I carry an American passport. But my home is Thailand. I go to USA to work, to make money to come back to Thailand. Spanning the Pacific. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, India and someday, more. This is life in the country in north central Thailand. Now including Mexico!
20071218
071218 Thaikarl - I'm going home again Jan 10th
I'm going home again January 10th. Yippeee! i only get to stay three months this time. oh well. i've had some good work since i've been back from the last trip home. paid off what we owed to the wood shop for building the Lucky Moon House. hoping to have enough to buy stain/paint for the house to do the job when i'm home. all depends on how much work i have these last few weeks. looking good at the moment.
after much discussion, tok and i decided to postpone the formal wedding, and the party until fall of 2008. when i get to bangkok, we're going to have a civil wedding. with that document in hand we can start the application for immigration for tok. it's about the only way she can get to come to the U.S. so yall can actually meet her. its a long, and now much more expensive process. common law marriage is customary in thailand, so as far as tok and i are concerned, we are already married. the buddist ceremony and party formalizes things, and the government registration give you the legal paper that you need for immigration etc. i can get a better- longer term visa if we have the government registration as being married.
a surprising (to me) number of people from the states have said they would really like to come to thailand for the wedding, so yall will have a little more time to plan the trip. late fall is a better time to visit thailand for most foreigners, the weather is cooler and the rainy season is over. AND you get to skip out on what ever winter you have in your life.
looks like our life plan will be to live in thailand, but come to the USA for working, then go back home. we can make money faster in the states. employment possibilites are very limited in thailand, and even if i got a job there, the pay wouldn't allow us to get ahead any. the two of us working here can save money- especially if we live cheap. 6 months of my work, coupled with whatever tok can make will get us a long way back home. we still have a lot of things to build on the house, and we have no "retirement"
so you can be expecting fresh travelogues from thailand january thru april. if you are forwarding my emails to others, and they want to be added to the list, have them contact me.
attached is a photo of a very important document. it is a house registration document for foreigners. it says that i live in ban don khwang village outside lomak, i.e. toks house. so i am officially registered with the thai goverment as living there. with this document, i can buy something like a motorbike or a car, and have it in my name. since i don't have an apartment in america, it means that i (semi) officially live in thailand! well, i have a residence there.
onward!!!
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com
20070904
070904 Thaikarl in USA - what 's happening now?
it's been over a month since i returned to the US. settling back into place. somewhat. got some handy-man work going, which is good. re-built a set of exterior stairs for one client, deep cleaned a house (3 bathrooms!), and now i'm in eastern washington working on a property that has a long list of jobs to do - painting, fixing, tractoring, moving logs, moving dirt, fixing machines, and the big job: refinishing the exterior of a log cabin. four levels up on scaffolding is an exciting place to be. the old finish has to be striped, sanded, scraped and two coats of stain and one coat of topcoat applied. phew. but the environment is nice.
i talk to tok on the phone everyday, sometimes several times a day. i sure miss her cooking! they are draining the pond as part of clearing for the new big road. we still owe $750 to the lumber shop, the new room still needs stain and finish, and the stairs still need to be replaced.
so my objective is just to work work work, save money, and as soon as i have enough to take care of things, go back home to thailand. tok and i have decided that the most expedient thing to do is to get civil marriage in thailand and start application for regular immigration for her. that way, she will be able to come to the states with me on work trips. but it will take many months for the immigration to come thru, so the sooner we can get it started the better. we will have the REAL marriage ceremony later. i know i said april or may 2008 before, but it might have to be later that year - in the fall perhaps. that is actually a better time for falangs to visit thailand - after the rainy season and cooler.
the united states is a strange place when viewed from thailand experienced eyes. strange indeed. but very rich and interesting in it's own right. as long as i don't watch the "news" on TV or in the newspapers- so much death and destruction and fear mongering.
onward!
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com
20070814
070814 Thaikarl - where did i go?
i am in the united states. in seattle. been at my sisters house for the last week. re-acculturation to america is arduous and depressing, and the 'jet lag" effect is most difficult for me when i travel east. so i kind of crawled into a quiet little cave and have been chilling out here. made some calls to get work started. getting work will crank things up in a good way.
so i'm quite alright. just quiet for the moment. i'll post an update and postscripts as i re-awake.
onward!
karl
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com
20070803
070803 Thaikarl - Last day in Lomsak
can't extend it this time. leaving for bangkok tomorrow and flying out monday to Vancouver B.C. (closest i could get a ticket)
last night tok and i were messing around on computer and heard a car going by on the big road. and a thump. had that "oh, oh" sound. then hollering outside in the dark. Sai and Tai's dog Ham was killed. i really liked him. he was good natured and always came over to say hello and hang out. but he didn't have much sense about crossing the road. this time i didn't even want to go help with the body and all that. we miss him. even tok said she will miss him coming round when we are eating hanging out for possible scraps. such is life.
i really really really don't want to leave home. oh well.
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070729
070728 Thaikarl - about the ants again, its only working
don't be freeking out on me now. i have ants in my toothbrush because i take shower outside using the water jars. if you use the bathroom, there are no ants. well not usually. besides, there's a frog who lives in there behind the brush basket who eats anything that moves in there. he must, cause otherwise, how would he survive? Its not the same frog that used to live in there. different species. emerges from the drain in the floor. what a life.
we're getting things done. moving dirt in the sun is exhausting. i crashed in the hammock during a break today and missed the burning ceremony for a friend of Toks. We went to the death ceremony thing at their house last night. a pickup truck full of monks came, they chanted for a while, a short eulogy or two, and food was served. then they gamble. cards, and this game played with three dice and a bowl. you place bets on a roll up plastic sheet, trying to match the outcome of the three shaken dice under the bowl. i didn't have any money to lose. so i didn't. told Tok i lost 500 baht. she was perturbed to say the least. then i added "in my imagination" 555555!
i hope it stays warm in seattle. i'm not looking forward to being cold.
Gorgous the life!
nu
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070726
070726 Thaikarl Gorgeous the life
Buncha new pix in the picassa gallery (new pix are always at the bottom)
News of the weird
on a pillow at the monday market, emblazoned with a large orange flower on a pale green background, where the words:
"Gorgeous the life" i like that. Very satisfactory result indeed. All your base are belong to us.
And, not to be outrageous or anything, but the last paragraph in a story in the Pattaya Mail (english language newspaper) reads:
Some sanook (fun) from thailand. else, we're getting things done. in fits and spurts as they say. i spent a good part of the day 'tera-forming' the ground under the Lucky Moon House. after construction, the dry ground under the house was all lumpy and had wood pieces and cement chunks all mixed in. worse than that, when it rains the flood of water would run under the middle of the area and turn it into a sea of mud. i dug out a shallow ditch to divert the water across the front of the house, and along the side behind the water fountain. one thing i learned building the water fountain - water goes where IT needs to go, which is not necessarily where you think it will go. i also had the big idea that if i turned on the pump and poured liters of well water over the whole area, i could reform the hard lumps by turning the whole thing back into mud, which i could rake and scrape around to make a somewhat level surface. Tok thought i was nuts. I'm always coming up with crazy "non-thai" ideas. so i did just that- flooded the whole area under the house with water, and raked, and raked and raked, and scraped. somewhat successful. it's hard to make dirt that turns to clay mud move around. we'll see what its like when it drys out some.
