smaller shop area as our garage.

We will use the area in

the picture behind Mi as a little eating area as it is off the 2nd floor kitchen area and our master bedroom suite.

I also made a wood threshold, put three coats of marine varnish on it and set it motor.

It looks pretty good for a plumber. LOL

Making Pa Thong Ko - Thai Donuts

I took my try at making Pa Thong Ko, the Thai Donut. I had written stories in the past spelling the name of the donut as "Baht-to-go" as that is how most Thais say it. The spelling is either "Pa Tong Ko" or "Pa Thong Ko". To read those stories just click on these titles- Mae Sai 05/01/2010 Happy Labor Day or Trip to Chiang Rai and Water Fall.

Ntoo, the Pa Thing Ko maker, had taken the day of and his lovely wife was running

things at their coffee shop in the center of the Mae Sai Morning Market. Over a hundred times I have watched Ntoo and others make this Thai style donut so I said let me make some. Everyone laughted but it always looked so easy.

I washed my hands and started to take some Pa Thong Ko doe that had been made last night but had trouble right away as it kept sticking to the table. I had to be helped, right off the bat, as I had not used enough flower on the table to keep the doe from sticking to it.

After that I did pretty good getting the doe rolled out, cut, two

pieces put together with a touch of oil between the two pieces. Time to put the doe in the hot oil. Everything was good so far.

The next thing I did not know was there is only a small window

for the Pa Thong Ko to be cooked correctly. If you don't take them back out of the hot oil in a few seconds of them being done they over cook and become crispy rocks.

I got about half of them out of the kettle of oil okay but the other half went from being very crispy to break your teeth rocks.

It was not a big deal; we only had to throw away about ten. That was about sixty cents worth in US money.

Everyone laughed at me!

All Work and No Play...... Great Wedding

All work and no play makes a dull life. We have also been having a little fun. A few days ago, our neighbor came by and gave us an invitation to his Daughter's Wedding. This is the same neighbor who's Mother passed away in the Fall. To read that story titled "BIG BARBECUE" just CLICK HERE. It just reminds me that when one thing stops something else starts.

Well, about dawn this morning we

heard a lot of noise. We looked out the window and they were setting up shade canopies beside our home. Our neighbor had ask us if it was okay to set up part of the 80 tables in front of part of our home. We just did not realize the size of 80 tables with shape tents over them. They closed down the whole street for the party.

By 9:00 AM the party was underway with music and lots of folks. I worked with Mi painting the back room, under the second floor cooking area until about 11:00 AM. I showered, dressed and met Daeng as she was already partying with some of her Bingo buddies. She loves to play Bingo.

Her Bingo buddies are a happy

group of ladies that live in the neighborhood and most days meet up the street at the noodle soup shop. That is a little restaurant where you can get a bowl of rice noodle, vegetable soup for 15 Thai Baht, about 45 cents in US Dollars.

I sat and eat with Daeng and her buddies and I'm glad I did.

They were a fun Bunch. The food started out was some spicy fried peanuts and a a large plate of fruit. One of the family members came around and put a bottle of whiskey and a couple of liters of LEO beer on the table.

The next course was an appetizer plate with won tons, pickled eggs, small sausages and nuts. After that a large plate of this crispy fish dish was put on the table. It was very light but you could tell it was deep fried. I have no idea how it was made.

Then a huge, steamed fish and spicy vegetables was put on the table. This fish was the easiest fish I have eaten. The meat just came

off the bone in large pieces and all the bone stayed on the plate. It was a pleasure to eat.

All during the meal folks that Daeng knew would come over and talk with her and give her big hugs. Daeng know a lot of folks here as she has lived in Mae Sai for over thirty years.

The only negative of this party was they served a bottled water with the brand name of "Yellow Surprise". Now, I don't know about you

but in my mind "Yellow Surprise" is not a good name for drinking water. Maybe a name like "Yellow Snow" drinking water would have been better.

