The Busy House

Today, I am not home alone.

Woke up at 6:15am this morning to take Brittany into school. I enjoy being up early here. The houses are built in such a way to allow maximum breeze. This house has three sliding glass doors all around the living area and when they are all open, it is like sitting outside. Even though the entire city of Chiang Mai rests in a bowl of mountains, the occasional breeze makes it down and it feels amazing. The morning drive on the motor bike is a lot of fun as well. Traffic gets really bad at 7:05 here. Not 7:00 or 7:10, exactly 7:05. Before then, the drive is smooth as back roads in Michigan: terrible road conditions with no cars in sight.

I have yet to experience a morning rain either. It is the rainy season here in Thailand. When it rains, it rains hard.  Late morning, the skies turn overcast and by early evening it has usually rained at least once. The rain falls and floods the area at times. Last year the flood waters got up to knee high, from what I hear. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.

My wife and I are currently house sitting for a family visiting the States. Along with the house comes a dog, a maid and a gardener. Up until today, I have only had to deal with the dog: taking her for walks and feeding her. Today, however, they all came.

It is very strange to have a maid, who speaks little English, come in and clean up all of my messes. Whats more is that I have no idea what to do. I mean, it's my mess, so I should have to do my own dishes and my own laundry, but this is this woman's job. The family I am house sitting for is already paying her for the month, so they told me to leave all of my chores for her to do. I'm just doing what I'm told, but I still feel bad watching "The Dog Whisperer" while she does my laundry.

At about 9:30am, the gardener showed up. I was not expecting this, but apparently he does all of the yard work for the ex-pats around the neighborhood (Moo Baan in Thai) and he gets paid about 300 baht for 2 or 3 hours of work. If you are keeping track at home, that's 10 usd for 3 hours of outdoor labor in a tropical climate. (Edit: Just paid him. Turned out to be 250 baht for 2.5 hours work. I told him to keep the 300 since I didn't have exact change. Still seems like unfair wage, but minimum wage is 150 baht for a days work, which is ~20 baht an hour. Compared to cost of living, that's a pretty good deal I think.)

The maid is now mopping under the couch I am sitting on. I am embarrassed.

In about noon, I will head out to get lunch. Cost is very different here. I will go out and eat a nice, Thai lunch with rice, meat, vegetable and drink for about 25 baht. That is 85 cents usd. When people ask me questions like "Is McDonald's expensive there?" I always answer "sorta". It costs 150 baht to get a big mac meal, which is about 5 usd. That is about the same cost as in the States. The issue is, you can't go out and get a lunch for less than 5usd in the States. Here, it is strange to pay more than 30 baht for a lunch. So while the cost of McDonald's is the same, conversion wise. Cost of living makes it so much more expensive, to the point where it is like eating a 15 dollar big mac.

This fact makes cost of living very low, but western grocery items high. A very nice 3 bed 3 bath house with a pool will cost around 25,000 baht (~800usd) a month but a small box of Honey Nut Cheerios costs 300 baht (~10usd). If you went out and got a really nice lunch for 50 baht, it would cost you 6 lunches out to buy one box of Cheerios. That's like trading one box of Cheerios for 6 Subway footlongs. Not really sure it's worth it.

I need to eat. So until next time, remember: the sun is always shining somewhere.