From Chiang Mai to Australia

From Chiang Mai to Australia  (23rd – 28th October)

THAILAND FLOODS

It’s been three WHOLE days since we landed on Australian soil...we left with very mixed emotions, and that’s not taking into account dodging the flooding in Bangkok. For those living in, or keeping a close eye on, Thailand, the feelings have been mixed, if not angry at times. There have been many discussions across the blogging world about the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. The fact is that this was and is a flood of phenomenal proportions. I don’t think anyone was or could have been prepared for its enormity.

The way we might handle such a national disaster in our birth land, could be much different to the way Thailand chooses to approach this catastrophe. I joked with a friend in Chiang Mai, when the river Ping was flooding (she was high and dry), who couldn’t swim.

“Just get a couple of empty 2 litre milk bottles and use them as floaties.” and re-enacted how LJ used to swim (flap) around the pool as a toddler...it seems I wasn’t that far off. Kidding aside, looking at the sand bagging efforts in central Bangkok, the inner city residents did not seem as concerned as I was.

I did have the pleasure of meeting up with an email pen-pal of mine while there. A very educated man (engineer) and assistant managing director for a large construction company. We got chatting about the floods and ‘who was to blame’, if anyone. I mentioned the sandbags, or lack of, in my hotel area and he (not verbatim, but extremely accurately) said “Thai’s don’t prepare...when they see the water coming up the street, they might move...or, not...or if the flood is coming into there house...They live in the present.”

Whether it's possible to make such a broad sweeping statement or not, remember I’m only the messenger!

LEAVING THAILAND

Most people write a list of what they’ll miss and what they won’t miss, but I’ll try not to go down that track. But, but, but.... Before we left Chiang Mai, Stray and I did ask each other what we would miss about Thailand, and I replied I wasn’t sure. He did point out that the $2 a week laundry fee would be hard to beat. And, I will certainly miss my fruit being pre-cut for me, the smiley 7-11 boys offering to open my large bottle of beer in-store (accompanied by a straw), the many friends I’ve made during my stay there...some still there and some who have moved on. Stray will surely miss his teaching and students...and massages. But, for every *thing* I’ll miss, there’s something to look forward to back home... especially working, to save the money for the next adventure.

The long part of the trip back home, from Kuala Lumpur to Gold Coast, was pleasant. Avoided (after a light dinner, inflating of a blow up neck pillow, snuggling under a sarong, come blanket) with the aid of a sleeping tablet. My first try and I highly recommend it. Never battered an eyelid until I heard the breakfast cart coming down the aisle.

ARRIVING HOME

We didn’t (quite) have to machete our way back into our yard, so that was a plus. CJ, less 20 odd kilos, looking just wonderful, and grandpumpkin met us at the airport, then chauffeured us to our house where frozen home cooked meals awaited us. Shortly after, my trusty steed (small car) was delivered back to me by its foster parents (thanks Dad and Mum) looking better than I’d left him. Not to mention an esky or two of food, cheese! ham! and drinks...wine...WINE...RED and WHITE WINE...made in AUSTRALIA!

Getting in my own wheels and taking off, wherever, whenever, would have to be on the list of ‘biggest things I’ve missed in Oz', along with being able to drink water straight from a tap. However, I did feel out of sorts staring at the fruit today in our local store. Grapes $17.00 per kilo and nectarines, not much less. Nup!

And then, there was using my bank card at the shop. I had acquired a new one before leaving Australia and wasn’t sure if I’d remembered the PIN number correctly...and evidently, had not. A long (on hold) call to the bank is in order tomorrow.

Back in May, we received word that our house had been invaded by ‘termites’. A word synonymous to ‘cancer’, if it were in the human context. The deluge earlier in the year had no doubt driven the little critters indoors, away from the hundreds of more appetising trees on our property. It’s now October, and they’ve just apparently been halted, killed, exterminated. If it hadn’t been for CJ and her partner listening, touching, poking and crumbling off bits off our house, it would have been in much worse shape than it is. Still, they’ve eaten a path from the rear, through a staircase, in between floors, inner wall and door/window frames, to the front.

So, for now, it’s clean up, settle down, repair and back to work time.

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

Windy, Wild, Woolly Weather!

We were in a taxi returning from Vientiane, Laos, when we received a text message from home...literally, our house where our daughter, CJ, is living. ‘Just had the worst hail storm I’ve seen in twenty years’. (There’s something disconcerting when your child starts referring to time, in decades...and does she really remember a horrific hail storm, from when she was six years old? Probably...knowing her!)

The damage was minor considering the ferocity of the storm. Only hail dents in two of the cars, one of which was parked under cover and was pelted from the side, by golf ball size pieces of ice. The force of the wind reached up to 90 km per hour. CJ said she couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from...it was coming from every direction. Cyclonic.

Some footage of the storm, complements of downunderchase on Youtube.

They’re just getting on top of cleaning up the mass of leaves/branches on the ground and fallen trees...we live on a heavily treed block of land. A major clean up job, we've had to do many times over the years, but glad we're not there for, this time!

Dragon Fruit Tree

This post should really be called 'Dragon Fruit Plant on a Tree'. Two posts ago I replied to a comment and mentioned our Dragon Fruit plant (Pitaya) and how the only fruit we ever see are small and pathetic, and on the ground, along with ginormous dead flowers. I first tasted the white fleshed variety in China, without it's skin and cut up, so didn't recognise it at the time. Twenty or more years ago I planted a small piece of the Pitaya cactus at the base of a gum tree.

This is the way a fruit bearing DF plant should look, neat, trimmed and well maintained.

To Do-ne List (the cattery, laptop security and life in general)

So, how’s it all going? Well, good, but a bit stressful ...thanks for asking!