Moving right along, the lady sitting right across

from me at the table thought I was funny and laughed at me most of the time. I thought the meal was over with the fish but then a huge plate with a pork leg was placed on the table with another plate of noodles and ham. I made this expression of "I can't eat anymore" and she just cracked up.

We had been eating for almost two hours. Everyone was talking about how we all eat too much and we would not have to eat again for a week.

Mode and Nan, the Groom and Bride, came by our table to thank us for coming and celebrating their union together. We thanked them for sharing with us and wished them a wonderful life together.

The party lasted, with singing and dancing, until almost dark, about 7:00 PM. The music stopped, most of the folks left, they moved the tables and took down the canopies and reopened the street.

A good time was had by over 800 people at this wedding day!

Over a Month since the Big Earthquake

We'll it's been over a month, almost six weeks, since the big earthquake here on the Myanmar (Burma) border in Thailand. We were really bummed out at the damage it did to our three story shop house.

We sucked it up, an expression we used when my daughters were young when things did not go well, and started working to make the repairs to the place.

Once we got started we just didn't stop.

We were lucky to get "Mi", the fellow that had done a lot of the work on the place last year. He did all the tile work and repaired the cracks in the concrete walls.

We had talked about putting a new roof on the outside back cooking area and putting in a concrete eves drain along the back wall. He said he had done that before and they turned out well. We agreed that Daeng, he and I would do it.

We started by taking off the old roof and

metal eve trough. After we got the old roof off we decided it would be a good idea to change the drain pipe from the eves for the inside cooking area and paint the three walls of that part of the building.

Then we figured we had better seal everything up while we had the roof off. One thing Leeds to another and we

figured we should paint everything

before we put the new roof panels on as they were blue and the paint of the building was a light green with a red walnut color for the wood.

We borrowed a long bamboo ladder from our friends at the cable company and got busy.

What we figured would be a couple of days turned out to be over two weeks work. I will admit that it really worked well as we had a very hard rain yesterday right after we finished everything.

It looks great, too!

Songkran - The Big Party

Songkron, the big Thai party is over and I'm happy about that. Songkran is usually thought of as the "Water Holiday" as water is thrown on you and every one around you.

I want to be loving and it's nice to have

someone sprinkle a little water on you as a blessing but throwing a five gallon pail of water at you when you are going 40 miles an hour on a motorbike is terrorism.

To read stories written before about Songkran just clink on these links: SONGKRAN DAY ONE - SONGKRAN DAY TWO - SONGKRAN DAY THREE

About the only part of the holiday I did take part in was the whole family went

to Bang's house a few blocks away and had a Songkran dinner together. Bang is the young girl that got married last year and is expectant on May 7th. (Expectant was a term used in "I Love Lucy" many years ago.) You can read about Bang's wedding in the last half of a story written last

year by CLICKING HERE.

It was a nice time with Daeng's Mother blessing everyone

as the oldest in the family. (I think I'm older but that is another story.)

I did not take part in the ceremony as Daeng's Mother does not wash her

hands after using the toilet. I won't eat anything she has cooked or touched. As a matter of fact, I have never seen her wash her hands.

The young kids all played in the fish pond that was cleaned out. They used it as a kids pool and had a lot of fun together. I did eat some Akha food that Daeng's Sister-in-law cooked and it was very spicy.

It was a fun time but I'm very happy Songkran is over.

Tax Day in USA - Wash Day in Thailand

It may be tax day in the United States of America but it is wash day in the Kingdom of Thailand.

One of the things that Daeng likes about the USA is agitator washing machines because they beat the clothes clean. For some reason, maybe because they use so much water, agitator washing machines can not be found in Thailand.

Because of that, Daeng does the wash the way she usually does it here. She puts the clothes in tubs with soap and does the wash dance. Kind of like the old days doing the grape dance to get the juice out of the grapes.

Then she puts the clothes in other tubs for the rinse and does the dance on them again, twice. After that she puts the cloths in a water extractor. That is a machine that spins the clothes very fast to remove most of the water.

The nice part is she then hangs them in the sun to dry. Yea, clean and nice smelling clothes to wear.