Pulling my hair out

I went to the transport department in Lampang again today to try to renew my motorbike license which had expired while in Australia.  I was there yesterday and they said that I needed a medical certificate before they could renew it.  So I went to the hospital, wait and hour and got the medical certificate.  Today, they advised me that the statuary declaration of my place of residence which I had completed at the Australia embassy in Bangkok last year was only valid for 1 year and therefore 3 months out of date.  I had to get a new one.  That means I either have to drive 6 hours to Bangkok or fly there and then pay another AU$50 to get a new statuary declaration.  It is extremely inconvenient.  I'll nearly pulling my hair out with all the bureaucracy I have to go through to just get simple things done.

Oh by the way, she said, your medical certificate only lasts 30 days.  I don't think I'll get to the embassy within the next 30 days, which will mean another trip to the hospital to get a new medical certificate.  I guess I should be thankful that she at least told me in advance and not when I went back there. 

Personal effects stuck in customs

We had boxes sent from Australia with mostly used clothes, toys and homeschooling material.  Personal items brought to Thailand are legally free from customs duty if I have a work permit (which I do) but the customs department at the airport are asking for THB 25,000 (AU$923) as customs and other charges to clear the items.  All the items in the boxes combined are probably not worth that much.  It is so unreasonable.

But we are in a bind.  It has cost AU$600 to send the boxes to Thailand.  Some foreigners in this situation have basically told customs that they can keep the boxes and they'll just buy everything new, after which customs have dramatically reduced the fee. 

But our son's school shoes are in the boxes which we needed last week as well as personal things which we'd really like as soon as possible.  It's got me so angry and I'm normally a pretty calm guy. We are trying to negotiate with customs now.  But everyday that passes they levy a storage cost for the boxes.

House hunting Thai Style

Apart from some "farang" (foreigner) exclusive suburbs in Bangkok or Chiang Mai there are no real estate agents in Thailand.  So when you are looking for a house you have one of two options.  You start driving around town for signs like this one above.  I've spent hours doing this without much luck.

The other option is to ask your friends if they know of any houses for rent.  Well, after giving up on the first option, we've been asking many of our Thai friends if they know of any houses for rent.

We haven't seen inside this house but it doesn't look much bigger than our house.  We may see it tomorrow. It is in a good location though.  The problem with our current house is that it is:-
1. A neighbour's dangerous pit bull escapes once in a while, viciously biting people or killing other animals.
2. Noisy schizophrenic who keeps us up at night (though our neighbours haven't seen him/her for a couple of months now)
3. There are so many dogs living in our and surround streets that at night when one sets them off, they all start barking disturbing our sleep.
4. The house gets extremely hot as there are no shady trees and because of the way it is built.  Although it has a good number of rooms, in the hot seasons we can't use the rooms without air-conditioning because it is boiling.
5. Electrical wiring is terrible. The extension cord burst into flames when I tried to start the washing machine.
6. Very low water pressure, meaning that during parts of the day, the water is only trickling
7. The house is a bit small for 3 very energetic kids, especially when they can't play on the street because of the threat of the before mentioned dog.

The good thing about the house though is that we've got some good neighbours who we've become friends with.

We can put up with a lot of the above, but we are here for another 3 and half years and there is enough to deal with living cross culturally, so if we can take away some of the additional stresses we think it would be worth moving.

I liked this house at first.  However, Lisa's got much better house sense then me and she made me realise that this house is actually smaller than the one we have.

 Also, this is what the kitchen looked like.  What kitchen you ask.  Exactly.  We'd have to buy a whole new kitchen.

So the search continues.  It been so great to have our Thai friends do the hard work for us in trying to find houses and great for our relationship.  I think they feel good in being able to help us out.

How hard is it to get a rabies vaccination?

Our youngest needed a series of pre-exposure rabies vaccinations and our middle son a booster.  I first tried at a doctor's clinic two days ago but she didn't stock rabies vaccinations.  I had to go to the hospital.  So yesterday I went to the hospital.

I went to the pediatrics department where they normally do children's vaccinations. 

Nurse 1: 
Do you have your vaccination book? (No still waiting to clear customs at the airport with our other unaccompanied luggage)

Have your children been bitten by a dog? (No, they need pre-exposure vaccinations as recommended by our missions medical's director).  Fortunately I had the email from our medical adviser as well as the Rabies information sheet from the medical advisers in our mission.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.  The pediatrician finally comes.  The nurse speaks to her about us and then she directs us to the emergency department.

Nurse 2:
All the same questions as above again.

