10 Days In and a Day Off

Today's song is: Start Me Up  .. YASS

I am into my 10th day and I took a day off from running as I woke up a bit late and decided it was too hot. Bit of  a wimp out, but a day off will give the joints and muscles time to recover and will not hurt my aerobic development much.

Wonder of wonder, there is no construction work today as the electrical is in and the suspended ceiling is finished.

Besides a pickup truck, it appears that every house in the village has a satellite dish. I checked out the feed in Thavorn's house and it goes into a box (PSI s-x) that has only RCA outputs. Pretty archaic. I was thinking of plugging in an HDMI monitor I am not currently using but I would be looking at a RCA to HDMI converter and I would guess my chances of finding it are slim in Wichian Buri. But, given the popularity of dishes, maybe not.

The other thought I had was upgrading the box to a PSI S2 which is digital and features RCA, plus HDMI for about $60. However, I do not know if it will work with the existing dish. Apparently they put a new satellite in orbit to supply the digital content, so even if the same dish could be used, it would probably have to be reoriented.  The whole package, box plus dish, plus installation is $100 and there is no monthly fee. However, I am out of the village in 20 days so this is just mental exploration at this time.

I do get NetFlix in the village on my laptop and have been watching the Marco Polo series which is excellent. However, my data plan is limited to 20 GB and I have to be careful as I need the plan for my business.

That's it, not much happening in the village.

TTYL

Rain at Last - Lots of It

Today's song is: A Better Place  .. by Glen Campbell

I missed a couple of posts due to the suspended ceiling taking 4 days and the electrical work taking 3 days. It is truly amazing the amount of work the electrician did in 3 days and only billed us 1,000 baht or about $35. However, we paid for all the materials. It makes me feel better to look at a real electrical circuit box rather than the crude contraption that was there. I am quite capable of doing all the electrical work myself, but I had no tools, and frankly, at $35 for 3 days, it would be a waste of my time.

I would now consider the 2 relatives that did the suspended ceiling over 5 days to have grossly overcharged, but the 10,000 baht did include the concrete blocks to build up the wall height, the cement, the ceiling tiles, and all suspension cabling, so maybe not, considering there was two of them.

The electrician, however did clean up after himself. He also pointed out the aircon guy used the wrong size of electrical cable and replaced it. Thavorn did try to call the aircon guy but he ended up hanging up on her. I thought he was a great worker but I guess he does not do redo's.

The last two days have featured huge rainstorms lasting 90 mins with buckets of water coming down. I guess it is the start of the rainy season and hopefully the end of the drought, but the drought kept the mosquito population down.

Jabba's live in Lot got drunk as a skunk last night and also left a quart of beer in the freezer which exploded. He has slept all day and missed his work pickup but seems not to be chagrined at all. I think this is a fairly common event.

Jabba's is off gossiping with a sister and considering the roads are a quagmire we may not see her for a while. That much weight on the skinny tires of a 125 cc motorbike would definitely result in Jabba getting stuck. Thoughts of a beached whale flit through my brain as I write this.

Thais always take off their shoes when entering a house. Not sure why, as their feet are often as dirty or dirtier than their shoes. I have had to wash the cushion on my Ikea chair and have now banned all the urchins from sitting on it (actually lounging with their feet up on it) as they make it dirty again in one day.

Some pics:

These two chairs are the same age, I left the right one in the village the past year.

The Thais like to cook on these outdoor barbecue devices as it is cheaper to buy charcoal (brown bag on the right) than propane. Saving the planet?

Urchins at play

Gossiping

New electrical box at upper right, old shit to the left.

Thavorn dressing down in the village

Cooking pork on the barbecue

My running is going okay but I can't say it is easy yet  .. maybe a little bit easier

TTYL

Dirt Poor and Dirty Poor

Today's song is: Whisky in the Jar  .. Irish Rovers

The saying dirt poor comes from rural farmers who own land but don't usually have a lot of money to spend. They eat well but probably don't have an iPhone 6 in their back pocket. Dirty poor is the way I would describe Thavorn's family. They have their plot of land and a house but they are simply dirty. They don't clean! There are cobwebs everywhere and dust an eighth inch thick in places. They have 5  old filthy pots to cook in and will leave the first 4 dirty all week until Friday and then clean all five at once. Meanwhile the red ants feast and bite. If anything drives me out of the village early it will be the lack of cleanliness and sloth-like approach to getting anything done. Being dirt poor does not give you licence to live like pigs. Soap is cheap!

Jabba's excuse is her weight. We put her on the scales and she was 112 kilos which is more than me and she's 5' tall. Of course her knees are giving out as would mine if I was carrying 62 extra kilos around. Why is she fat? I would say because she eats 5 times the amount of food I eat!At 55 years of age she is beyond help and will probably develop diabetes or hopefully heart attack out. She was telling Thavorn she hopes to last another 10 years to see Tai and Dun grow up. I would not bet on 5.

