It feels like family

March 30 2016 

Pa Cha An had eight children (I think). Her youngest daughter is Tia and two days ago Tia’s husband, Pla, died of stomach cancer. Tia and Pla have two young children. They live about two hours out of Bangkok. The services will be on Saturday and I think all the family will go there for the services. Pa Cha An no longer can travel so a nurse will be with her here in Phetchaburi.

Today when I went up to the house, Noi, one of Pa Cha An’s sons, had laid out a number of items on the dining table which is outside. I assume this is a ritual for the deceased. I came back to our house and asked Ron to take some photos. Linn is Noi’s first wife. Although they are divorced they both live separately on the property as does one of their daughters, Ae and her son Hope. Linn takes care of just about everything here: housekeeping, laundry which she mostly does by hand, the cooking and some gardening. She asks to do our laundry while we are here as a way to earn money and I am glad to let her. Everything comes back ironed including pj’s.

Pa Cha An and her late husband owned a lot of land in the past. Much of it has been sold and developed with private residences. There is still a large plot across the drive that is Pa Cha An’s property. If I understood correctly, Noi and Linn have planted a banana grove as a business venture on part of the property.  That is Linn with me in the photos. There are over 100 trees. In addition much of the land has been cleared for Ae, Ai and An, Noi and Linn’s three daughters. Nit, another son of Pa Cha An’s has also cleared land for himself. He is single and works in Bangkok as an accountant. Today Linn gave us a tour of the new ‘development’. It is amazing. We have been coming here since 2005 and that land was fallow, a tangled mess of shrubs and weeds. Not anymore. The various family members have worked very hard to make the cleared land a reality.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this but none of the people who live on the property speaks English except Ae who speaks a little. Yet all of us are able to express our love and appreciation for one another. We can communicate enough to get by. Often Linn or Ae will surprise us with a meal which they bring down to our house. Ae brought us breakfast one morning, Linn brought dinner one night. All this from people who live close to the ground with very little if any income. Ae works in a food factory and Linn has no income. They share a room and a bed in the big house. Hope has a room upstairs. Noi lives in a little house next to ours. Nit comes on the weekends and stays in a room in a separate building from the big house. Tui, another daughter who is a nurse practitioner in Bangkok, also comes on the weekend and stays in the big house. Tui also speaks some English. Tui is the one who takes responsibility for the financial matters of the household and it appears she helps out various members of the family.

Today is our last day here. Tomorrow we drive to Hua Hin, about an hour away and turn in the rental car and get taken back to Bangkok. We will go by Leslie’s house to pick up our luggage and have the driver take us on out to the airport. Our flight is at 8:00 p.m. and we arrive in Ahmedabad at 2:00 a.m. Friday with one stop on the way. 

Ron has received his initial schedule from the dean at CEPT university and fortunately his first meeting isn’t until noon on Friday so we can sleep in. After his first meeting I will join him for lunch then he has meetings the rest of the day. Saturday we will look for an apartment and Sunday I think we are on our own to start exploring Ahmedabad. Ron will hit the ground running on Monday. Looking at the schedule it appears that the dean has already done some ground work and Ron is thankful to see that they are ready to get down to work. He doesn’t want a repeat of Rep of GA where there was little to do.

We started to pack today, will go out for our meals today and get up tomorrow to spot clean the house, take out the trash and clean out the refrigerator and take any leftover food items to the big house before leaving.

We are eager and excited to get to India. Frankly it has been a bit of a slog. Over a year ago Ron was invited to be on the proposal. Last March he was told it venture probably wasn’t going to happen as the two entities were so far apart on terms. Then in early October Ron was told the venture was back on and that was six months ago. So you can understand why we are eager to get there.

We are grateful we were able to come to Thailand first to see Pa Cha An. She is not in good health, is bed ridden and at 92 her time on this earth is limited. We wanted to see her and have been able to visit with her daily. She speaks no English and our Thai is so limited I hesitate to say we speak any Thai other than ‘hello, thank you, delicious’, etc. However that has never stopped us from having a good time together. A few years ago she lost her sight and now it seems her hearing has diminished. We stand by her bedside and hold hands and chat away. She always rubs Ron’s arm and pulls on is arm hair because he is so hairy and she knows it is him. Thai’s has no body hair to speak of.

This has been our shortest visit in a very long time. Our last visit we stayed for three months and I hope to do that again in the future but now it is onto India.

From Home to Bangkok and on to our little Thai house

March 24 2016 

We arrived in Bangkok after about 30 hours of travel, door to door. Wednesday morning at 7:00 we flew from Portland to Vancouver BC, an hour’s flight, had a five hour layover, not fun after getting up at 3:45. Then a 10 hour flight to Seoul So. Korea. We had a two hour layover then a six hour flight to Bangkok, arriving at 11:00 p.m. local time Thursday night. We got to our friend Leslie’s around midnight and talked until 1:00 AM.

