Knockin on Hewans Door
- Edward
- Nov 13, 2018
- 7 min read
Getting to know a city that you have moved to is same same but different to any new relationship. You have certain expectations that may be or may not be realistic.
We don't want to pretend that everything is always coming up roses. Although we have been getting some nice roses from our yard lately.
Friday night we went back to the On On Bar for the weekly pool match. This week was the On On A team v.s. their B team. It was fun since everyone knew each other well. The A team remains undefeated.
Barbara told me that the conversation with the women was familiar to her even though it was in Thai. Pai thinks her face is too round and wants a thin face and body like her friend, complaints about uncomfortable clothes to look good, etc. etc.
Of course all these women are beautiful and it seems so silly from the male perspective. It's funny how our different cultures are truly same same but different. It bothers me some that it's a reflection of our western culture being adopted here. Or is it? Maybe these are just universally human. The competing urges to fit in and also be unique. That's not just a women's issue.
Ah well, just musings at the village coffee shop. It was nice to live in Hawaii with its coffee, but honestly the coffee is better here. That's changed since our experience when we first came to Chiang Mai. The beans must be the same, but they are roasting it in the style of Europe which suits our taste better. That's not universally true, some of the Thai coffee can have a bitter aftertaste, but more often than not, we are served an excellent cup.
Saturday morning started on a sad note. Little George our obnoxious, but sad little button quail was missing. He had been crowing all night long, so in an attempt to get him to sleep I'd been putting him on the ground and covering him up with a towel or my jacket. It helped some, but true to his namesake big George, little George just wouldn't shut up. When I got up Saturday, I noticed that he was being really quiet. When I removed the cover, Little George was gone.
It seemed quite strange because the door was securely latched and my jacket had been over the cage. I sent Wurstchen to look around the property which he eagerly did, but no luck finding Little George. We listened for his call and has several false alarms, but it was never his distinctive whistle.
Upon further examination I saw that two of the bars had been spread slightly. We thought that the big 2 foot lizard that hangs around our fence had got him, but Jason said more likely a rat. They like to work the ground and could push through those bars.
I felt terrible for letting Little George get eaten. The poor guy was hated by his wife, my dog wanted to eat him and he was annoying to our neighbors and to us when we were trying to sleep. He really didn't have a friend in the world except me and I wasn't a very good one. I hope he gets to come back as a big predator or an elephant. He always wanted to be the big man on aviary.
Saturday was drizzling rain so we got a deck of cards and had what I'm sure will be a long tournament of Spades. Barbara kicked my butt in the first match so I'm ready for a chance at redemption.
Earlier in the day, I tried the third of the four massage parlors in our village. I don't think I'll make it to the fourth one. I went for 1 hour on Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday. Thai massage is just incredible. I guess I have a bit of a masochistic streak in me because it really hurts during the massage, but afterward I feel amazing and can move like I was 20 years old again.
I can now sit in the yoga position without pain, something I don't think I could even do at 20 years old. Barbara noticed right away that I've lost my list. For a long, long time I've had one shoulder that drooped. Even standing in front of a mirror I couldn't get my shoulders to be even with my back straight. I thought it was hereditary or something, but obviously not. I plan to go back on a regular basis. I know that all of you that read this far in to our blogs realize the value we find here. A 2 hour massage away from the center of the tourists is priced at 350 baht. That's just a little over $10.
Sunday we went to the Gekko Garden, where we had lunch after Cheryl's cremation. They have a Thanksgiving Buffet and we were getting reservations for Jason and the two of us. Loy Krathong will be happening the same week so we plan to stuff ourselves and then waddle down to the river to watch the candle ceremony and the people.
After dinner at the Gekko we went to check out the Pantip Plaza. It has clothes and electronic stuff. I was surprised to find a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt on sale there. They have many college teams, but apparently only one piece of clothing from each team. In my case, since I'm not a small women's size, I was out of luck in thinking I could pick up a new hoodie.