What pisses me off is neither Jabba or Lot seems to know how to say thank you in English or Thai. They seem to think they have an entitlement coming because Thavorn has a farang. There are many village legends about the largess (word of the day) of farangs but I think they are mostly legends. There is no shortage of gossipers in the village and many of them stop by during the day and I hear the farang word often.

I now have a 9 year old running buddy. He is a cute Thai boy who joined me a day ago and now shows up every morning to run laps with me. He is now my running conscience :-) He runs in sandals that probably cost 100 baht and I run in 6,000 baht asics. He has no trouble keeping up with me despite being 4' nothing. This is the best of Thai. Tai and Dun are much too lazy to run. They have Jabba and Lot as their role models as they are now just getting to spend time with Thavorn and I.

Tomorrow is Sunday which is the day most Thai males get drunk all day on Thai whisky. They work 6 days a week and indulge on Sundays. Maybe I will join them for a shot or 2 :-)

TTYL

Page Views and Reflections on Thai Life

Today's song is: My Generation by The Who

This blog has readers from many different countries. Here are the stats since I started the blog a year ago. Here are the page views by country:

France continues to puzzle me as I do not know anyone in France. I suppose Google is responsible.

The next time you visit Thailand and you are chowing down the superb cuisine that is available everywhere you may want to have these articles (courtesy of the Bangkok Post) in the back of your mind. 

http://bit.ly/1SLI8Fi #BangkokPost

http://bit.ly/1Zez7F9 #BangkokPost

Reflections: Getting the aircon in was a dream. The suspended ceiling has been a Thai experience. The boss is 66 and his grunt is at least 45 and they are both Thavorn's uncles (should have been a clue). It has now been 3 days and they are still not done. Meanwhile they leave a mess that has to be seen to believed. Apparently Thai workers do not clean up after themselves. So I have swept (with Thavorn's help (Lot and Jabba are useless) and mopped the complete floor 3 times and moved mt stuff in and out of my man cave 3 times and no doubt I will have to do so on the 4th day if they happen to finish.

What gets in their way as they work is simply tossed out the window.

I will have more on garbage in the village later on in this post.

It was over 40 degrees in the village today and has been for the last 3 days. I have been without aircon during the day and I sit in a hammock drinking 5-6 liters of water a day. However, at this moment I sit in my man cave with the temperature dialed down to 24 degrees chowing back on fried pork and steamed rice, with a little hot sauce. It tastes wonderful!

The other morning I got up and poured my pre-run coffee and added milk to discover many ants floating belly up. I thought maybe someone had left the coffee jar open, but no ants there! I then checked the sugar jar, but no ants there! I thought the milk was in the fridge all this time and it was sealed so it can't be the culprit. I then checked the kettle and found at least 50 of the little buggers all boiled up as mini lobsters. I felt no pity! These little buggers are red ants and their sting or bite is really bad and takes 3-5 days to go down. I was happy the little buggers had been using my kettle for their nightly swim. Bring it on you red devils :-)

Oh yes, garbage. I had mentioned previously that the village Thais simply throw every thing on the ground and when it starts sticking to their feet they rake it into a pile with all their waste paper and plastic and set it on fire. I asked about garbage collection and there is none. I asked about a municipal or town dump and that seemed to amuse them. What I have observed with my own eyes is the many pickup trucks in the village stopped on the side of the highway tossing garbage out willy nilly. I shudder to think what the garbage police in my older sister's building would think of such behavior!

Here are some pics of my completed man cave. It is not much but it is home for the next month.

Thavorn and Jaidan share the queen and I sleep on the grey mattress topper.

Puppy (Ikea) goes everywhere with Jaidan.

My blessed aircon :-) Samsung

My work area with my wonderful 34 inch monitor.

My getting into shape is going well but I have found it much harder than in the past. I have been using air-conned gyms and cushioned tread mills. I now have concrete and a morning run temperature of just over 30. My new Asics Kayano 22's help to cushion the run but when you are 65 and have not run  (swimming instead) for the past 2 years it is going to hurt.  However, some things never change. Day 3 is always the hardest and then it slowly starts to get better. I am on Day 6 tomorrow.

My asics - not thrilled with the color, but it was the least ugly!

I am really watching what I eat but I did give into a coke craving at 7/11 today as the 3 of us, Jaidan, Thavorn, and I shared a small bottle of coke. Many of the soft drinks here in Thailand still come in the familiar glass bottle we used to get in Canada 50 years ago. It is like stepping back in time.

I am hoping I reach my goals of 3 kilometers in under 18 minutes and a weight of 190 pounds which was the weight I played University football at. If I do then I think that is not bad for a 65 year old :-)

TTYL

Page views are down

Today's song is: Black Magic Woman .. Santana

It is interesting to note that page views are way down since I arrived in the village. I guess my readership finds the village life boring compared to Bangkok, which, of course, it is :-) Perhaps that is why we have the Thai migration from rural areas to the bigger cities. This happened in North America about 100 years ago.  I could use a nice bar in the village, but most folks could not afford it.