They are planting rice in the fields out back. what a job! a few weeks ago a conventional tractor came round and plowed under the remains of the tobacco crop. Then, since we haven't had any big rains, they turned on the pumps and filled the fields with water from the wells. chunka-chunka-chunka sound 24 hours a day. then a man plowed and scraped the fields using a motorized buffalo, which is a kubota industrial motor that drives two big metal wheels, with long handles running back to the operator. they first seeded rice seed in a couple of the smaller fields, which has been growing like grass. the last week, they have been gathering the seedlings. 12 or so people bent over, snatching the seedlings from the mud, gathering them in the other hand. they smack the bunch against their foot to remove the excess mud, straighten the bundle and tie it with a strip of bamboo. Then they put 15 or so bundles on a bamboo pole and distribute them across the fields. the last couple of days they have been replanting the seedlings. grab a couple of seedlings (which kind of look like scallion onions) and push it in the water down into the mud. do this over and over and over. all day. bent over. i go out to take pictures and they always laugh and try to get me to try it. i decline. after all, it IS forbidden for foreigners to engage in agricultural work.
as tok and i were walking along the dams out to see the workers, i asked her "where do the snakes go when the fields are full of water?" i'm always asking dumb questions like that. Tok fired back: "I don't know, i forgot to ask them!" with a big smile. Once i asked her where will the frogs live when they destroy the pond making the big road. she said "they can go live in the fields!" i a bit soft when it comes to the creatures. if a frog comes hopping into the house, or on the porch, i'll ketch it and take it out to the pond. The other day i found a land crab under the 55 gal drum. he was a bit harder to catch (ouch!) but out to the fields he went. they would have probably kept it to put in the papaya salad. any time big flying insects get in the house, i try to gently guide them out the roof. they will just ignore them. or smack them if they are annoying. I lie to watch the chickens, but they can get annoying. If i make a pile of raked up debris and dirt, then go have lunch, when i come back the pile will be scattered all over. the chickens do this funny scratch-scratch then a quick hop backwards and head-dive to look for exposed things to eat. they get all over the yard. Tok doesn't like them and throws things to get them to go away. but then, she's been living with the neighbors chickens for years. i haven't.
we came into town today to transfer a land telephone line over to Toks name. One of the neighboors needs money to fix their broken well pump, so he's selling his land line to us. you can't just get a land line. there are a limited number of lines to the village. the only way to get one is to wait until somebody wants to sell theirs. but everybody has a mobile phone, so.... amazing thailand.
have to go back to my earth-moving and yard work.
onward! Gorgeous the life!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070723
070723 check your toothbush for ants
getting things done around the household. spend the day digging up good dirt, to put under the house, and transplanting a chille bush and some other weird tree. tired, but it feels good to get done.
mama uses a huckleberry finn ploy. yesterday she started rebuilding the tin house that covers and protects the well pump and motor. she's out there dragging around wood, banging nails, sawing peices, gathering corregated tin. of course, Tok had to come help her, and then i got dragged into it because they were going to use the best wood - because it was handy. there is plenty of crappy wood with a zillion nails in it, but still strong as iron, but you have to go find it and drag it around. after a while, mama went and sat down under the house, then went inside and took a nap. meanwhile, Tok and I were committed to building this thing, then it was just me. but it got done.
they are starting to plant rice in the fields. i've never seen this, as the other times i've been here when the tobacco is growing. so i't quite interesting. except for the pumps running 24 hours a day to fill the fields with water. there hasn't been any big rain to fill the fields, so they are pumping it from the wells. the pump sounds like a sewing machine - but louder, and constant. photos to follow.
there are some new photos in the picassa gallery.
oh yeah, the ants. since i take my showers outside from the rain water jars, i leave my toothbrush on the lid of one of the jars. the ants seem to like the residual sweetness of the toothpaste, so i have to check my toothbrush for ants before using it. the red ants aren't a bother, rather tasty in fact, but the black ants bite.
Onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070721
070721 Thaikarl - the visa story in depth
here's the story on trying to get a tourist visa. my short flaming spew i sent before was confusing, i know.
the setting:
Tok and I are getting married. we could apply for a fiancee visa, which allows a foreigner to come to the united states for up to 90 days, during which time you must get married - or not. no matter what, she/he must leave the country. if you marry, you can then apply for immigrant status, with green card and all that. the fiancee visa costs several hundred dollars and more importantly, takes 4 to 6 months to complete. not fast enough, since we are to marry next spring.
so the next logical choice would be to get her a tourist visa. just enough time to visit the united states, meet family and friends and have a little look around. the immigration website states clearly that they consider anyone who wants to come to the US to be an immigrant- meaning you want to come to the USA to live and work. (of course, if you are from a developed countries like Europe or japan, you are going to be just a tourist, you get a visa by just showing up.) they state that you must prove to them that you have sufficient ties to your home country to ensure that you will go back. we figured that we had all that covered: Tok is caring for a young daughter and an aged mother. she has property and employment. we had documents and photos and everything to support this. we thought that her having a fiancee in the USA would be a help- it would show that she has support there, a place to go and someone to look after her. i also thought that they would consider it favorable because we wouldn't want to screw up the tourist visa because it would make it unlikely that she could ever get an immigrant visa after we are married.
sounds good yeah? legitimate, honest and open.
wrong.
in their eyes, having a fiancee in the united states means that you want to go to the us to live with them, and are applying for a tourist visa just to get into the country, with no intention of going back. the girl at the consulate counter even said that: "i cannot issue a tourist visa to you because i believe you want to go to america to live with your fiancee" and that was that. that is why i said in the earlier email that as soon as i said i was her fiancee, i could tell the answer was NO. for Tok to apply for a tourist visa under those circumstances would be truthful, but not the whole story - as she would like to visit the america.
I did talk with a local immigration lawyer a while back. when i emailed him of our failed result he replied:
Dear Mr. Karl
For any consolation it may be, the officer really doesn't have any choice in the matter with an admission of a principal personal relationship with a US Citizen residing in the US. Under those circumstances it is virtually impossible for the applicant to overcome the statutory presumption of immigrant intent under INA section 214(b). I would wager that the denial sheet they gave you gave section 214(b) as the basis for denial, often expressed as "the applicant failed to demonstrate sufficiently strong ties to the home country.
so it wasn't the interviewers fault really, she was just following the rules. yeah.
It would have been much better if Tok applied for a tourist visa all on her own. no mention of a fiancee at all. and i shouldn't have been with her. if she went there and said she just wanted to visit america, see a few sights and come back, they would have looked at her property, employment and band statement and determined (by whatever formula they have back there) if she had sufficient cause to return to thailand before the visa ran out. while we were waiting, we watched and listened as many people went to the windows for their interviews. the ones who walked away smiling and holding a green paper got their visa's. there were all kinds of people, going for all sorts of reasons- visiting relatives, holiday, student trips etc. most of them were seemingly successful. tho we did hear a few cases where they wanted more documentation of employment etc.
so, whatever. it's not like its a whole lot easier to stay in thailand. except that, anyone from a developed- meaning RICH country can just show up at the airport and get an automatic 30 day stamp in their passport. and as i've mentioned, you could extend that for up to 5 months stay in total before you have to exit the country for 90 days. used to be you could do a visa run every thirty days and stay in thailand indefinitely. but they got tired of that a few months ago and changed the rules.
oh well.
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070718
070718 Thaikarl crafty day and bus time again
there is a nice video that gives a flavor of bangkok at:
http://video.mthai.com/player.php?id=11M1184809786M0
they are having a kind of crafts demonstration/hands on under a tend outside the department store near the hotel. Tok went there yesterday and made a few things. she's over there now while i am in the internet cafe. they have tables and instructors set up, each doing a different crafty thing. you can learn how and make your own painted bracelet, painted glass, display board, painted nails, flower baskets etc. all free. Tok was really excited, she wanted to learn everything! each of the tables gives you their card, and if later you want to buy paints or materials to do your own, you can contact them. pretty cool.
lots and lots of commerce occurs on the sidewalks and beside the road in thailand. food, cloths, jewelry, glasswear, souvenirs, CD's/DVD's/VCD's - just about anything/everything. people will rent a space if it's in front of a commercial property, or just set up and sell. everything from an old women with a few bananas to elaborate crafts fair type booths with signs, displays and music. and it will all be folded up, packed up and gone every night. unless it's the night vendors - they take the places the day vendors leave open. there was a guy who set up a tv tray sized table outside 7-eleven the other night. he had a few bottle of whisky, some coca cola, a bucket of ice and glasses. instant street bar. some places, like on the fly-overs and sky-train walkways are barred from vendors. or at least so says the sign. doesn't stop people from opening up a suitcase, laying out a cloth, and selling cute jeweled fobs they put on their phones, or hair bands, or combs. someone will lookout, and if a cop starts to wander in their direction, flip/flop/flash, all the merchandise is back in the case and the vendors walk off.
