Even though we’ve back over a month already, we
are not yet fully settled, even though we were able to move back into our old
house. One of the first major tasks we
embarked on was trying to find a new house closer to the two older boys new
school and a bit bigger than our current house.
However, after looking at a few houses we decided to put off looking for
a new house to rent after we worked out how the traffic was around the
school. Some areas, even though a lot
closer to the school, because of traffic can take just as long to get to the
school as from our house 15km away.
There is a school van service but it costs 3,000baht per child per month
which is a little expensive. Also, it
would mean getting up earlier for the kids (being picked up at 6:30am rather
than leaving at 6:50am as we are doing now).
We also like the area we are living in now and the children have friends
who they are playing with regularly.
Moving to a new area always has risks that it won’t be as good as the
area we left.
The second major task was selling our van (as we no longer need to be transport students) and
replacing it with a second hand car. At
first I put a deposit on a pick up truck (Ford Ranger 2010) which had low
mileage and a good price. However,
during the week I had to think about it, I realised that it wasn’t the right
car for us. I didn’t like the colour
(Black – which would heat up a lot more in Thailand’s hot sun) but also it
would require around 60,000baht to put a carryboy on the back with air-conditioning
and seats.
I decided that a much smaller
car, the Toyota Avanza would be a better option for us at the moment,
especially when trying to find a park near the boy’s school and navigation
narrow streets. There are lots of Toyota
Avanza’s on the second hand market. I
think it is the car of choice for missionaries in Chiang Mai as it can seat 7
and is reasonably cheap. I ended up
going with Toyota Sure because they would trade-in the van. Although, I’m sure I would have got more for
the van if I sold it privately and bought another Avanza cheaper somewhere
else, doing it myself would take time and effort which I didn’t want to spend
right now.
Normally, my passport and work permit are
enough for the transfer of ownership of the car, but because the address in my
work permit is Bangkok (and I’m buying the car in Chiang Mai), the transport office
require me to get a Certificate of Residency.
Then I found out that Immigration are not supplying the Certificate of
Residency for a couple of weeks while they do a software upgrade?
The third major task was getting a dog. We have not been able to have a dog for the
last 10 years in Thailand as we have moved around a lot. However, since we hope to be in Chiang Mai
for the next 5 years and don’t plan on any long periods overseas, we could
finally get a dog. In the end, my wife
and kids picked out a 4 month old beagle.
We’ve begun the toilet training process and dog proofing the front gates
and watching youtube videos on how to look after dogs.
All of this takes times and a lot longer than
it does back home. So today, I lodged my
application for a Certificate of Residency.
It is free to get it but it can take up to 3-4 weeks for the free
option. I paid a man in a store at
immigration 500 baht for each certificate (I need 2) to get it the next
day. I don’t know how this works
exactly, but I’m not asking questions.
This afternoon, I’ll try to dog proof the front gate with the plastic
fencing I bought from Home Pro yesterday which I will attach with cable ties.
Once, the boys who are going to school start
their after school activities and we have a better idea of how many trips back
and forth we need to make to school each afternoon, then we can tackle the last
major job of moving house. That is the
hardest and most time consuming task of all.
Then we can start feeling settled.
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