Emergency Doctor:
All the same questions again.
Also, "Why do you want them to be vaccinated?" 
(Well it's recommended by our medical adviser as well as the World Health Organization).
"Well normally in Thailand we don't give pre-exposure vaccination.  You don't really need it" 
(Our househelper was bitten by a dog in our street) 
"Ok if you really want it then we'll do it for you" (Yes, we really want it)

Nurse 3:
Fills out an appointment card.  She has made 4 further appointments, which is for a post-exposure vaccination schedule (5 shots) rather than a pre-exposure vaccination schedule (3 shots).  I toy with the idea of just leaving it and coming back at what I know are the right times but decide to try to sort things out now rather than having to go through the whole process again next week.

So, 1 and half hours later, with two tired and screaming kids I leave the hospital exhausted.

In Thailand, even thought it has a high rate of dog bites and rabies, they don't routinely give pre-exposure rabies injections probably because it is so expensive.  It costs us about 700 baht a shot (AU$23) but that is 2-3 days average wage here in Thailand.  3 shots and you are looking at a week's or more pay.  So it is not cheap for something which may or may not happen.  They are more likely to wait until they get bitten and then get 5 shots (normally paid for by the owner of the dog if there is one).

I could have got the shots done in Australia but it costs AU$100 a shot so I waited because it is much cheaper here.

Anyway, next time I'll get a letter from our mission's medical adviser requesting these vaccinations, which should avoid most of what I went through yesterday.

New school again

I'm connected to broadband internet again so you can get pictures now! Yippee. It's made my day. Pretty sad hey, but I've endured over a week of dial up (zzzzzzzzz) and not being able to access ABC reading eggs for the kids (when will we be able to do reading eggs for the 10th time!)


New school uniform



2nd day at school

You can't get much worse than trying to start new schools for little kids. The school we wanted to send our kids to closed application a week before we arrived. They wouldn't budge which was a bit unusual. It was a demonstration school using teaching methods more akin to those used in Australia and we were looking forward to our kids going there because our teammate's child was going there and he enjoyed it. So it was a pretty down day when we found out we couldn't get them in.

The next week was spent dragging the kids around from school to school trying to work out where we could send them. Either the class sizes were too large (35-50 kids in Kindergarden!) or the school would not let the children be there part-time (which would have meant our 3 year old going to school from 8am to 3:30pm Monday to Friday). Eventually we selected an option not ideal but which we thought had more flexibility than the other options. They didn't have a problem with half days. When we were inquiring, they told us that the kids get to play in the playground everyday. Now that we've enrolled the kids and bought their uniforms and everything, as Lisa has been trying to settle our middle child into school this week, they haven't been to the playground yet. Grrgghhh! Either they lied or misled us which is frustrating. Maybe we should have checked things more thoroughly. Our eldest son is in his classroom most of the day except for lunch time with 3 periods (English, Chinese, Thai) in the morning and the same in the afternoon. Poor guy. No wonder he says that he's bored and all he does is writing, writing, writing.

Our middle son cried most of the first morning so the teachers took him upstairs to be with his brother for the rest of the day. So yesterday and today Lisa has been with him to try to settle him in. It's pretty hard to see your children go through that.

We're praying that he settles within the week. We've order home schooling material coming from the US, so we're trying to work out what will be best in terms of the Thai School/Home schooling mix. Now that the protests have settled a bit in Bangkok, customs will have reopened and our home schooling material can get through as well as our unaccompanied baggage.

Living under a curfew in Thailand

As you may be aware, Thailand is experiencing some troubles at the moment. (Sorry no photos as we are still only on dial up internet …urrggghhhh)

In many provinces in Thailand a curfew has been declared, including in our province, and we are not allowed to go out of our homes between 8pm and 6am (another report says 9pm to 5am - hard to know what's really going on as we can't check on the internet and we don't understand the T.V reporters as they use too difficult words). We heard that the big shopping centre in Lampang, started to close at 7pm last night, when normally it closes after 10pm. I made sure I got an extra carton of milk this afternoon when I went shopping just in case.

Our househelper told us that there were military soldiers on the main highway, guarding a gas depot just outside of town. Apart from this though, not much is happening in our province. In Chiang Mai though only an hour north, building have been burnt and mass protestors have gathered at some key locations.

It’s hard to believe what’s happening in Thailand. One of the biggest shopping centres in Bangkok, in Asia for that matter set alight. The trains have stopped running and we’ve been advised to carry our passports and travel documents so that we can get through the check points.

By God’s grace we arrived early last week, rather than this week. Otherwise there would have been a whole lot more difficulties to deal with. Government offices including the immigration department have been closed all week, if we came this week (instead of last week) we would not have been able to renew our visas before they expired.