amazing thailand
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
070718 thaikarl - to cambodia and back in one day
i made the visa run to cambodia today. it was rather painless really. took the skytrain to the On Nut station, went to the food court in the Tesco Lotus (department store) and found the tour man and the rest of the people going on the run. some 16 of us got into two of the large passenger vans they use here and 4 hours later we arrived at a new border crossing. exited thailand, handed over passports and photos to they kid at the table and went to the casino for a buffet lunch. after lunch, the tour man came with our passports all ready to go, walked back to thailand, got another 30 days stamped in, got back in the vans and 4 hours later back in bangkok. DVD movies along the way, one rest-stop for snacks and toilet midway. only 1900 baht ( 63.00 USD) for the whole thing, including the visa for cambodia that we used for all of 1 hour. never really went into cambodia actually. there's a buffer zone between each countries gate - which is why there is a casino there. tens of scruffy, ragged kids begging for handouts hanging on the fence. on the thai side, the road is paved. across the gates on the cambodian side, it's dirt. such is the difference. we are staying in bangkok at the hotel again, then busing back to Lomsak tomorrow.
my brother deposited some money he owed me for a little work (and kicked in a little extra, thanks!) in the bank in the US, so we have a week or so living expense covered. back to work on the house. lots of dirt to move, debris to clean up, touching up after the 'painters' - no lack of things to do. and the water fountain i built has a few "issues" to fix - like an internal leek that i will have to fix somehow. and the weather is still warm, and the food is still delicious, and Tok is still a sweetheart.
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - august 8 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070716
070716 Thaikarl - Visa? what a waste of time and money!
Tok and i went to the US consulate today for her tourist visa "interview". when we finally walked up to the window, the first thing the girl asked was I her fiance. it was obvious that the answer was NO! from that second on. she didn't look at the papers, didn't even ask Tok any questions. $100.00 for the visa fee, transport and hotel in bangkok, and all these papers filled out, copies made, pictures taken etc. i am so completely annoyed with our goverment, and the people behind them that have supported our "immigration system" bah! i don't even want to talk about it anymore. maybe later.
i booked a flight from Bangkok to Vancouver B.C. for early august. i would feel really bad leaving the family behind with all this work to do and the uncertainty about Mama's health. put the ticket on credit card. costly, but whatever. scraping around trying to borrow a few hundred here and there for living expenses for us for my extension... it appears i will have plenty of work when i return, so things will smooth out nicely within a short time.
meanwhile, we are in Bangkok, which is always a thrill for me. since the visa thing tanked, we're going to relax a day, then wednesday i have to take a special "visa-run" bus to cambodia, leave thailand and turn right around and come back in to get another 30 days in the country. bus leaves at 5:30am and returns that night. lots of bus-riding time in the nexe couple of days, as it's another 6 hours back to the country home.
6:00pm. they are playing the thai national anthem on TV. time to stand up. 8:00am and 6:00pm. the anthem is quite short. the joke is, "how could you win a battle against thai soldiers?" answer: "play the national anthem. they will all stand up and stand still. bang-bang-bang. we win"
onward!
nukhun and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070714
070714 Thaikarl - bad time to leave
haven't said much to yall lately. everyday is pretty much the same drill: get up, drink coffee and work on the house. goto town, buy food, go back and work on the house.
i'm scheduled to depart thailand july 18th. my ticket expires that day, and i can't extend the date. a one way ticket is pretty expensive. it's a bad time to be leaving. Mama is coughing up blood. Tok took her to the hospital this morning. They need several days of samples before they know what is going on. but it can't be anything but serious. coupled with that, there is still a ton of work to do around the house just cleaning up after all the construction. i hate to leave it all for Tok to do, and worry about mama at the same time. i'm trying to conjure up a way to stay for a few more weeks. i can put the plane ticket on a credit card, but cash for living is, um, well, a mystery. i'll let yah know...
the new house is as finished as the budget will allow. they built us some stairs to get up there, using any old leftover laying around wood. it works, but it's like the staircases they have in holland. very steep, more like a ladder than a stairs. but it will have to do. and the stain and varnish of the the wood will have to wait also. etc.
we leave for bangkok tommorrow. Toks tourist visa appointment at the embassy is monday morning. wish us luck. it's a long shot, be we'll give it a try.
onward!
Nukhun and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070712
070712 Thaikarl - Tok and I are getting married
i know some of yall are busy and don't get around to reading the travelogues. my subject lines are sometimes obtuse, so in case you didn't read the "lucky like the moon" story of how Tok and I became engaged, you can read it at:
http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/2007/07/070706-thaikarl-lucky-like-moon.html
but the short version is this:
last year i asked Tok to marry me. she accepted. we will be getting married in thailand april or may of next year - 2008. everyone is invited. we set the date far enough ahead to allow people who would like to come, and also holiday in thailand, time enough to plan, save and make arrangements.
we are applying for Tok to get a tourist visa to the USA. if successful, she will be coming over for a few weeks (when i get the money together for her) and those of you on this list who would llike to meet her will have opportunity. IF we get the visa. they make it very difficult for thais to visit the states. Homeland Insecurity and all that.
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070706
070706 Thaikarl - Lucky like the Moon
There is an important story I left out of my travelogues from 2006. Some of you might have guessed, some of you know.
April in Thailand is the month of the Songkran Holiday. It's a Thai new year, based on the lunar calendar, and very big holiday. Many festivities are in order. The most famous, and inescapable, is throwing water. In the old days, the custom was to merely sprinkle a few drops of water on passers-by, but it has devolved to groups of people with everything from cups to water cannons thoroughly soaking anyone who comes near. There are parades, music, beauty contests, music, honoring the old people, and general good fun.
I had a special plan for this day. Songkran day will have a full moon that night. I'm quite enthralled by full moons. When I was a kid, I had a bedroom window that was only a few inches above the level of the bed. I could lay there at night and watch the moonrise, and I would stay awake late, until it had risen so high that the moonlight crossed my bed and was replaced by shadow. Perhaps the rays of the moonlight got deep into by psyche, but I have ever felt changed and charged by that time. So full moons especially are notable for me, as it is in much of the world. I feel like there is an additional energy in the air - if I choose to notice it, and it is a good time for me to do things I consider special.
My plan for this full moon was formed in purpose, but lacking in details. I worked it out as the day went on. The first thing I decided I must do is to get a string of words translated into Thai language... I couldn't ask Tok of course, as the words were for her. We had met a Thai women how now lives in Texas at Jamlongs beauty shop the day before. I asked Tok if we might find this woman. She had said she would be at one of the temples in the morning, and I asked Tok to take me there, ostensibly to see the goings on. When we arrived, I didn't see the women, so I had to gently ask Tok to find her. The women was busy somewhere, so I had to stall around till she came back. Then I had to converse with her in private somehow, which was not easy. I asked the women to translate and write in Thai the words I had in mind. She did, but when I looked at the paper, it was (to me) illegible. I can recognize Thai characters, and I have copied them numerous times, but the softened abbreviated handwritten characters I couldn't make out. Tok was getting a little suspicious of why I was trying to do business with this woman, so I had to let it go and hope I had another chance later.
In the afternoon, we followed the parade to the civic grounds in the town of Lomsak. There is big field out front of the police station and civic buildings. The parade cars and trucks formed up there for showing the floats, and there was a big stage for music, announcements and beauty contests. Tok and I tend to stick pretty close together when we are out, so I took a while for me to entertain an excuse to wander off on my own. Tok was doing some of the makeup for the beauty contestants, and while she was busy doing that, I went of to "shoot video" of the floats and the Isan bands.
I was trying to find someone who could translate the words form me, and write them down in legible characters. When I showed the paper the women wrote, there were some big smiles and laughs, and I had to explain that the words were for someone else. My explaining didn't always come across. When I asked some boys who were part of an Isan music band, one of them seemed to understand what I was asking for. He copied the illegible handwriting into clear Thai script that I could read. So far so good.
When we returned to the house later in the day, I had to sneak away quietly and carefully copy the words in my own hand. I wrote on a piece of nice paper I used for drawing. I had a plan to carry out next.
I drink a lot of Kraeting Deang, which is "Red Bull" in Thai. It's somewhat of a 'signature' drink for me. We save the bottles, either to recycle, or for me to make something of them. I took one of the empty bottles, rolled the note up and put it inside and put the cap on. I had saved a few rings of jasmine flowers from the parade during the day. I put all this in a bag, and went looking for a digging tool. Mama uses a short shovel thing to tend the plants. It is a wooden handle about a foot long with a piece of steel on the end to dig with. I quietly put all these things out back of the house and answered the call for dinner.
