Thai style classic cars!

Classic Cars of Lanna

Having been in Chiang Mai for 4 months now, we are starting to find our feet a bit more and we are starting to look at life "on the outside" of the Juniper Tree. As far as Church goes we have been asked to host a "Small group" and last week we had our first meeting. Six of us shared a meal here in our house, the first time we have entertained with a full meal since we arrived. We haven't got a cooker in No 18, so we arranged to have the kitchens get us the same food as we were serving the guests that evening; so we ended up having fried chicken and French fries! We enjoyed a lovely evening getting to know two new couples and deciding what we are going to do with our fortnightly meetings. However, whilst these are friends outside of the Juniper Tree, it is still very much in a similar circle and we are feeling the need to develop friendships further afield.
I had spotted an advert on an Internet bulletin board for a classic car club in Chiang Mai and since before Christmas we have been trying to get along to one of the meetings. Last Sunday we made it!

Classic Cars of Lanna, is dedicated to people who appreciate classic cars, even though they disagree widely on what counts as a "Classic", and once a month they meet to eat bacon butties and go for a drive in their cars.
We found the venue early and waited to see what would turn up at the cafe in a Mall near to Chiang Mai Airport.
The first arrival was in the form of a bright yellow Lotus (pictured above); now powered by a BMW engine it looks immaculate in the bright Thai sunshine! It's owner, called Rex seemed to be in charge and he greeted us with open arms and gave us an on-and -off running commentary on the cars and their owners as they rocked up over the next couple of hours.
As the owner of the cafe was a club member, he seemed to spend most of the time chatting, whilst his wife ran around making the coffees and butties for everyone. The main distraction from the car talk, however, was Jessica.

Jessica

 Jessica is a four months old puppy, whose Mum must have known a Labrador well! She is a beautiful dog with a nice temperament but with needle sharp teeth!
As time went on, cars ranging from a VW Beetle to Jaguars arrived and were lined up along the front of the shops by the assiduous parking attendants, whose frantic whistling is ubiquitous in any Thai parking situation. (As Thai folk will never point, the gesturing takes a bit of getting used to)
The best car on show for me was a Riley RMF convertible, which had recently been acquired by a lovely Belgian man, who was very interesting to talk to, not just about cars, but about learning languages; he seems to be fluent in 7/8! We quickly made friends with an English couple who spend 6 months in Spain and 6 in Chiang Mai each year. They seem to play golf mostly but he has a classic BMW here in Thailand and a Porche in Spain. We discussed cars, wine, living in Chiang Mai and much else besides. 

They made us take this for staff notice board!

When it came for the time for the convoy of cars to set off for the drive, Joan and I had to go back to work, but another time we hope to tag along pretending to be driving a proper car! One story I can't let pass is that Rex seems to be aptly named. He is on the register here for rescuing pets. He was showing us a photo of a German Shepherd that he looking after whilst it's owner is in Police custody here in Thailand and is to be deported to Malaysia once the Thai authorities have finished with him! We asked him if he had any other dogs and apparently he has, thirty five in all and eighty five parrots..... he has even built a 3 bedroom bungalow in his garden for the pets! His wife wasn't with him at the meeting, I wonder why?

Doi Suthep National Park

The busy season continues here and we have been full to the gunwales for a while now. Our day off is most welcome and we have used it for a number of little outings. One Thursday we visited a lake just below the mountain, Doi Suthep, which dominates the skyline to the West of the City. The pictures show the picnic areas dotted around the Lakeside. You can pay a few Baht and spend a pleasant time eating your picnic or swimming in the Lake. The National Park charges a small entry fee but it's well worth it for the the amount of enjoyment of a beautifully looked after, natural, park. One thing we have noticed here is that the Thai's like to employ as many people as possible and this is shown in so many ways. When you approach the barrier at the entrance to the National Park, one man sells you a ticket, another raises the barrier to let you past. You drive along 10-20 metres and then at another barrier another man takes back the ticket, tears it in 2, returns it; whilst his partner lifts their barrier! An even more excessive example was at the Opticians, where no less than seven different people helped to serve me when I needed a new pair of specs, one girl whose sole job seemed to be to ply me with water and orange juice!

Right in the water

Slightly above water!

Note the Ubiquitous Bag N&CC!

Last Sunday Melanie did the Run for Burma race, which involves running around the lake in these pictures, I didn't envy her or the rest of the family who all decided to jog/walk/run along with her. 
We continue to visit our favourite places including the much mentioned "No view, but tasty" but last time we were there I took these pictures of a man working on a huge dragon figure outside. 
The basic dragon is concrete which is shaped with wet cement to which is applied a mosaic of glass and ceramic pieces to create the colours.

