06/01/2011 Chainsaw massacre

Another sensational sleep and we’re off to make charcoal. Yep, no rest for the wicked. Down the street we go to the designated spot for the what I thought was going to be a blazing Bon fire. A pit had already been dug and now it was just up to me to stack firewood in it. What did surprise me is once the firewood had been stacked and the fire started, rice seed was liberally thrown on top. This apparently brings about a very slow burning process and of course a lot of smoke. The greenies would have a field day here. 🙂 With this job out of the way I was curious about a new sound emanating from the direction of Bai’s house.

Upon arriving I found a rather tallish local wielding an equally large chainsaw. He was in the process of squaring up a round log. An OH&S note here. This man was not wearing any safety gear what so ever. What he was wearing were the Thai safety boots however. Yep, thongs. After all you never know what you could be standing in. A quick count of his fingers and toes led me to conclude that this guy was definitely proficient at carrying out the task at hand. I might add that the chainsaw had no safety features either. Apparently you stop by running it out of fuel. Or so it seemed.

With some gesticulating and some Thai words thrown in I concluded that Bai was wanting to construct a door of sorts. Given such a task I would normally draw something up and calculate the timber and hardware required and go off and buy said items. Now why do that when you can spend half the day basking in the glorious eardrum splitting decibels of this chainsaw with the operator running the gauntlet with every given saw stroke. Not even a call form a friend stating he had been cut by some sort of machine at his work was going to put this man off his game.

Credit where credit is due, this man definitely could work a chainsaw. After squaring the log he proceeded to cut six equal thickness planks from the log. Upon inspection they were all straight and only required a bit of finishing to be fit for purpose. This is where Bai took over.

As stated earlier there is no thought given to safety gear here. Bai went and got an electric hand planer to finish the planks. By all appearances this planer had been manufactured when Makita first commenced business some thirty years ago. Without ear and eye protection Bai proceeded to finish each of the planks. I had to leave him to it as my ears were threatening to shutdown.

With the sounds of the planer stopped I returned to the scene to assist with the construction of the door. Under the heading of not quite right (NQR) we proceeded to assemble the door. The first hurdle we hit of course was a lack of nails. With that Bai’s wife went off and bought some more.

We soon had the planking firmly attached to the door frame. Everything seemed to be going according to plan and with that I asked Bai where the door was going to be used and he said it was for the rice storage shed. However, we wouldn’t be hanging the door today due to the fact that he had no hinges. Hmmmm……. Where did the nails come from?

Only one thing left to do then. Whiskey see sip anyone?

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05/01/2011 The pram

This morning started somewhat slowly (as do most mornings). Speaking of which, every morning normally starts with the roosters bellowing at the top of their lungs. It appears that the one across the street from us is the ring leader. I’ve already mentioned that if we were to use him for our next BBQ night I’ll be able to sleep peacefully. 🙂

Once the roosters have got your attention they lull you in to believing that that is it. No, next you get an auditory attack from the village speaker system. The same inane song every morning prefaces a speech from the village mayor. I have no idea what he rattles on about and the locals don’t appear to be listening. Maybe he’s just saying, “hey guys don’t pay any attention to me, I just want to yank the farlang’s chain.” I wonder if there are announcements when I’m not here. Sort of like the falling tree in the forest theory.

I remember a few years back in Ho Chi Minh City they had a similar system and our tour guide told us about it…..

Good morning (imagine Vietnamese accent) my name Missa Bihn but you call me Missa Bean. You hear speaker in street and you wonder what speaker say. Speaker say Missa Bean, you help Vietnam if you only have one child. Go to hospital get free condom. Only one probrem speaker come on 7 o’crock in the morning and Missa Bean go to bed 9 o’crock at night…….

Now that time is marching on (06:00) we have to prepare the kao-niao (glutenous rice or sticky rice). We then gather up some reed mats and head to the main street. The reed mats are placed on the side of the road and then we sit and wait for the Monk procession to come past. The custom being that the Monks receive food from the locals in return for which they receive a blessing from the Monks.

Belief systems can be a wonderful thing and this one seems to work. For Nong Pai it seems anyway. I only have one issue with it, the handing out of the rice. You see the rice is prepared only moments before the monks arrive and placed into smallish reed woven carry containers. Once the Monks arrive the rice is still hot and handing a fistful of it to each Monk soon causes you to wince more than once. Again I think it’s all a ploy to once again bring some levity to an other wise serious moment at the expense of the farlang.

The rest of the morning passed as normal, eat & sleep. Yeh, the locals have it figured. Why try and sleep at night when you’ve got all day to do it.

The afternoon saw us taking a trip to the main city in the area called Kalasin. An interesting point to mention is that when you ask an Isan Thai where they come from a lot of them will respond with, “Kalasin”. This is the point, this particular trip to Kalasin was my wife’s second in her entire life. Wouldn’t know her way around there if you paid her.

This particular trip had a purpose as our Nieces’ son required a pram. It had been planned to wait for Nuch and I to arrive before purchasing said item so we could all agree on the colour and features etc. Yeh right. A suitable pram was found in Kalasin and my insistence on paying for it was met, I have to say, with some resistance. Although that soon wained and the new pram was graciously accepted. Diw does look pretty good in it I have to say.

Hmmmm maybe I have a heart after all……. 🙂

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