Another interesting thing about the village is the economy. Throughout the day various farmers drive around with a loud speaker on their truck adverting their wares. 30 eggs for 100 baht. Freshly butchered chicken (not sure on price), a dicky dee type of ice cream truck/motorcycle. Lots of various fruits, but I can pick mangos from trees on the property.

Here is a pic of Jaidan staying cool outside:

What there is no shortage of is pickup trucks. It seems every 2nd house has a nice pickup. I would guess they drive a nice pickup and the bank owns it for the next 5-7 years. There was a big push to get Thais to purchase a vehicle over the past 2 years to give the economy a boost. The government gave the purchase a big tax break.

I had a bit of a scare today as there was a power blackout but it only lasted 30 minutes. It was interesting to note that the temperature in my little air-conditioned cocoon went from 25 degrees to over 35 degrees in less than 10 minutes.

That is it, from the village, not much happening other than my run this morning. Maybe I should run a boot camp in the village for those who want to lose weight and get fit :-)

TTYL

Day 2 in the Village

Today's song is: Summer in the City (village)  .. Lovin Spoonful

The first night was cool so I switched off the fan in the middle of the night. Last night was stinkin hot and I was sweating all night even with the fan on me. Jaidan suffers more in the heat and woke up crying twice and it took some ice water out of the fridge and 10 minutes to calm down each time.

However, I was up, close to dawn and did 5 laps running and 2 laps walking and 2 laps running and a cool down lap. All in all, not too bad .. I can do this!

The aircon tech was supposed to arrive at 10 but he called and said he would be a bit late and arrived at 11:30. He turned out to be a real gem and did everything perfectly, including a wall mount, which I did not expect. He came with his wife who was his helper and their two kids who played with Thavorn's kids during the 2 hour install. Total cost was 2,000 baht or about $30 per hour.

I have my workstation all setup now as I type this entry. Cocooning in my air coned room is fantastic :-) and Jaidan is fast asleep beside me.

Pics:

Jaidan finally cooled off and sleeping

My workstation as I type this post

Blessed is the aircon - Samsung on sale for 10,000 baht

 

The electrical junction box - Thai style with cobwebs

The living/sleeping area

Out back is Lot's rat bike - 2 stroke engine circa 1960

The bamboo tables where the boys imbibe Thai whisky

The wash house toilet

You flush by dumping buckets of water on whatever

View from the throne

The wash house in all its glory

Cooking sticky rice over the charcoal brazier - adding to global warming

TTYL

Arrival in the Village

Toady's song is: White Rabbit at Woodstock

The journey was interesting to say the least. Our original pickup time was 12 pm for truck 1 , then 1 pm for truck 2 then 4 pm for truck 3, then 6 pm for truck 3, then 8 pm for truck 3. We then opted for the twice as expensive, big mother truck, for 7 pm, which got lost and then found in traffic as the Dinosaur pod wheel burst into flames (downtown amusement park), but eventually it arrived and we threw everything into the cavernous interior, including the 5 of us and we bounced down the road to the village, finally arriving about 1:30 am. Thais are similar to Canada's indigenous population when it comes to time and showing up for work. Partly PC, but if you have ever worked with indigenous populations you know what I mean.

We unloaded quickly and left everything outside and went to sleep. It turns out it was a cool night under the mosquito nets which were really not needed as the drought has killed them all off. I awoke. very late, at 8:30 am to the sound of Thavorn retching outside the bedroom window. It turns out that Jabba (momma) had fed her something that even Thavorn's iron clad Thai stomach could not stomach. If y about a yeou don't get the Jabba reference you will have to read back in the blog about a year. BTW, I am slowly warming up to Jabba, just a lot to warm up to :-)

After a while Thavorn started to feel a little better and we started tidying up our mess, but mostly Jabba's and Lot's (live in BF for Jabba, go figure) mess. There must have been a week's worth of unwashed dishes, pots and pans. It turns out Jabba has missed Thai's help around the house.

I had to make a trip to to the wash house and came across 6 Thai men, including Lot, pissed out of their minds at 9 am. Not a rare occurrence in rural Thailand. There were 3, 45ish types and 3, 25ish types. They kept it up for the next 3 hours, consuming cheap Thai whisky. They then disappeared to sleep it off.

Jaidan is having a bit of trouble adjusting but that will pass. I, myself am enjoying myself. Thavorn is happy to be home :-)

Apparently, the aircon technician will be here to install the aircon I bought at Big C in Bangkok and brought with me. It will be interesting to see what time he shows up at.

In the meantime, here are some pics I promised. The truck photos are blurry as I was bouncing around a fair bit.

 In the back of the truck for 5 hours

Jaidan trying to stay cool

Thavorn doing a weeks worth of dishes

Decluttering Jabba's porch

Jabba's new walker we picked up in Bangkok

Village crossroads

Village street

Village forest cleared to keep Thai boys from partying in

Rambo country

Satellite dish

Different type of gated community than the US

My running track for the next month

More of the running track

My gym for the next month

ditto

Nicer home in the village

Latest exercise equipment

My room for the next month

My work area

Temporary aircon

TTYL