The loving care with which this man was shaping the snout of the dragon was inspiring. Another evening we went out in search of a venue called "House of Wine", no prizes for guessing what's on offer... The trouble was, after walking up and down the road twice we still couldn't find it. We had seen the sign only a matter of days before! We enjoyed a visit to another, riverside establishment and watched as thousands of bats emerged to fly around the tall buildings along side the river Ping in the twilight. The mystery of the missing "House of Wine" was solved a few days later when we went out on a boat on the river with the Carey's. We had asked the children to choose the venue that evening and it was an excellent choice. You board a boat (it takes up to 35 people) and you order your meal. 

Once everyone is served the boat casts off and you cruise for an hour or so up and down the river.We asked them to point out to us the "House of Wine" as we sailed past it; it turns out that it was the place we went to! It has just changed it's name!! By night the river Ping is beautiful and you get to see the riverside view of all the various venues that you pass as you walk into Chiang Mai by road. From the road many look quite drab and even scruffy, but from the river most look very attractive! It was a warm, sultry evening and the night sounds and wildlife along the river was all very atmospheric.
Progress with the new buildings here at the Juniper Tree is going well. They will soon be ready to cast the concrete that makes up the floors and beams that the walls of the buildings rest on.

 At that point they are going to want some more money, so it's a good thing we are staying very full; in fact it looks like this year may be a record for the Juniper tree, for guest/nights in February.
We had a lovely skype event last weekend. We usually try to talk to Richard and Andrea, Joanne and Jon and Emma by skype or facetime each week, but this weekend was the Royal Holloway College Reunion weekend and Carolyn, Karen, Elona and Helen were up in London together for the event and Joanne and Jon went to join them in our favourite Covent Garden venue: The Crusting Pipe! We nearly caused a ruck-us  because we were All trying to talk together on Skype whilst one of the buskers thought they should be paying him more attention!

Random picture of me putting salt into new aquarium!

It's no good, I will have to stop writing now and get back to learning my Thai; today it's a new section on asking questions, so I expect I will be asking, over and again: poot eek tee dai mai? Which means, "could you repeat that?" Hi ho.......

Darby & Joan, dentists and more fun!

Walking home from Chiang Mai involves passing what has been a building project since we came here, back in November. Recently the sign-age (real word?) went up and it is a restaurant called "Darby and Joan"! What else could we do but give it a go, at the first possible chance.

Like most places here the buildings and decorations are not quite finished but the staff were brilliant, even though they were expecting a huge party of local Police (who no doubt needed a freeby) We chose a house cocktail called "Darby and Joan" which looked more like a cleaning product, but tasted fine! This picture is a water feature in the gardens. You can sit outside or else in various glass fronted garden rooms around a court-yard garden.

We chose the crispy duck, not the usual Chinese style but even more crispy! We had a very good meal and the setting around the gardens gives the impression of quiet seclusion, not bad, so near to the road and the entrance to the busy Gymkhana Club. Joan had the misfortune to break a tooth the other day. As it was one that was splatted by one of our ponies some years ago, it's amazing it's lasted so long really. We were amused to discover that the common Thai words for a dentist is a transliteration of "Tooth Doctor" which when written in phonetics for the English to pronounce is: Mor Fun, or More Phang!
As we were due an afternoon of Thai speaking practice I sent an hour or so trying to learn: Chai, row bai tan-dta bhairt! That is, "Yes, we went to the dentist!" The only problem was no one asked me what we'd done today.......

The Dentist was great, but he needed her to have an X-ray;apparently, the ones Joan has carried around for the last 15 years to fend off over zealous immigration officers who discover the metalwork in her mouth, were not good enough! This involved getting a Tuk-Tuk driver thoroughly lost whilst we found the X-Ray shop. I call it this, but basically it's a counter where you can queue up and get any kind of electronic diagnostics process done while you wait. A full jaw X-ray took 5 mins and cost 300 Bhart (£6.00). If you wanted you could have a CT scan, barium enema  tumour identification tests; the list was endless. The Tuk-Tuk waited outside and took us home in half the time.
The dentist started work on the broken tooth the following day. The only difference between a British dental surgery and this one is that here in Chiang Mai, it looks more like a barber's shop! There is a row of chairs with people being drilled, polished or otherwise tortured all in unison. The dentist, however, is a Professor of dental surgery at the local university; he runs this practice to keep his hand in, as it were!
Below are some pictures of us at our local coffee shop/wine bar. We often call in on a day off, as it's by the river. The advantage over sitting on the South Bank of the Thames is that it is rarely below 28 degrees at the "Antique House", however, you rarely get eaten alive by mozzies in the bar outside the National Theatre!