After dinner, I kind of wandered off into the night, retrieving my bag and digging tool. I went between the houses out to the fields. I walked along the earthen dams between the fields. Old tobacco plants were still standing in rows, looking ghostly and limp. The moon was full and bathed everything in a glorious light. In between Toks two fields there is an earth dam that separates them. I turned right and found a good spot where the earth was wide enough, and there weren't weeds growing. I started digging with my tool. It was tough chopping a hole in the hard clay soil. I was flinging the loose dirt off to the side. Once I flung the tool up to rid the hole of a little dirt and the tool suddenly felt lighter. The metal end had come loose and flown off into the tobacco stalks. Great. I had a little blue LED light with me, but trying to see anything with it was difficult. I was on my hands and knees, rummaging around the roots in the moonlight with a tiny blue light trying to find the metal end of the digging tool. Every bug in the field came over to see what was going on, and was delighted to find me. I almost gave up and was thinking of going back to the house for a proper flashlight, but I didn't want to reappear at the house and raise any questions. Going back into the weeds for one last look, I finally found the metal scoop. Did my best to pound it tightly to the wooden handle and continued my digging - being a little more careful when I went flinging dirt around this time. Finally I had a hole big enough and deep enough to put in the red bull bottle. I sprinkled a few leaves over the hole, and displayed the jasmine flower rings around the opening of the hole. I didn't want it to be too obvious, but then I didn't want it to be easy to pass over, and it had to look just un-natural enough to attract attention. This part of the plan was accomplished.
I went back to the house and innocently hung around for a while. When Tok had a free moment, I asked her if she would go for a walk with me in the moonlight. We took hands and walked out back to the fields. As we were walking along the earth dam, I asked Tok if she ever felt her father's presence in the fields. He died about twelve years ago. Tok inherited these fields from him. She said that she did occasionally sense him. I asked if he would approve of us. She said that he would. The moon had risen a little since I was last in the field, and it was easy to walk in only the moonlight. I lead the way right at the crossing earth dam and approached the spot I had prepared. When I stopped suddenly and turned around, it took Tok only a second to look down and see the ring of flowers. What is this? She asked me. It is for you I told her. She bent down to look closer. The blue top of the red bull bottle was glinting in the night light. Now she knew for sure something was up. I told her to take out the bottle. I was so nervous and excited I could hardly breathe. Tok took the bottle out of the ground and looked at it. There is a paper inside she said. Open it I said. She opened the bottle and shook out the paper. Unrolling it, she peered at the writing in the moonlight. She giggled softly. I asked her to read the note, which she did- in Thai. No, read it in english, she read it again, but silently. Out loud please, in english I asked her. She read the note, it said:
"Will you marry me sir?"
I answered "YES!"
And that is how I 'tricked' Tok into asking ME to marry her.
Of course, after some laughing and joking about it, I turned things around, and formally asked Tok to marry me. She said "yes" warm hugs and kisses in the moonlight followed...
So, as you may or may not have known, Tok and I are getting married. In a way we are already, as common-law marriage is valid in Thailand. We certainly live and love together as spouses. But of course, we would like to have a fun gathering, a Buddhist ceremony and a celebration. The date will be in April or May of next year - 2008. The custom here is to consult with the monks or the shamans or somebody for a proper date and time, and Tok tells me they can't do that until it is next year. We could easily get married much sooner, but I have to work and save up the money for the wedding (food, drink, decorations, music). a few of my family members and friends have indicated that they would like to come to Thailand for the wedding, so we set the time far enough ahead that people can plan, save and arrange time off. Plane tickets to Thailand are $1000 - $1500 return (we'll see about that next year though). In early April is the Songkran New Year festival, which is the Thai New Year. And in the middle of May is Bang Fai, which is the rocket festival. Anyone who comes to the wedding might consider the timing to be here for one or the other. But of course, this is amazing Thailand, and there are wonderful places to visit, food to eat, and people to meet. There were be several choices of accommodation depending in your style- there's a resort up the road, some can sleep at the house, and there's a basic and a classy hotel in Lomsak.
Keep in mind also, that you can get dental work done in Thailand for 20 percent of the cost in the states. Many western trained dentists that speak English and use modern techniques. If you need bridges, crowns, filings, laser whitening, overlays, dentures etc, you can get it done here, and probably pay for the whole trip on the money you save over having it done in the states. Plastic surgery is low cost also. Not that any one needs lipo and such.
It is still common in Thailand for the groom to pay a bride-price to the brides' family. It's much more relaxed nowadays, if the couple doesn't have much, the brides' family can still give blessing. In keeping with the custom, I had Tok ask her mother if my plan to buy or build a house was enough for me to marry her daughter. Mama kind of snorted, mumbled a few words and walked away. I asked Tok what mama said. She said mama said "okay, but he has to take care of me too" very practical.
Billions of words have been written trying to describe how two people meet, love and care for each other. I can only say that I am a lucky man. I've found a woman who is nothing short of honest, loyal and true, and loves me as I am. She asks for very little. Gives very much. There are many beautiful flowers in a garden. I've found one who is simple and un-adorned, but a flower none-the-less. Meeting Tok has been a gateway to a whole new life for me, in a place I love. I sure didn't see it coming. And now I can't see it going either.
When Tok and I were first talking to each other on messenger, our conversations were friendly but not romantic. We talked about the chances of either of us getting married again, but we were not thinking of US marrying each other. I said something to the effect that "I'd have to be lucky like the moon to get married again" she didn't know what that mean's, I didn't either, it just came into my head. But "lucky like the moon" became a euphemism for "getting married". When we would pass by a wedding party on the motorbike, I would say "they are lucky like the moon" and she would laugh. This is why it was important to me to ask Tok to marry me (or get her to ask me) on the night of a full moon. And that is why, on the end crown of the roof on the new house, I had the name of our new house painted above a white disc. The new house is named "Lucky Moon House"
Onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070704
070704 Thaikarl - let go and let Thai
my new mantra - "lt go and let Thai" the paint crew is driving my inner painter nuts - slapping wall putty in the cracks in the wood, mildly sanding it and staining over it, so the whitish putty still shows, dripping paint everywhere etc etc. deep breath - "let go and let thai" - the stain they are using covers over the grain of the wood, looks more like paint than wood stain. i had to realize that what i consider "beautiful expensive tropical hardwood that would cost a zillion dollars in the USA" is just "wood" to the thai's. much like we consider pine and cedar. so "let go and..." but when they get round to the new house, i'm going to be a little more definitive about what i want and DON'T want. if i can get them to understand of course. the crew that Noi was using the last week stayed out drinking until 4am and weren't in any shape to work yesterday, so she fired all of them and brought a whole passel of people today. and away they went.
my time here is short. i hate that.
onward! "let go and let..."
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070701
070801 Thaikarl - it ain't over till, there's no more yellow papers
beside the road there are a couple of stands that sell whole roast chicken. the chickens revolve constantly on spits over a propane burner, like a rotisserie. know what the thai's call these chickens?
not a lot of time to be interneting these last days. the painters are painting the house. they use oil-based enamel paint, directly on the concrete stucco. none of this primer stuff. no sir. just paint it. driving me nuts because as a painter myself, i'm a bit of a perfectionist - i've painted on "high-end" jobs where drips, brush slips, streaks, rough edges and overlaps are just not tolerable. but this is not the way they do things here. at least, not at the prices i'm paying. so the old house is now orange, with dark brown, maroonish trim, and the inside is green, er, it's green now, but after seeing the color on the walls, we didn't like it so much, so they are going to overcoat it with a lighter green -= a llittle more blueish.
we're going to have to leave a lot of things un-done. bank account hitting bottom. stairs to the new house, railings for the porch, staining and varnish for the new house etc etc etc, will all have to wait.
but, we did spend the first night in the new house! not exactly because it was ready for us - but the strong smell of the enamel paint inside the house drove all of us out. we swept aside the tools, sawdust and planks, laid down a few blankets and use the collapsible mosquito netting. i was cold and kept snuggling up to tok. she woke me up to tell me i had pushed her of the mat and she was on the wood floor. oops. it was significant, because there was a full moon that night. and the new house is named "Lucky Moon House" - says so right up at the top (film at 11)
thais call the rotating roast chickens "Circle Chicken" tee hee...
