Shipping - 9spiration

The wifi situation in Thailand is less than ideal. There are a few things that set me off consistently and quickly - bad internet/no internet, bad phone reception, and bad drivers. Any one of these instances occuring that I deem less than my ideal and my extraordinarily low blood pressure (thank you Mom and Dad) goes through the roof. They are the simple indicators of where I am spiritually, mentally, etc. Oh, and wanting a cigarette for too long. Addiction? Maybe. They all feel the same in the moment. Since I can't watch my American TV before bed, I'm writing this instead and letting the frustration go.

I had some simple errands today: pay off the Bali ticket on my credit card, mail a package to my parents, buy a birthday gift for a big birthday for Randy, and get my laundry. Half got done. Credit card: paid. Package to parents: Post Office closed. Get laundry: forgot. Get birthday present: the story!

I should start with yesterday and the Honda Click. I was endlessly circling a huge hotel outside of town, nestled in a maze of canals, tiny streets, little and large Lanna houses with bridges over the canals to ornately carved doors. I was looking for an Arts Center and wanted to buy a ticket for a contemporary Lanna dance performance that happened tonight without me there. The Click overheated, a little red light turning on as I buzzed through the narrow soi. It had come on the night before when I was getting groceries but had turned off. I wrote it off as a fluke. Hell, I wasn't even sure if this thing had a cooling system other than riding fast. (Don't think about it Mom)

Wall and tree

Door

After my brief time here, I knew the Thai people would have a shop somewhere very close. As far as I can tell, a Thai store requires a table, something on the table, and someone to collect baht. Sometimes the someone is optional. A full on mini-mart is born with the purchase of a mini fridge, and it's practically a Walmart if you add a glass case to that mix. I really appreciate this approach to life and commerce and avoid the ever-present-every-corner-7-11 to frequent these "shops" where I'm often interrupting a meal to get my purchases, the family sitting 5 feet away as the "shopkeeper" whips out their big-button-calculator and tabulates my bill. The one other consistent element: a calculator.

Within a block, I spotted a garage the size of my former bedroom with a stack of tires and four classic scooters. I pulled in and a 15-year old comes out, the Thai TV soap opera blaring dramatic stories from the attached house beside him. I pointed at the light, made lots of noises, smiled, pointed some more. He took this in and disappeared inside to get the motorbike expert. When he reemerged, he had a 12-year-old in tow who immediately ascertained the situation, looked at my pointing finger, and proceeded to open the seat and replace the battery.

I didn't have the words, so I watched him and asked the price while wishing I had taken the motorbike edition of Thai language classes. He started up the bike and I pointed once again to the overheating light and said what I know in Thai, "spicy". I told him my bike was spicy and for some reason that made sense. Within 2 minutes he'd yanked the new battery, replaced the prior, working battery, and disappeared on a motorbike of his own. Now, for those of you wondering what the legal driving age in Thailand is, from what I can tell, it's when you can use the controls. You are this big? Well, you can ride the ride, kiddo.

As I waited, Grandpa came out and chatted me up despite my poorly pronounced Thai, "I don't understand". He got me seated, offered me water, and had a whole lot to say to the farang who'd wandered into his house, smiling broadly with all three teeth left in his head. We talked without the other understanding for a while and I watched the fish pond built into the floor, under the table I sat beside (I did say this was a store, right?). The mechanic returned, proudly brandishing a bottle of coolant the size of a soda. He filled the bike, started it, ran it for a while, wiped up the overflow and his older brother tilted the bike up for him as he checked the hoses.

I was set. Big brother pushed my bike out onto the soi and got it set up for me. I handed over a couple of bucks in baht, thanked everyone profusely, and was on my way again.

Now, not to let today go without some kind of motorbike issue, I managed to lock my keys under the seat before I started out of town and managed to lever the seat up enough to fetch them back out, but otherwise had a problem-free day. Thinking I need a permanent key strategy... Anyway, I headed south to Baan Taiwai, the home of northern Thai handcrafts that is the only section of the Nancy Chandler map I've used so much I've had to tape all of the folding points to prevent more ripping with a warning. Seriously, a warning from the ultimate Thailand shopper and watercolor map artist saying I would need at LEAST a day here. I had approximately 3 hours after travel time. I swung by the post office on the way and the huge bag I was going to mail for the tune of about $100 (shipping is very expensive here) strapped three ways to the bike and discovered the post office was closed.

