Life in Phetchaburi

March 22, 2017

Today we went to Hua Hin to see Immigration regarding our visas. It turned out that we have to go to the office in our province. But the staff member was so helpful and filled out our paperwork and smiled often. Not your typical bureaucrat. We picked up an outdoor light we are having repaired and we decided to have another one made just like it. Then we did our grocery shopping at the high end market that caters to ‘farang’, foreigners.

It is getting hotter every day. This afternoon at 4:00 I was washing lettuce and the kitchen was 92. We ate dinner at 7:00 and it was 90. Now it is 8:30 and it is 88 degrees. April is the hottest month. I may have to start serving dinner in the bedroom! The humidity is at 77 % and is climbing. It makes 86 feel like 95. No wonder I was hot today!

March 24, 2017

We now spend each afternoon in our bedroom in front of the fan and the AC. We read, do emails, work on the blog. Do crosswords and occasionally nap. Today we were blessed with a cloud cover so it wasn’t as brutal but now at 2:30 the sun is out and it is again 92 inside the house. I long for the NW but they have had a horrible winter and still are having a lot of rain.

Yesterday we drove to Tha Yang and got our visa extension so we will be legal when we leave Thailand on the 20^th. It took an hour of our time not counting the drive there and back. We had miscalculated our departure date and were two days past our visa date. We could pay a fine at the airport but we wanted to avoid any hassles then or in the future as everything is in a file in the immigration computers. Might as well play by the rules to avoid future hassles. It was a problem time and money fixed.

Because it is so hot we are eating simple meals. Last night we had cowboy caviar (black eyed peas, black beans, corn, chopped purple onions and yellow and red peppers with cilantro) and a tossed green salad with lots of veggies and Parmesan toast on crusty bread. Today we got up early and made marinara sauce for spaghetti tonight. The less time in the kitchen in the evening the better.

Yesterday we found a woman who sews in our village so took her our mattress pad to replace the elastic that holds it in place. Today I decided to have her alter a pair of pants I bought at Barefoot in SL. I realized they were men’s pants and they are too big. I gave her the new pants and a pair of old pants to use for size since she didn’t have a place for me to change and for her to pin them. All this was done in English which she doesn’t speak. HA! Wish me luck. Today I got a Thai massage in the village to help with neck and back pain I have had since the last train trip. I already feel better.

March 28, 2017

On Sunday we were tired of hanging out at the house so we drove to the coast and headed south to Cha Am. Close to Cha AM is a restaurant that specializes in seafood. Our two favorite dishes are crab curry and fried fish with garlic. When we drove up there were five or so HUGE tourist buses. We had never experienced this before. But we took a chance and went over from the parking lot. The first dining area was packed and so was the second but a staff member approached us and showed us to a table next to the pond. There was a pleasant breeze and a cover so we were out of the blistering sun. Neither of us eats big meals here due to the heat so we ordered one fish with garlic and a fried rice dish with crab because once before we ordered the curry and couldn’t eat it because it was too much food and too rich to eat with the fish. After eating the crab and rice we decided next time to just order two fish. After eating Dungeness crab from the Pacific NW you are never the same! We were amazed at how quickly we got our meal given the crowds.

Afterwards we drove south of Cha Am to look at a new mega housing development called BLU. We looked at a two bedroom, two bath condo on the 11^th  floor. There were 21 floors. It was 63 square meters, around 650 sq ft. We asked to see a non furnished model. The space was pretty efficient given the size but after looking at it we realized the development will appeal to folks who live in Bangkok about 2 hrs north of Cha Am and wish to escape on the weekends. There are 14 million residents in BKK.. The kitchen had two electric burners and little counter space. It was ideal for heating your take away meals. I would go nuts trying to manage living in a place with a kitchen like that. I loved the view: in one direction we looked out on the ocean and the other direction we looked at the mountains. It was a corner unit and had great cross ventilation to catch the sea breezes. We have no intention of buying but were curious to see the building which was part of a much larger development with another tower of condos, and an area of four story condos closer to the beach. The cost for the curious was about $142,000.

We started back to Phetchaburi and were surprised at the traffic heading north to Bangkok at 3:00. We had heard about how bad is was but this was our first Sunday experience with it. I can only imagine how bad it gets the closer you get to BKK. Pair said the other afternoon mid week she left Phetchaburi around 3:00 and got to BKK at 9:00!!! Without traffic it is a 90 minute trip. We chose to drive on the access road once we got close to Phetchaburi because there was much less traffic on it.  We went out to eat at our Swiss restaurant that serves great pasta dishes. I loved my tomato sauce with bacon and chilies. I topped it off with their mango sorbet, one of the two sorbets they have among a nice array of gelato favors.

Yesterday I woke up at 1:00 a.m. to the sound of RAIN! I love the rain here. It reminds me of the South where I grew up, where you get great rain storms with thunder, lightening and a true down pour. I got up to make sure the rain wasn’t coming in the open French doors or the even larger bay of windows in the living room which go from the floor to the ceiling. No problem. I went back to bed and listened to the rain.  It started to get real serious with thunder, lightening and a deluge. I got up again and had to go outside to get the French doors closed and to close the bay of accordion windows in the living room. I did a little mop up with a towel because we have high gloss tile floors in the house that turn into a potentially deadly surface when wet. I stayed awake a long time listening to the rain, thunder and lightening. Delightful.

Today is cooler but not cool. The air got cleared with the rain so the sky is bluer than usual. We started our day with me mopping the floor which I do once a week or every ten days. Then we headed out for massages down the street. Next came lunch at a nearby place and I then got a mani/pedicure for $3.00. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the best either. I was glad to have my nails cut because I was starting to feel like I was growing talons.

We retreated to the AC/fan in our bedroom for the remainder of the day. The high inside the house today was 86, not bad.

March 29

Today we took Hope, our ten year old on the property and his grandmother, Linn, to shop for art supplies for Hope. He often has nothing to do here as he is the only child on the property and I have never seen him have playmates over other than cousins who come to town occasionally. Hope spends a lot of his time on either his phone screen or the computer screen. He loves to kick the soccer ball around with Ron but Ron has been having a knee problem for weeks and kicking the ball aggravates the problem.

I asked Hope earlier this week if he liked to draw and he said yes. I then asked him if we would like to go shopping with us to get some art supplies and it got lost in translation and he said no. So I asked his cousin who speaks English to inquire as to whether he understood. My hunch was right and he had not understood what I was asking. Once clarified, we set up a shopping date for today. Hope is a smart, sweet and polite kid. His mom moved out a few months ago to go live with her boyfriend and left Hope behind. We went to a nice stationery store Ron and I had visited before. They had color pencil sets, paints, pastels, etc. We let him pick out what he wanted. It was interesting to us that he needed encouragement. I picked up a large set of colored pencils and he agreed, but when I offered good quality paper for drawing he declined initially. He didn’t want paints or markers but wanted a mechanical pencil. I also threw in some plastic boxes to hold the pencils and another one to hold the erasers, pencil sharpener, ruler, etc. I found a case to hold the paper and/or finished drawings. He seemed very pleased. And we all had fun.

On the way back to the car Linn stopped at a food cart that was grinding up cooked chicken parts. She was getting a treat for the three dogs on the property but I was intrigued how nothing gets wasted here. It was gross to see cooked chicken heads going into the machine. We invited them out to lunch but they had already eaten. We dropped them back at the house and we headed out for a quick bite. Back home to the bedroom for our afternoon heat retreat.