However, our boxes from Australia are sitting at the airport as customs have been closed and my work permit papers needed to clear our boxes has been held up as the immigration department has been closed.

Trying to imagine all that is happening here, happening in Australia. Can’t imagine it.

First day back in Thailand

We landed in Bangkok around 11:30pm. The 9 hour flight wasn't too bad. It could have been much worse. Our son had too many nuggets and chips at the airport in Sydney and midway through the flight vommited up more than I thought his stomach could hold. Fortunately, he gave me a coupl e of seconds warning so that the vomit ended up in the bag and not all over the seat and the floor. 4-5 hours of vomit stench would not have made us very popular (not that we were probably popular as our littlest was crying through parts of the trip).

We seemed to pick the slowest line in immigration. It was the shortest line when we joined it, but ended up being the longest. Eventually we had enough and switched lines. Didn't matter anyway, we were still waiting for our stroller long after everyone else had taken their bags from the baggage carousel. As we were lined up to report the lost stroller it was wheeled in with the other strollers from the flight. By the time we left the airport it was just before 1am local time.

We had so much luggage that a standard taxi wouldn't do, so I asked for a large taxi. The lady at the counter then advise me that it would be a fixed price and that the meter wouldn't be used. It was 4am Sydney time and I hadn't slept on the plane so I just accepted the price of 800 baht she scribbled on a piece of paper. At least we managed to fit all the luggage in the taxi using the front passenger seat for some bags. I advised the driver to take a Chaegwatana tollway in Bangkok to the OMF guesthouse as I knew that this was the quickest way. However, the driver advised me that lived around the area and knew a "faster" way. I was just strumbling back into Thai so I didn't push the issue. About half way through the trip I realised that his "faster" way wasn't "faster" at all. It did however, save him about 200 baht in tollway charges, charges which were included in the 800 baht fixed price. He probably added another 20 minutes to our trip which I didn't really appreciate at 2am in the morning not having slept in nearly 24 hours and with 3 young children. I let it go though and didn't let on that I knew what he was doing. I even gave him an extra 50 baht as a tip which I was sorely tempted not to as he'd milked me already.

At 10am, we were off to immigration to renew my work permit and visas. I was expecting an hour or more taxi ride with our whole family squashed into the back seat of a taxi, but it was a fantastic surprise to be informed that immigration had move to within 20 minutes drive of the OMF guesthouse. So I was able to drive our own car there. It was all finished in a couple of hours instead of the 4 hours plus I was dreading.

We had some lovely thai meals for lunch which tasted all the better when 4 dishes just costs about AU$7. I didn't think I'd miss Thai food while we were in Australia but I was reminded today how good real Thai food is.

Rest day tomorrow and then a 6 hour drive back to Lampang. A very long day, but it is good to be back (but not in 35 degree plus heat). The areas around Lampang at hitting new records at over 40 degrees celcius. Ouuch.

O.k. it is only 8pm local time (but 11pm Sydney time) but I'm off to bed. Checking out.

I hate packing

Last minute packing again! It takes so long. I've lost count of how many times we've had to pack and unpack. It so hard to decide what to take and what to leave behind. My mum found the fabric bag on the right of the photo. It only ways 0.6kg instead of a normal suitcase of around 5kg. So that will give us an extra 4.4kg to take. Bonus. Less than 2 days to go now.

reunion

We were recently able to meet up with friends of our from our year in Bible college who have gone overseas in Gospel ministry. We have all come back from our first terms. It was good to catch up as it will be another 3-4 years before any likelihood of seeing each other again. We are spread between 3 continents.

Our little girl had an accident while trying to emulate her brother on a toy trolley. Fortunately stitches weren't need, just some glue and steri-strips. Lots of visits to the doctor lately, mainly for vaccinations but also for final medical tests before we leave. It has been so good to have the children free from stomach bugs which was the most common illness in the children in Thailand.

A week to go before we return. Packing and other jobs are never ending. All are official engagements are completed though. Had a good re-commissioning service on Saturday.

Most accept the invitation but don't realise the consequences

A fellow missionary's prayer letter came in this morning and they were recounting what happened at their recent evangelistic children's camp:-

"When Ha Shan asked the children if they like to invite Jesus into their hearts, most of them lift up their hands as according to our Pastor, in a Thai culture, they are thought to flow with the environment. So, Ha Shan told them that this means that they cannot worship other gods and all hands down except Joe"

This situation is very common in Asian contexts where you don't want to offend the speaker by not accepting his invitation.

So take reports of mass conversions at an evangelistic event with a grain of salt until the follow up has been done and the dust settles to see who remains.