Since my current hotel is so far from town, practically in Mae Rim, I had little choice but to strap the whole thing back onto the bike, secure it with a combo bike lock, and continue south. I was a woman on a mission and the hot afternoon was filled with migrating motorbikes, all of us breathing in each other's exhaust as we gathered in huge flocks at red lights only to zip out into the highways a few seconds before the light actually turned green. So far the rules of the roads here in Thailand are a foreign language unto themselves. There are a scattering of street signs and often they give the name of the intersection which rarely has anything to do with the streets involved. A red light does not always mean stop or even slow down, and if you're on a motorbike you are able to weave through all traffic, up on sidewalks, and use any means possible to get to the front of the line. After that head start, however, any vehicle larger than you has the right of way. If a driver has flashed his lights at you or given you a short honk, well, you've been warned and get out of the way.

Don't even get me started with cross walks, rickshaws, bicycles, and other fine points. I'm just happy I'm on two wheels, manage to stay on the left side of the road, and take myself on adventures. It was a short 15 kilometers to the crafts village, a place that looked more like many clusters of strip malls/self-storage units crammed with all manner of handicrafts. Nancy Chandler recommended the alleys, so I drove under 20 kilometers an hour and shopped from the Honda Click. Having spotted my desired purchase, I pulled over, discussed pricing, shipping, and how to strap that to my motorbike, before I drove off to the next place and had another discussion about the same issue. Shipping under one cubic meter is very, very expensive. Putting this object (sorry folks, Randy might read this) on my motorbike along with the bag of goods I already needed to ship was, well, an interesting and dangerous proposition.

What to do. I consulted a map (which affirmed the maze of mini-mall, ill-marked soi's), and continued to scooter shop. Finally I was running out of alleys, sunlight, and patience. I pulled into a shop with piles of what I wanted. PILES. There were four women working on crafting the goods and selling them. The eldest who couldn't have topped 45, chatted me up on prices and eventually we arrived at the shipping or strapping-to-motorbike quandary. With calculator in hand, she and I discussed possible methods as a younger worker woman came out with a measuring tape. We cracked each other up with our "solutions" and finally a niece who does shipping was called.

Welcome home

I waited for the pro-shipper and was given cold water and a fruit that reminded me of the water apple of Costa Rica. I bit into it, the flesh giving way easier than an apple and far more juicy. It was tart and good. The shipper arrived on bicycle and she spoke pretty good English as she showed me the many pages of shipping prices to various places in the world. Lo-and-behold, Portland was on the list. One cubic meter was 14,000 baht. And that was a deal compared to just shipping the object without a bunch more stuff.

I took a seat, requested the big-button calculator and did math Rebecca style. Yeah, not possible. I thanked everyone for their time and the shipping gal said, no, I give you discount. God bless Thailand. I waited. Half. She would take half of the listed price, but I needed to fill one cubic meter. I was on my way there already, what with the barely-zippable bag on the back of my motorbike that would cost a minimum of 2000 baht to ship alone. The products I wanted at the shop weren't ready anyway and I'd have to come back on Friday, so I made a down payment on them, got a lengthy receipt in Thai, left the bag to ship with the shipping gal, and drove home a lot poorer, lighter, and with a trip down there on Friday planned.

I have until Friday to finish filling that huge container and that task is easier than I like to admit. This place is flush with awesome stuff and a discussion with my mother yielded such advice as buying every gift I'd give for the next five years. We'll see. In the meantime, it's Chinese New Year tomorrow complete with parade, dragons, fireworks, and the lot. It's the year of the snake finally - MY YEAR. And it feels right. I move to my fourth living quarters on Monday, continue classes and cursing at bad Thai internet. Life is sweet, expensive (which sounds remarkably like the word "pain" in Thai), and possibly going to explode with color, sound, and light tomorrow.

Until then...

Wait! I almost forgot! I visited a Wat Friday after class and found a whole lot more. Namely a museum that kicked the Arts and Culture museum's butt and then some! I mean this place was HUGE, crammed with ancient and just a little old, tons of relics, religious object, signs, and everyday objects from at least a hundred years in Chiang Mai history. All of this treasure, and I do mean treasure, was housed in a barn with holes that let the sunlight stream in and highlight different displays as the day wore on. I spent at least an hour and a half leaning over dusty glass cases of pottery, money going back to the beginning of the reign of Rama IX, a sarong worn by a local Lanna woman til her death at 108, and every type of instrument and tool used here. Jaw-dropping amazing and manned by one guy that locals would kneel by and chat with. When I left and stopped to exclaim my gratitude and wonder, I also knelt by him in the small group of locals and we chatted briefly before I headed off into motorbike overheating land. This place contains the treasure of a society both new and ancient, spanning those ages nicely in rooms containing both with simple, handwritten descriptions. It both told the history of the place while perfectly embodying the way Chiang Mai is currently with both the ways things were, the haphazard of now, the sacred, the modern, the humble, and the ornate.

This plant is one of my favorites and can be attached to anything here