onward,
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070622
070622 Raising a ruckus!
friends,
boy, did i start a ruckus around here. a few weeks ago, the truck came to deliver the concrete poles that will hold up our new room. the truck had a hydraulic crane on the back to pick up the poles and deliver them to the ground. i saw an opportunity there. out near the front of the house is a pile of old concrete poles that belong to one of toks relatives who lives a few houses away. these poles were cut out from an old house, where there is normally a square base to the poles, the concrete is broken away and the steel re-bar is poking out. i always thought that these poles were in an inconvenient place. we moved one of them last year using rollers and ropes. it was a difficult job - these things are heavy. one day toks relative, who owns the poles was over, and i asked her to ask him if we could use them to line the property line alongside the newly built access road to gams house. he was okay with that. but, the prospect of moving the things was daunting, and easily put at the bottom of the to-do list. but the truck and crane presented an opportunity i couldn't pass up.
i asked tok if they would move the old poles into place along the drive if we paid them to. they were fine with that. so they moved all the poles, lining them up end-to end along thee driveway. then the fun began. gams mother and father came out, and a big discussion about the location of the poles ensued. there was lots of pointing and exclaiming and drawing lines in the dirt. the boundaries of the properties are marked by small concrete posts placed in the ground with code numbers on them. one of the key posts that marked the back corner between gams family land and toks land and the corner of the access road was under the new dirt. so out came the picks and pikes and hoes and more chattering about where the post was exactly. we dug a hole, and made it bigger - more to the left, NO, more to the right. NO! more that way! Deeper! they finally found the post, and put in a stake to mark the exact spot. then more discussion, more pointing and lining. they got out string and stretched it between the known markers, up and down the length of the access road. we moved the old concrete poles to align with the string, but there was still considerable racket to be made over the whole issue. it got even more interesting when gams family said that sai and tai, whose land is on the other side of the access road, could not use the road because they didn't help pay for it. this got sai all riled up of course, and there was more discussion of all that aspect.
things settled down somewhat over the next few days. then gams mother came out day before yesterday and said something to boon, our contractor, along the lines that our new roof was over hanging the access road by 50 centimeters. this really annoyed tok, since the roof didn't overhang by such a large amount, or perhaps not at all, since the exact property lines were still in question. she decided that we should find another marking post that was buried a few meters from the one we found before. i didn't know there was another post. so first job after breakfast yesterday was for me to go out and start digging. now, mama was sure that the post was over HERE somewhere, by where the old tree was. then of course gams mother and father came out and they insisted that it was over THERE. out came the tape measures, lots of pointing and discussing. meanwhile i kept digging. found nothing. so i started digging at the second "for sure it's here" point, still nothing. then we dug until the two holes were now one hole, about 6 feet long and two and a half feet deep. i would dig some, gams father would get fired up and start digging in another place, tok was digging, gams mom, tai and sai came home and put in their 2 baht. meanwhile, the workers are up above us, cutting the beams for the roof over the balcony, watching all this commotion with amusement. this went on for hours, then everyone wandered off for lunch, then resumed again, then, stopped when everyone got tired. i decided to get out of the middle of the whole thing, as i had very little idea what was going on and what all the discussion was about. i went over and mixed up some cement and worked on cementing rocks to the rockery waterfall.
after a while, the kids all came home from school, so sai and tai's kids, gams brother and assorted neighbors all got involved in more digging, more chattering. every now and then i'd look over and one of the bigger kids would be digging, or everyone was standing over the hole pointing this way and that. my attention was on my cement and rocks. one of the times i looked up, they were filling in the hole, and i noticed they put up a wooden stake. seems that Mack, gams brother had did a little digging with the pike somewhere near the center of the hole but in a southern direction and found the marker peg. our trench ran east/west, but, as it turns out, mostly north of the actual marker. so we were close, but it took mack's digging in the "wrong" direction to reveal the peg.
this whole thing took literally all day. i started digging around 8:30am, and the hole wasn't filled and staked until around 6pm. and once the true property line was found, one of the workers dropped a plumb bob from the edge of our new roof, and it was determined that the west corner of our roof overhangs the access road by about 10 centimeters. so gams family was complaining that when it rains, the run-off from our roof will fall in the road. but tok told them she is waiting for the the drive-by gutter installers to come around, and we'll put a gutter up there to take away the rain water. this is grand by me, as i want to have a rainwater collection system that feeds some big 100 gallon jars for taking my showers and for washing cloths. cloths washed in the hard water from the well feel stiff when they are dry, as the minerals get in the fabric.
"drive-by gutter installers"??? what is that you ask? around here, like the ice cream trucks in the states, people drive by along the road selling things. they will play music, or beep a horn, or have a loudspeaker on the roof that plays a tape of the sales pitch. but you can buy more than ice cream. apparently one of these speaker trucks are people who install gutters. others are selling rice, food, repair jobs - a man comes to the house with a meter and checks out any appliances that aren't working, like fans or toasters. if it meters out, he will take to his truck and fix it for you. some of the speaker trucks are political announcements, and most of them i have no idea what they are on about.
throughout all this no one seemed to really get angry. there were places where the tone of voice got a little strong, but the next minute they would be laughing about something. no one walked off in disgust. interesting.
amazing thailand, love it.
tomorrow tok and i are going to Loei to go to a ghost/spirit festival something. i'll know when i get there. my Englishman friend mel and his wife came by yesterday, and said they would go with us - which is good, as they have a pick-up. should be fun- get outta town for a bit anyway. except they are coming to get us at 7am. thai's like to have parades and things at eight o'clock in the morning!
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070620
070620 Thaikarl - what to do with your day. and rains.
the days roll by quickly here. time is relative, fluid and driven by activity or the lack of it. out here in the country, days are very much driven by the sun. rises at 5:30am, dark by 7pm. after dark, there is not much to do. we don't work under flood lights. the chickens start squawking and crowing early. the relative cool of the night begins to slip away as the sun starts to heat everything up. Tok usually gets up before me, as she has to make food for teri before she goes to school. mama is up early also. i lay in bed for a while, half awake, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood. when Tok or mama starts pounding chilies in the motoar and pestles, the knock knock knocking penetrates even the deepest doze.
i lose track of days. teri will still be her in the morning when i get up and i am surprised. well, it's saturday - no school. oh. or we will be coming back from town and the weekly market is set up beside the road a few km out of the town. wow, it's monday? it is? the workers show up around 8am, siesta during the hot part of the day around 2pm, and leave around 5. or 4, or when they feel like it.
i have my list of projects. i try to work on the rockery for the waterfall twice a day. if i make cement and set rocks in the morning, the cement will be set and i can make another layer in the evening. yesterday, Tok and i went to her uncles house and cut a piece of green bamboo. inch and a half thick and 25 feet long. we used that as a support pole for adding some corrugated tin to extend the roof out back. wee needed to cover the area of the new sink, and the space beside that where mama cooks on her little 3 corner wood stove. somedays i am busy all day, other days it's off and on. if we goto town to buy food or for appointments, it puts a big hole in the day. when the sky is overcast, it is cooler and we tend to work outside more. clear sunny days means heat and sweating. you move slower, drink lots of water.
yesterday, the sky grew dark, the wind came up, and the sky dumped rain. and i mean dumped. the roar of the water pounding the roof required raising your voice to say anything. rivers of water appeared in the yard, flowing under the new room and off to the fields out back. there is a 24 gallon jar behind the house where a eight foot piece of gutter empties into. the jar was one quarter full when the rain started, overflowing when it ended. i like to take my showers outside using the rainwater from this jar. normally we shower with well water. the water from the well is very hard- when it drys there are deposits of minerals left behind. the rain lasted only half and hour, the sun came back out, and we went back to work on the roof. i can only imagine what the 'rainy season' is like. thats in late july to september. i haven't been here for that time. yet. the soil here is very silted clay, so after a rain the ground turns to sucking, sticking goo that adheres to the bottom of your shoes til you can hardly walk from the weight.