The To Do-ne list is getting smaller, but is still quite large and scary. About 80% of the house contents now resides in the donga in boxes labelled A-Z or 1 - ∞ and their innards methodically logged in an Excel spreadsheet for easy (ha) relocation. The walls are pretty bare and cupboards look a little like those from the set of Ghost Town.

Some of our clothes and linen have been vacuum packed into those plastic sucky bags and now look like compacted road kill.

The gate, the essential loophole closer in the Rotty proof fence, has been wire brushed (by me) and is awaiting a coat of black glossy paint (by me).

*Note – the Rotty hasn’t chased next door’s sheep for a couple of weeks, but he has taken liberty with the open gate and was caught out on the road twice today. He is truly a beautiful dog and we have no doubt that we will have him, nearly, trained and adjusted before we go...but Bundy still glares at him with a ‘WHEN!!!! are you leaving????’ look.

The side veranda, AKA cattery for the daughter's three indoor nutty cats, has now had its slab (floor) laid. Our wonderful friends came to help and due to rain, the ordeal/partying lasted two days, not one. The event was not without its hilarity and tragedies.

Before

Still before, but from another angle...

What are these please?

Sunday morning markets.

Cucumbers

Turmeric? and chillis.

Don't know what's in the bags, the guy selling these didn't know their name...in any language. Here's a close up, any ideas? Small to big pea sized and shaped, each on their own stork attached to a main stem. Most were green, a few were turning yellow to red and you can just make out the small cream coloured flowers. Chillis?

Tamarind

Sunday morning market at Woodridge Station, Brisbane, Australia 6 am - 12 pm. We walked away with enough fruit and veggies to hurt my arms, for AU$20.00.

Life Update - the Rotty, Blackboards, getting ready etc.

Things are going pretty well to plan.

1. I have confirmed that there is NO alien infestation in the Donga...just dry rot and have relocated it's contents outside, to the yard , under a tarp, and am arranging for new flooring to be delivered. It has been a very INTERESTING exercise (CJ and LJ!!!!), since some of it's contents have been long buried and forgotten for may years.

2. I have completed and shipped off the last of my blackboard jobs off to their various habitats and am looking forward to completing my 'How To' Chalk Art ebook/tutorials, while in Thailand.

3. The Rotty seems to have (touch a freakin' forest's worth of wood) stopped chasing the sheep next door...YES, we have Kiwi's living adjacent to us. As big as he is, Conan is like a giant rodent and has a Houdini like talent of being able to squish, squeeze and slide under a few centimetres of barbed wire dog fencing. I take that back...I just had to retrieve him from the neighbours place, yet again.

Conan, the Rotty, in bliss!

 4. I feel like I am living in a bit of a war zone of late, as expected, with so many different projects happening, both in and outside of my head. Boxing up, repairs and building happening all around.

5. I have been investigating some really interesting and invaluable (to me) blogs...and am sure I have yet to discover many more! As much as I like to go off on a tangent...I am trying to focus on Thailand...Chiang Mai....learning Thai and having a ball! For now, anyway!

I've moved the Blogga Log (Blog Roll) to a stand alone page due to my growing addiction to reading and collecting blogs of interest.

Warning: May contain traces of peanuts

While I’m going about my Saturday morning chores, I like to catch up on some current affairs programs which I have undoubtedly missed during the week. If you watch a lot of SBS or ABC in Australia, you’ll hear and or see, from time to time: Warning! Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warned that this program may contain names and images of deceased people.

Every time I hear this I say to myself, I must find out what it’s all about. Because, to be honest, lucky for me, it has all the relevance of a ‘may contain traces of peanuts’ warning on the back of a cereal box.

The truth is out there!

A typical day at the office.

6.45 am, I wake up. I've been able to add an extra 15 minutes of slumber since quitting the coffin nails. Bundy and I go through our normal routine, although he often opts to go outside for his morning business instead of joining me in applying the lippy and mascara. Since the arrival of the Rotty, he prefers to exit the house via a more inconspicuous route. Up the internal staircase, through the spare bedroom, jumping up to and out of an upstairs window, onto a lower roof, then scaling down some lattice work like a hairy ginger spider cat.

I get dressed. Watch the news. Stray's sometimes still in bed. 7.50 am, I depart.

Looking towards the front of our yard including morning winter fog and possible chimney smoke.

My street as I leave in the morning...

A night in a day with Mr Bundy

Bundy, or Mr Bundy to most of his Asian internet friends, was named after Stray’s beloved Bundaberg Rum. Stray was sort of tricked into naming him (sorry Stray), because I‘d already chosen ‘Bundy’ before arriving home with him, but it was Stray’s turn to name our next pet. You see our cats have generally been named after drinks, Kahlua, Milk, Ouzo etc. (hmmm, our drinking might be more of a problem than I thought), so after I suggested a few lame names like, Mars, Apollo and Achilles, Stray thought of Bundy...all on his own.

I picked Bundy, formally known as Kat, or should I say, he picked me at an animal shelter. He was petite and ladylike, and now at 2 ½, still is. We adorned him with a belled collar almost immediately, not wanting the blood of any wildlife on our hands. The cat who preceded him and who disappeared mysteriously at a sprightly 16 years old was like a deadly Ninja, but with fur. My home made elasticised collar works well, except for the fact that SNAKES ARE DEAF!!!

To Do-ne List

OK...as you must know, there are many scary things to do before one leaves on an overseas adventure, trip, debacle.

Bathroom tap - not on the list but it broke anyway. I have no idea why there are so many tooth brushes in that cup, considering there are only two of us living here.

Shower head - not on the list, but came off in my hand the other night while having a shower.

Veranda tiles...OK...they're still lookin' like this a few weeks later.