A New York Minute?

People talk about all the things that can happen in a New York Minute, but is nothing compared to what can happen in a Thai Day!

In one Thai Day I accomplished:
A. finding an organization to work with
B. find two new roommates
C. find a house to live in
D. putting the money down for the house
E. getting a mosquito netter, tiler and gardener to come and fix the house
F. buying a bike

All in one day!

So it all started early in the morning (thank you jet lag) when I sat down next to this guy, Rob, in our hostel’s common space, we start chatting and it turns out he is here using sustainable and recycled materials to build playgrounds for local schools. And it just so happens that they are looking for people to help out. Not only that but Marcus, the guy who heads up the project, is very keen on the idea of having an architect help them out! So not only will it get to build structures using eco friendly methods, but I will also be able to design some of them my self! Very cool! I never envisioned that I would be telling people that I build playgrounds in Thailand!

After Rob leaves to go off to work Andrew and I start looking for apartments to hopefully move into in the next couple of weeks. The hostel is supernice, but we want to be able o cook for ourselves and have a little bit of privacy. Than, the Ban Thai Guesthouse manager, takes us to view a few of the ones that are also owned by Ban Thai. The first one is like living in an apartment in the States- only nicer! Some of the perks I wouldn’t be able to afford back home. It had full wireless, a maid, someone to do your laundry, mosquito nets every where, air conditioning (which is almost unheard of here) all western furniture and amenities – but it just wasn’t like we were living in Thailand. It was too weird to have a maid come and clean up after us and to do our laundry. Plus it was a bit expensive, 6,000 Baht a month (which I know translates to like 200 dollars a month, nothing in comparison to what I used to pay!). I guess that I wanted a bit more realistic of an experience, I didn’t come here to be pampered! The next place he showed us was the complete opposite, a total dump. No stove, no sink in the kitchen, no mosquito nets and NO privacy. We are starting to worry- Rob had already told me how he had been looking for a place to rent for the past two months!

Being a bit disheartened by our lack of apartments we decided to go look for a bike to buy. We first tried the Chinese bike store, which was like being back in downtown Chinatown. Her store was filled with completely new bikes that looked like they had just come from the factory. I am still not quite sure who buys her bikes because no one in Mae Sot rides new bikes, they are all old 1950’s cruiser bikes, but none the less we are going to try and give some a go. But even the tallest one was way to small for even me, let a lone Andrew! (Have I mentioned yet that we are on the tall side here?) So we decide to go and try the other more expensive bike shop. There the bikes were ridiculously priced. Once again we were completely defeated in finding what we were looking for.

Andrew eventually had to run off to work and I decided to go around town a bit a see what things were like at the heart of Mae Sot. I was still on the hunt for a bike, since you really needed one to get around town on, and I was stopping at random stores that had a few used ones out front for sale. None of them were nice and too expensive- everyone just wanted to take advantage of the farang (read foreigner). When on the very last block I notice a little wheel poking out of the side of a shop. I stop in and somehow explain to the owner (no one really speaks any English here) that I want to look at her bike and once she realizes what I am talking about she opens up the whole side of her shop and there are about 20 perfect 1950’s cruisers sitting there. So that was where all of the locals bought their bikes! And at great prices, I end up getting a really cute red one –with a bell- for only 1,900 baht ($55). In New York this bike could have cost me like 200 bucks! I was so happy with my bike that I later took Andrew back there for him to buy one too!

After riding back to the guest house on my new bike, Andrew comes back after a few hours saying that one of his coworkers, Jade, had found a house to move into that she really liked but her old roommate didn’t want to move there and if she wanted to see it. She prepped us by saying that it hadn’t been lived in in a very long time and needed to have a bit of work done to it, but all in all it was a great house. So off we go to see it… and it is totally amazing! A 5 bedroom house with a huge kitchen, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies and 2 large common areas! This is a home improvement-doers dream (i.e. MY dream). So excited that Andrew and I have finally found a place to live we put half of the money down right then.

Later back at the hostel I am telling this story to Rob and he says “oh ya I have a Thai friend who is looking for a place to stay for really cheap” and it just so happens that this “Thai guy” that Rob know Jade also knows and now he is our new roommate. And because he speaks 5 languages he was able to broker all of the deals for the construction that we needed to have done on the house. Which is pretty considerable. Right now our kitchen is all concrete. So we need to have the two bathrooms tiled, the weeds all around the house dug up and the whole house needs mosquito netting! But hopefully we will be moved in by the end of this week! So currently I am running back and forth to the house trying to make sure that everything gets done, cause I am sort of in charge of that. Also next weekend we’ll be able to hopefully furnish the place- yay for furniture buying!

All of that happened in one day! Amazing huh? Craziness sure can ensue here.