progress on the new room is being made nearly everyday. they have put the roof on. i held out to get these brilliant metallic blue battens for the new roof. looks beautiful - but the only place you can see it is from up on the big road, as the crown of the roof points to the west, along the property length. someday we'll have too re-roof the rest of the house with the same tiles so you can really see it. the overhanging roof for the balcony will run north-south, facing the big road, so you will be able to see the beautiful tiles from there. one of Toks massage customers has a furniture and construction shop. she got us a good deal on new windows and a door for the new room. we also contracted with her for painting the house inside and out. no more dull cement walls!
the budget is looking rather squeezed. Tok told me last night, that we haven't accounted for building a stairs and roofing for the stairs to get to the new room. we may have too use a ladder to get up there until i get get some more money together. that will be rather weird... but oh well. typical for a re-model and new building project eh?
i asked Tok what Lom Sak - the name of the town nearby - means. she said "lom" means like when you are stuck in the dirt and can't move, as when your car gets stuck in the sand and the wheels just spin. "Sak" is a tree they grow here for house building - it's very strong, grows straight up with few branches. so Lom Sak means "tree that is stuck in the dirt and can't move". or something like that. I also asked about Dong Khwang, our village name. "Dong" means 'Woods' and "Khwang" means 'can't go in' so the village name means "Impenetrable Woods". and of course i have to add - or something like that.
more photos: bugs, and working on the house, and country life
amazing thailand!
Onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070616
070616 greetings from phetchabun
we took a little break from all the building to drive the motorbike down to phetchabun - a larger city 35 km to the south of lom sak. looking for a pump for the waterfall pond we are building. bought a large Ganesh statue and a pot instead. i see the link to the local land plot didn't make it into the email. the link is here.
we have to hustle to get back - it's getting dark, and i'm carrying a 30 pound statue on my lap. on the back of the motorbike.
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070613
070613 Thaiakarl - the house story
last year in 2006 i was here in thailand for 5 months, i spent most of my time here in the village at Toks house. one day Tok mentioned that the people who lived in the house behind hers wanted to sell their house. The house is where Gam (pronounced to sound like 'Game'), a young boy lives. there is a mother and father, and another brother who lives there, be we always call it "Gam's house" or "Gams mothers house". The plot of land the house is on used to be part of Toks fields, but she sold it to gams mother. they brought in dirt to raise the ground above the fields and they built a house on the land. Tok took the money from the sale of the land and added to her existing house.
i was quite interested in this house for sale. buying it would give me a house of my own (sorta - foreigners cannot own property or houses in thailand. but there are ways to deal with that), and it would restore the land back to what Tok inherited from her father. we went over to talk to them about it. they wanted 500,000 baht. flat. and they wanted the money in december 2006, which was some six months away at the time. 500k baht, at that time was 13,500 USD. not a lot for a house and land eh?
refer to the overview image at the picasa gallery: overview of the land layout.
when i returned to the states, i began selling off assets. i sold my three triumph motorcycles - which was painful, but i can't take them to thailand. i cashed in some stock, took payouts on other things, sold more stuff, and saved money from working. i also decided to give up my apartment to save the rent and utilities, but it worked out in trade with my room mate, that i lived there until i left for this trip, but paid basically no rent or utilities for the last 5 months before i left for thailand. i wire-transferred over to an account Tok set up for the house a couple thousand dollars here, couple thousand there.... meanwhile, the dollar was falling against the Thai Baht. which mean that by march 2007, the 500,000 Baht price for the house was now $15,225 USD.
Games family had re-set the sale date to march 2007. at that time, I had only 8,000 USD in the account. Then Tok told me that the sale was off. i wasn't too disappointed - the only thing that would be a drag would be if they sold the house to someone else and we had new neighbors that were party people or something otherwise obnoxious. i still had the money in the bank, i was a ton or two lighter in the possessions i carried and was that much further along to my objective of living in with Tok in thailand.
there was something funny about the deal that didn't make it thru the translation to me. know i know what it was. seems that the family had changed their minds about selling the house quite some time ago. that's okay, it's their house, if they don't want to sell it, or if they do, it's up to them. but they neglected to mention this to us, and let Tok continue to think the deal was on. Tok heard from another person in town that they weren't going to sell the house. why they just didn't say so a long time ago is a mystery to me. the only real aggrivation was that i could have come here earlier in the year, and been back in seattle for the summer when there is more work for me. instead i was compiling money for the purchase, and delayed coming here until the end of april.
so, Tok told them that they would have to go with the original plotting of the land when Tok sold it to them. since the land was the back section of a long plot of land, Tok had to yield a narrow public access-way along side her property to the part she sold, so that games family would be able to get from their property out to the big road. up until now, they have been driving along between the mango trees and Toks house, which is a straight path from the driveway by the big road, back to their property. but, they are supposed to be using a 2.5 meter section that borders Toks land back to their place. Tok told them they had to build a road and start using it. the mango trees had to be cut down, and games family cut down a large tree on the corner of their property to allow for the cut in from the access road to their land. a man on a grader pushed around the existing dirt, and trucks brought in a dirt/rock mix that doesn't turn to solid mud when it rains. this he graded to make a track where the access road is, and we paid for our own load of dirt/rock mix to improve the area next to our house.
After talking with Tok, we decided to improve the existing house. it is made from cinderblock, with a wood built upstairs. Tok wanted to have stucco cement applied over the cinderblock, paint the house, and varnish the wood parts. i kept telling her i could do the work, and she kept telling me i was basically crazy. she had a contractor lined up to come and do the work. Boon and his crew of guys showed up with tools and ordered in a truckload of sand and rock...and so it began. Once they got started, it became obvious why Tok didn't think i could do the job. these guys start at 8 in the morning, and have the labor divided up so that someone is mixing concrete and filling buckets, and two or three guys are applying it to the walls. amazing how they are able to get a nice flat application of concrete. construction workers make 167 baht ($4.87 USD) PER DAY. so, i'll work on the fountain and other detail things and let them do the big stuff. then, it was suggested that we put a meter-wide concrete border all around the house, so that when it rains, the roof run-off doesn't splash dirt on the the newly painted house. So they started on that. then i decided that whilst they were here doing concrete, we should enlarge the front porch a bit, and put a concrete floor on the dirt floored section in the back of the house, beside the kitchen. so that's working also. Tok had asked me if i could build a small waterfall pond beside the house, perhaps under the big mango tree. but then she had a brilliant idea to put the pond alongside the porch, which developed into the pond being integrated into the expanded porch on the east side, behind which is a jasmine flower bush, and we would put a big round tank behind that to use as another pond for water lilies and fish.
I was outside looking around the front of the house one day, and suddenly had a big idea - if we can't buy another house, why not make a new one?
i was looking at all the different houses around here, from the 'shacks' up to the elegant thai traditional style mansions, and i decided that what we didn't have, but i really like, was a house on stilts. up in the air, with dry space underneath. up where there is something to see out the windows. i dragged Tok outside and with much arm waving and long-stepping about, described my idea for a new bedroom for us. I envisioned a big room, high on stilts that sat towards the back of our lot, with a wide balcony that ran across the west side towards the big road. because there used to be an old toilet beside the existing house, they tell me that you cannot build a new room over an old toilet - your house will be 'broken' if you do - we have to offset the new room to the north, leaving a space between the existing house and the new room. which means that they will have to build a set of stairs inside the house, that goes up thru the roof of the back part of the house, across a bridge to the balcony of the new room. of course, Tok decided she wanted aircon in this room, which means the room will have to be built with a ceiling and double walls to keep the cool in. unlike the rest of the house, which is open framing under the roof an, and eves.
see my rough google sketchup picture of the new room in the picassa gallery.