Barbara did find a nice warm blanket at the mall. It hasn't been as cold lately but everyone says we haven't seen anything yet. It's going to get really cold. We'll see about that.
After the mall we heading into a part of the Chiang Mai night market. The market is a huge labyrinth of street vendors with some concentrated in an area called the Anusarn Market. It reminded me a little bit of the old Honolulu International Market with a combination of trinkets, food and entertainment.
We decided to stop and get a drink at one of the eating establishments/bars that ring the market. There was a young Thai man singing Beatles songs with an acoustic guitar. He is a good musician with a nice voice and a heavy Thai accent. We enjoyed listening to him and he asked if we had any requests. Barbara went with the standard "Mustang Sally" and he just smiled and said "Wow". Then he announced to the crowd that I had come over and whispered in his ear to play a song for my wife (I hadn't). He proceeded to play "Unchained Melody" which has been our song for many years. It brought tears to both of our eyes.
After his set he came over to talk to us. He told us to stick around for the next band if we like classic rock. We thought we'd listen to a song and head home, it being Sunday night and all. OMG, we had sooo much fun. We realized we're retired so Sunday is the same as any other night and we stayed for the whole show.
Here's a little sample of the evening music and then some longer versions that I put here for us to remember this great evening. You may notice that Ken Jeong moonlights with the Knigth the Voice on bass and I think a couple of the band members from Aerosmith were in the audience.
When we finally left at about 12:30am we went back over to Big C to buy some Schweppes lemon mixer. I'd been drinking it with my Mekhong Thai Whiskey (which is actually a rum since it's made from molasses) and it was pretty good. We also picked up a few other things and had some heavy bags as a result.
I called Grab (the Uber of Thailand) and the guy that accepted us called and said he didn't want to go all the way to Hang Dong, could I cancel? That's an option in Grab and one I've done for other drivers. What I didn't know is that's a black mark on my record even if I mark it as driver asked me to cancel. When I went to re-book it said I needed to enter a credit card because next time I'd get charged for cancelling.
We're on a cash basis here so I wasn't even carrying a credit card if I wanted to enter it. Thank goodness the Songtails are still working here. I talked the guy down from ridiculous to just expensive and we got home pretty quick. A Grab ride into or home from the city is normally about 230 baht or $7. The Songtail charged us 300 baht each or about $18. Still much better than walking.
Lesson learned is I'm not cancelling any more Grab rides. I bet the driver can cancel, but doesn't want to mess up their own rating.
Just one more story to bring this up to date. Last night I promised to take Barbara into the village for dinner. I had a place in mind that looked nice. I'd talked to the woman that runs it and she's married to a Norwegian guy who doesn't like his food too spicy. I wanted to try it for dinner. It was sprinkling rain but Barbara was game so off we went.
Even though the village is only about a 5 minute scooter ride, it was coming down a little harder by the time we got to the restaurant. This being Thailand, it was closed, which seems to be a more or less random thing with businesses here. We decided to go up to the next village and go to a middle eastern / Mexican restaurant that we'd been to before. The rain is coming harder now and we're starting to get wet. That one normally is open only from 5pm to 10pm and that's marked on their sign, but last night closed.
The rain is getting a little harder yet, so we pull off and ask someone who directs us to a little restaurant down a short soi. She made us some really nice food, in fact for me a version of Pad Thai that I've never had before. It was wrapped in an egg omelet and at my request it was medium spicy. Alloy Dee!
The roof of the restaurant is metal so we could hear how the rain was increasing and increasing in intensity. We thought we'd wait it out, but after a while the wooden benches we were sitting on started to feel pretty hard. We decided to ride for home.
That 5 minute ride was the coldest I've been since arriving here 2 months ago. We were both shivering pretty bad by the time we got home. The guards at the gate saw us and were pretty impressed that we were willing to be out riding in that rain. Either that or they were just laughing at our stupidity, but they had big smiles in either case.
Barbara got in the warm shower and I got into my fuzzy pants and long sleeve shirt. We recovered to find out what today will bring.
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