I hope this doesn't give the impression that we spend all our time here sitting under umbrellas, nice as that might be; but we do try to get "Off Site" now and again when it's as busy here as it has been since Christmas. This Saturday we said hello/goodbye to 14 house loads of guests.  The beds are barely cooled off before the next lot are in. Our cleaning staff have been working flat out to keep up. It was a strange sight, however,  seeing Joan on her hands and knees, giving a demo of "How to clean a toilet bowel" to a few of the less thorough staff was a bit of a laugh! The kitchen staff have had their share of extra work too; as we have been inundated with a batch of militant celiacs this month! 
One great thing for me, recently, is that the aquarium in the Office has fallen to me to maintain. It's ages since I had one and I have gradually coaxed everyone to stop feeding them every five minutes and, Hey-Presto!, the poor fish have stopped dying. We have added some living plants and a few more fish and it looks great. In fact, yesterday, the couple who donated the tank saw it and liked it so much they have given me another tank! 

Visas, last minute dot thing!

Our recent trip to the Burma border only let us stay here another 14 days and so we both needed a new visa.

The idea was that we went to Penang and had a few days break whilst visiting the Thai Consulate to get the paperwork done. We had a tentative agreement to stay at the "Hospitality Bungalow" belonging to another organisation; however things didn't pan out quite the way we expected! That story will have to wait.....Even though Malaysia is so near to Thailand geographically we found it very different, very beautiful but with an entirely different feel. 

We stayed very close to the sea. The beaches, covered in white sand, complete with palm trees, warm ocean and hot sunshine were the stuff of which holiday dreams are made.Our hotel, a good find on one of those last minute websites, turned out to be great. It was older than some but that meant bigger rooms and a bath! (If I say, Joan hasn't had a bath since November; you won't get the wrong idea?)


 The picture is a sign in the lifts which reads: No Pets, No Magosteens, No Dureans. (A very smelly fruit!)

We had a fantastic view of the Andaman Sea, part of Indian Ocean (no, not all of it) and the area around the beach. We could sit and watch the games lessons going on at the International School below and remember how recently we would have been tied to a classroom during hot and sunny days. The school obviously had their sports day soon; as each class were doing the javelin then the discus, and then the long jump. The teacher stood under the shade of a vast tree whilst his charges made valiant attempts to master the finer points of those disciplines, giving us some vicarious entertainment into the bargain!

The main Town centre boasts a number of Malls, one we used was called the Gurney (no one seemed to find that odd), we managed to both get an excellent haircut at the same time and had an interesting chat to the young men cutting our hair, which seemed to involve a bonus head massage!

We found the consulate visits very interesting too. One enterprising young man has a colour printing service which he runs out of the back of his car! You can get passport photos; documents copied and even a lift to an ATM for a few Ringgits. In the consulate, the Thai's politeness and sense of order stands out, queues are enforced more and rules are strictly applied. The exception seemed to be the groups of men who were "helping" young men to get visas. Pushing them into queues, thrusting papers, photos and pens and money into their hands and hurriedly whispering instructions into their ears they herded their charges through the processes. I suddenly had to stop myself making a joking remark about trafficking, as I suspect this would be no joking matter.

All in all we had a great and restful break, I even saw another Kingfisher; after going 54 years and never seeing one until November I have now seen about one a month!

We came back to a very busy Juniper Tree. It seems odd to suddenly see lots of new faces around the place! The work on the new houses is going on at a good pace.

Footings, my word!

 The concrete foundations and pillars are all going in and before too long we should see the floors going in. The amazing ways the workmen use to move wet concrete around are fascinating to watch. The video at the bottom shows just how much still relies on muscle power here! Last night we had an amazing thunder storm again. The lightening knocked out our power for about an hour. Just long enough for us to decide to go around the site taking torches to every house and to fire up the generator. By the time this was done with some willing help from some of our guests  the rain stopped and the power came back! We looked like we'd just crawled out of the pool, fully dressed. 

These pictures are for all the men out there who miss visiting our house to look down holes! We have never been without various diggings to watch and now is no different The tree behind the concrete waggon has beautiful yellow blossoms and they feature on the bookmark we have made to send out to our supporters. The blooms appear on bare branches and then fall off before the leaves appear. The picture at the top of the blog shows a close up of the flowers. This tree was donated to the Retreat Centre by the couple who rather rashly thought Joan and I might come to work here! They have much to answer for!