Boon and his guys were now to be employed for a couple of months. we are going through all the usual disruptions of having major remodeling and construction going on - noise, dust and debris everywhere. but when it is all finished, we will have a much nicer house to live in. Flat walls, painted inside and out, stained woodwork on the upper part of the old house and a big 15 foot square new bedroom with a large balcony. we've also re-routed the drainage pipe for grey water to run alongside the property line, west to the pond, with side drains for the big water jars, a dish washing sink, and the washing machine. and we have a cement floor in the kitchen porch, which used to be dirt, fixed a leak in the roof, put tile in the bathroom, took the old built in water tank out of the bathroom so the room is bigger, extended the porch a bit, and we'll have a waterfall garden pond next to the front porch. i'll be able to sit up on the high balcony for coffee in the mornings when the sun is on the east side of the house, and can sit on the porch near the waterfall in the afternoons when the sun is in the west.
all in all, the whole thing has worked out better than the original idea to buy gams mothers house. if that had happened, i would have two houses that need fixing up, and no funds do do it. now, we will have one house, with a nice addition, and overall improvements to the whole property.
and as an added bonus, the new room blocks off the annoying porch-light that gams family leaves on at night, so our yard is dark when we want it to be, like when we take the mat outside and lay on the ground together and look at the stars and the sky.
onward!!!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070611
070611 Thaikarl - what a mess... everywhere it seems
friends,
20070606
070606 Thaikarl - the new room dedication
and auspicious day today. this morning the first pole of the new room went in the ground. apparently you have to do this right, with ceremony and observance. an old man came to do the blessings. mama prepared some baskets from banana tree skins. into each basket they put sweets, leaves, candles, food, rice a ball of dirt and other things. when it was time, the old man came out and sat on a mat next to the middle pole, saying prayers. around him were more offerings - whiskey, money, candles, water, cigarettes. they had tied a palm plant to the pole, and a small model of a fish catching basket, and a wooden stand for a bowel. with more words and muttering, they men hoisted the pole on their shoulders with ropes, and flipped it into the prepared hole in the ground. the blessing man went around and placed the banana skin baskets at each corner of the construction, and sprinkled water from a bowl at all the significant spots. i of course, was wandering around wondering the significance of each bit, and taking pictures and video of everything.
when all the ceremony was done, the men proceeded to put the other five poles in the ground, and square them up. you can really get a much better sense of what is going to be built here, now that the poles define the area. i'm really jazzed. it's going to be nice to have our own room, up in the air, with a balcony and windows that look out to the fields. games family inadvertently improved our view by cutting down two of the trees on the north side of their lot. they didn't do it to improve the view, they have to to make room to get their car in and out of their land now that they are confined to the narrow public road out to the big road.
so many things to decide - when you are building from scratch. what for the roof? what color? what wood? where to save money and where not? what kind of windows? railings? and there is always somebody walking up with a little bit of paper with some thai characters on it with numbers and figures - and a figure at the bottom to be paid. bags of cement, poles, dirt, sand, rocks, wood all magically appear in the yard, then disappear when they get used.
they finished off redoing the rooms upstairs. nice it is. they took what was a bedroom and a balcony and made it into two rooms, one a little larger than the other, and a balcony space 1/2 the size it used to be at the top of the stairs. these will be for mama and teri - who now share the same bed downstairs. their old sleeping area wasn't even a room, it was an area blocked off by a large long cabinet, a dresser and a chunk of plywood. this will all be open space when every one moves into their new rooms.
i'm afraid i'll run out of money before the project is finished, so we'll have to go with sheet tin for the room over the stairs, and maybe put the railing on the balcony later and all that. that's a classic scenario isn't it? more plans than cash?
else, i've been busy around the house, digging the hole for the water/fall pond, supervising the workers (ha ha ha). haven't been into the internet shop much in the last couple of weeks, so pardon the quiet time. i'm composing a more detailed longer piece about the house i was going to buy, and the improvements to this house that we are doing instead. with drawings and photos and some back-fill on the story.
otherwise, things are doing wonderful. i am constantly facinated by how-things-work here. and noticing the plants and bugs. saw a moth that was bigger than the span of my fingers sitting under the leaf of a tree. havent' been spending much time at the internet shop last couple of weeks, so pardon the quiet period. we've had some cloudy weather move in, which is nice as its a bit cooler, and occasional rains to wet things down
i've posted more pictures to the picasa gallery..
inward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070525
070525 Thaikarl - it's getting a little bit warm here...
many people ask me if it's hot in thailand. my answer is yes, but it doesn't bother me. my favorite rejoinder is to say "yes, its warm. but no big deal. I mean, you wouldn't want to be digging ditches, but otherwise it's just nice and warm". so what am i doing now?
digging a ditch.
we're moving the grey-water drain from the bathroom so it drains out to the pond by the road, instead of to the field out back. which means digging up the old pipe, and trenching for the new line. it hasn't rained in days, and the sun has been out everyday, which means the temp is up to 35C today - that's the 95F for yall in USA. you dig a 3 foot row in the clay soil, sun bearing down, you are soaked with sweat. drink liters of water, never goto restroom. the locals do this kind of work for 4 dollars a day. jeez.
else, they finished grading the new road to the house behind ours, now there's a big expanse of red gravel/dirt along the house. going to be interesting when it rains on this stuff the first time. and the monster machine is gnawing away at the roadsides - clearing the brush, small trees and surface vegitation. the BIG ROAD is coming. that will be, um, different. it's going to be four lane divided highway, with motorbike lanes on each side. we will have to go south for a few hundred meters to the U-Turn break in order to go north to the town. most of the people coming round the house don't seem fazed by the road expansion at all. some grumbling because each family or group that has a driveway has to purchase the big round concrete drainpipe that will go in the ditch under their drives. the pipes are 1200 baht each - (36 USD) which is substantial for most people. but if there are several families using the same drive, they can split the cost of the piping. otherwise, everyone seems to be quite relaxed about the whole thing.
there's a few new photos in the thai country life gallery enjoy. comments welcome.
onward!
nu and tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070521
070521 Thaikarl - bangkok visa run and shopping
tok and i bussed down to bangkok. hoped to hook up with a friend of mine i met in cambodia two years ago, but he escaped back to cambodia again... but we had some shopping to do - looking for an ordinary wet/dry vacuum cleaner. you know the kind you can buy anywhere in the usa for as low as $25.00. not so here. they don't seem to exist... the ones that do, like the ones we say them using in the hotel they tell us cost 10,000 baht! that's $298 USD! can't believe.... jeez, maybe i should be importing wet/dry vacs to thailand. and i noticed some brass 1/2 water valves in the hardware store, selling for 60 baht - only 2.00 USD. the same things in brass are like 15.00 in the states. i should be exporting brass valves to the united states... hmmm. reason we're looking ofr a vac is the huge amount of dust the construction is leaving in the house. cement and sand dust everywhere, and we have to clean it off the floors . Tok is a bit sensitive to dust, she'll break out in hives if there is too much of it, so i'm looking for a vacuum so she can filter it out and not just sweep it back into the air all the time.
whilst we are here, i went to the immigration office and got a 30 day extension for my visa. giving me a total of 90 days, without having to make a visa run out of the country. only 1900 baht for the visa - cheaper than making a visa run to cambodia or laos. not too much hassle either, fill out the forms, attach a photo, go to the right line, wait. done.
we stayed at the white lodge last night. but the room was just ordinary and big, so we moved to a new hotel we found last time. a few baht more, but nice room with satellite TV! which means TV in english. woo hoo! making the rounds of bookshops also, but the pickings are slim. seems the best used book market is at chatujeck, which is on the weekends only - so we missed that.
been nice and sunny last couple of days. warmer in bangkok. might go see spiderman 3 at the cinema tonight.
onward
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070518
070515 Thaikarl - days in the house and about town
I was sitting under the mango tree playing my guitar, and a moth the size of my thumb landed on the branch above my head.
how many of you can say that?
it is just such an experience that makes travel and living away from the homeland such a worthy adventure. but truth is, you could be sitting under any tree, doing anything, and have any insect land on a branch above you, and have it be a worthy experience. but somehow, sitting under a pine tree, cleaning your fingernails and watching a fly land on a branch doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
since the shower room is all tore up for cementing and taking out thee tank, we get to take showers outside behind the house. now, that's fun! last night i took my shower before bed in the rain, throwing bowels of water on myself from the big jar. in the morning, you wrap a cloth around you, and shower with it on so as to not excite the neighbors. much.