It is 93 today and 60% humidity making it feel like 107 degrees according to the weather report. We had breakfast at Leslie’s then went in to work with her so we could use her staff to make some inquiries in Thai for us about shipping our excess baggage to India. The rules for the amount of allowed baggage are different on our flight to India and is expensive when over the limit. We left her office and went to make arrangements for a car and driver to take us to Hua Hin tomorrow where we will pick up a rental car then drive back to Phetchaburi where we stay when in Thailand. Afterwards we had a delightful lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Charlie’s French Bistro. We have gone there so many times that the staff always remembers us and gives us a warm welcome.

We ran errands, getting SIM cards for our phones and some Thai cash from the ATM. We then returned to Leslie’s office to gather the data on our choices for dealing with our excess luggage. Once we got home and considered our options we realized we had made a miscalculation and we were not as over the limit as we had thought so will proceed to just check the baggage and pay for the cost of being over the limit as it will be the easiest solution although a bit more expensive.  The error had to do with subtracting Kgs from Lbs.  It's not a good thing to try and do this when sleep deprived.

That evening when Leslie got home we took her out to dinner. She has so many great places to eat within a few blocks of her condo. We managed to go one block and have crab cakes with rockets salad and apple crumble and some great desserts.

March 26, 2016 

We hired a driver to take us to Hua Hin leaving from Bangkok at 9:20 and it took three hours, an hour longer than usual. The traffic was horrendous. I think half of Bangkok went south for the weekend. I later discovered that this is the season for Chinese Thais to honor ancestors so there is more traffic on the road. Our driver at one point started driving on the shoulder as were other drivers, passing many cars. We passed a policeman who was directing traffic and he waved us through. Go figure…

We picked up the rental car and drove further into town and ate at our favorite restaurant and had duck soup with wontons and egg noodles. It is so darn good. We drove back to Phetchaburi and got home at 2:30. The family greeted us warmly and seven members came to our house. It was damn hot but it was great to see so many of our Thai family.

We were invited out to dinner and 11 of us enjoy fresh seafood at another favorite restaurant. It was great. We got home and went to bed by 9:30. Ron didn’t sleep at all and I managed o sleep until 3:00. I read until 5:00 and went back to bed until 8:00.. Jet lag is not fun for the first five days or so. Today we will take it easy. We ran one errand and came home to rest. Between jet lag and the heat, it is best to slow down.

The family Matriarch is still with us and alert and sharp as ever.  Unfortunately she is now bed ridden from her broken leg from 15 months ago and now also has liver cancer.  We will be here visiting until MArch 31 when we return to Bangkok for our flight to Ahmedabad.  We'll rest up wile we can as there will be much to do when we arrive in India.

Background: the slog to the sojourn

March 12, 2016

Over a year ago Ron was asked about his interest in a job in India. In March of 2015 we were traveling in Costa Rica and were asked if we would house sit a BandB in September/October for three weeks in Escazu outside of San Jose, the capital. Since we were foot loose and fancy free we said yes AFTER Ron contacted the person who had asked Ron about his interest. Ron was told that the India gig did not look promising as the two entities were very far apart on the terms. He was advised to ‘go on with your life.’ We assumed the India deal was dead.

In October while Ron was in Costa Rica doing the BandB gig, he got an email saying the deal was on, that the terms has been agreed upon. I was out walking in Portland that dy. It was fall and the leaves were spectacular colors. I often would pick some up from the sidewalk and bring them back to the condo. I was looking at one in particular while coming up the elevator and said to myself ‘this one is Rajasthan Red. Rajasthan is a state in North Central India and they have a red there that is indicative of the region, a beautiful dark, rich red. I lamented to myself ‘I guess I will never see that again’. I came into the condo and checked my email and lo and behold there was Ron’s email telling me that India was back on! It was synchronicity at its best.

Here’s what we know so far. CEPT will find an apartment for us. We have asked for an apartment with two-three bedrooms so we can have guests stay with us and have room for a home office. It will be fully furnished as there is no provision in the contract for us to ship anything other than ourselves and our luggage. Hopefully we will find something close to the university as we will not have our own transportation.

Ron will create an advisory committee to help him determine the needs for the program. His job will be to develop curriculum and recruit instructors. Modi, the current prime minister, is friend of the president of the university and said if the program is successful he would like to see it nationalized. However, this is much further down the road.

We know that Ahmedabad has bad air pollution. New Delhi is the worst in the world, surpassing Beijing.  We have bought face masks that will screen out 95% of the particulate matter. Since buying these paper masks, I discovered some cloth masks that are as effective so will add those to our stash since they can be rinsed and reused.

We hope to leave around March 21^st - 23^rd. We will fly to Thailand and spend about a week in Phetchaburi on the family compound of our Thai family where we stay when in Thailand. Pa Cha An, the 92 year old matriarch is not in the best of health after a fall in the autumn of 2014 when she broke her leg so we want to see her now. She continues to surprise us with her tenacity.

After months of negotiating Ron’s contract and navigating the arcane processes for Indian visas, we have now received Ron’s visa and Trica’s is in process with the expectation it will be finalized early next week.  Then we’ll purchase our tickets and be off on our adventure.

Stay tuned!!