last night teri gave me a beautiful bug. on a string. i had heard of this - tying a big flying beetle on the end of a string and using it as a flying toy, but up until now i hadn't seen it. i spent a half hour trying to remove the string from the insect without cutting off it's legs or squishing it in the process. it was a most beautiful iridescent green color, with red iridescent streaks on either side of it's head and wing cases. i finally managed to free it, and i crawled all over me for a while. dinner time came and softy me took the bug out to the flower bush and released it back into the wild, since it seemed to be still quite lively. then tok told me this morning that she had never ever seen this kind of bug before. so it's rather rare. drat. it's gone now. but i did take photo's, which i've posted to my Picasa web album.
it's a bit disrupted here, with all the work going on, so our normal things to do are somewhat shifted. but, we still go into town nearly everyday, go shopping for food at the market, stop and look at tile patterns at the home marts. tok occasionally gets a call from a massage customer of hers and we dash into town so she can work. i get the bangkok post newspaper, which is in english from the bookstore in town nearly everyday. i read the paper in the mornings, tok brings me out fresh made espresso from the stovetop espresso maker i brought with me. after a while, eggs, pork, toast and tomatoes magically appear before me on a plate. with butter and green custard ("green stuff" we call it) for the toast. then another cup of coffee appears, i have a few smokes, scratch the kitties heads, and consider the possibility of doing something today. i've been getting up a little after tok most days, which means i'm u anywhere between 6:30am and 8:00am. which is quite extra-ordinary for me. my dear older sister suggested that my circadian cycles are easier reset to mornings, the closer i am to the equator. so this means that i get to bed, and sleep anywhere from 8:00pm to midnight. still easy for me to be awake at night, but there's not much todo - tok mama and teri go to bed, the TV only has 3 stations - all in thai, and there's no internet... so i get in bed and read by little flashlight for a while. if there is one single mosquito inside the mosquito netting, It will have it's meal of me. sometimes i just turn off the light and lay in the dark warmth next to tok, listening to the sounds of the night. frogs calling, gecko's chirping, the cars, trucks and motorbikes that go by on the big road. occasional the Tokay will sing his territorial song loudly, near the back of the house. sometimes that rain comes, drips at on the tin roofs at first, but frequently it turns into a mighty roar as a tropical shower passes over. then there is a long period where the water running off everything makes intermittent splats, slowly decreasing in frequency, until only the frogs and the road is sounding.
Bak, the female cat i know from last year had three kittens the other day. we had to make sure that all the windows are blocked at night, else the male cat will come in and kill the kittens. that is what happens in free-range country cat life. males make sure that cats they didn't sire don't live to compete. i'm in favor of taking both Bak and Niki, the other calico cat to the vet for spaying. only costs 50 baht or so - about 1.5 USD.
i just finished reading "House of Sand and Fog". very good book. i saw the movie a few years ago. very intense character stories. the movie closely follows the story in the book, so the reading fills out the story of the film. i have only one book in English left, and i'm half way through it. after that...??? i should have brought more books!
by the way, i do have a mobile phone here. to call from the united states dial: 011 66 83 161 7558. overseas long distance is pretty pricey, but i can call you back. and if you really want, i can give you the numbers so you could call me on a calling card i have, but you have to ask me. when you use a calling card, you have to dial something like 36 numbers.
and i have a mailing address:
Anukhun
167 Moo 11
Namshun Lomsak
Phetchaboon 67110
Thailand
International priority mail gets here in about a week. regular mail takes 3 - 4 weeks. one of the things i forgot when i left was to copy my postal address list. so if you want a postcard, i need addresses.
photo links:
assorted pix - including the new shower room
thai bugs - some of the interesting ones....
working on the house the never ending project :-)
i just got an email from a friend i met in cambodia two years ago. he's in bangkok, so we might take the bus down for a couple of days and see if i can hook up with aaron, and do some shopping.
ONward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070517
070517 Thaikarl - lanquid days in Lomsak
the days have been lanquid here in lomsak. the workmen are all over the house, everything is tore up, misplaced, dusty, splashed with concrete, and the calls for "more cement", "more sand", "roofing materials" etc etc are draining the accounts. anybody who has redone their house knows what i mean, you just keep throwing money at it and hope it sticks. and there's the "well, gee, while the workman are here, and doing all this stuff already, why don't we go ahead and have them ____________?" syndrome that you get into. throw more money. someday it will be finished. (NOT) someday this phase will be finished. but it's all very worth it, as the house will look so much nicer and be more comfortable to live in.
still hoping to have enough left over to goto vietnam, or at least down south do do a little scuba diving. wull cee...
onward!!!!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070513
070513 Thaikarl - ROAR! Swooooooooooooosh! Yippie! ROCKETS!!!
what a cool fun day! we got up early and took a sam lowe to the park. all the vendors were getting set up. under awnings, the rocket teams were preparing the rockets. these things are BiG! the rocket body is 10 feet long, made from PVC pipe. it is attached to a long tapering tail, made from numerous layers of bamboo. they stuff 120 kg of rocket fuel in there, pack it in and 10 guys carry it out to the gantries. they also have much smaller rockets, with 10 foot tails and engines that are 2 feet long - but the little ones go like mad!
the main crowds of people are dispersed a few hundred meters away for the launch area, but it didn't take me long to find the path out to the "danger zone" - there was a sign in thai and english that said just that. when the big rockets fire off, there is a deafening roar, lots of smoke and fire, and then the thing takes off and roars into the sky. early in the day there was 100 percent cloud cover, so the big ones would disappear into the grey cotton sky. going into the clouds was a big thing - the launch team who's rocket did this whooped and hollered and jumped around all happy.
meanwhile, over at the small gantry, they would launch the smaller rockets as fast as people got get them rigged up. these rockets had parachutes deploy, hopefully somewhere after apogee. not necessarily to recover the rocket, but to mark a successful flight. some never got off the pad, and spewed smoke and fire, going nowhere. those teams went into the mud. a few others kind of went crazy after launch, heading off in some random direction, not exactly any where near straight up. you have to keep your head up and eyes open. none of the rocket's fell into anywhere there were people that i witnessed.
we stayed until after 3 in the afternoon. there were tens of big rockets, and many more small rockets launched. and of course, a "veritable plethora" (as my friend ross used to say) of 'consumer' rockets being launched constantly. vendors were all over the park, selling food, umbrella's, shoes, sunglasses - the works. and more normal sized bottle rockets. and of course, there were the usual stacks of loudspeakers blasting out music and announcements and i don't know what. loud. bring earplugs. and tolerance.
i shot and hour and a half of video, and took a bunch of photo's. bandwidth is low at this shop, so i had to downsize the photos.
Link to a few Bang Fai photos
Tomorrow we bus back to Lom Sak.
amazing thailand!
onward!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/
20070512
070512 Thaikarl - Bang Fai in Yasathon! rockets!
ROCKET FESTIVAL! Yee ha! half a days journey by bus(s) and we are in Yasothon thailand. over in the lower northeast of thailand. tok spotted a hotel from the bus as we were pulling into town. only 250 baht for an aircon room. ($7.65). we walked up the road towards all the sound and lights.
incredible. the street is lined on both sides with stages - every hundred feet or so -- and on every stage is dancers or people or bands, and everyone is cranking out music at 120 decibels. we're talking like 25 stages! vendors along the sidewalks, many people walking around looking, families, kids, men women, young and old. what a celebration. that was last night (friday)
today, saturday was the parade. long troups of dancers, each representing a Bang Fai (rocket) team paraded down the road. they stop in front of a judging stand, and perform a long dance, to the music and singers on the judges stand. there are these huge, superbly ornate floats - all covered with gold painted traditional thai art forms, flowers and statures that come down the road. each float has a dragons head at the front up top. there is a man who is twisting a handle from below, so the dragon head tosses and turns, spraying water from it's mouth. so cool!
it's quite warm today, humid, and a little rain brought out all the umbrella's. tomorrow i am hoping for clear weather, because there are going to be 90 rockets launched. these things are huge bottle rockets, and will go many meters into the sky. i'm all excited to see these launches. i saw this rocket festival on a little news clip on tv about 7 years ago, and i have wanted to see this ever since. pictures will be forthcoming.
but for now, we are going to take a cyclo (Tok just corrected me - cyclo is what they call 3 wheel taxi biks in cambodia and vietnam. here in thailand they are called Sam Low - which means "three wheels") to the park where all the floats are staged and there is a party going on!
woo hoo!!!
onwards!
Nu and Tok
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/