Moving day!

I finally got the keys to my very own room in the new apartment building. Actually only the top three floors are done (well, almost done), the first two are still under construction. I expect I will wake up every morning at six to the sweet sound of drilling and general banging. I was not the only one to move in today, lots of students and other locals moved in as well.

The room itself is very nice of course because it is brand new. A funny detail is that the bathroom is not accessible from in the room, but rather from the balcony. I don’t really get the point of that. Not a problem at all, just a bit funny.

My room is on the fifth floor, and there’s no elevator so I guess I will get some exercise every day. The stairs don’t have handrails yet so if somebody gets home drunk it is very likely that there will be an accident. I hope the rails get installed soon. At least the central hole has rails around it.

Back in Buriram…

… after a 4-day binge in nearby Surin. Turned out that I cannot move in at the apartment on the 20th like they promised (no surprise there actually, TIT) so I decided to take my motorbike and drive to Surin which is 50km east of Buriram.

The traffic is of course scary as hell, but the bike itself works great. 80kph seems to be just about the perfect speed for travelling. I did try 90 and 100 but the wind resistance starts to be a bit much. The bike has a surprisingly lot of power, there was plenty of reserves left even at 100kph. Overtaking trucks is no problem.

Anyway after 4 days of partying in Surin it is again time to take it easy for a time. The next update will probably be when I finally get to move in the apartment, should be in a week…

Moto time!

Finally bought the motorcycle today. First I was going to buy a new one but decided to go for a second-hand model instead. Looked at a nice 125cc Suzuki Skydrive but after I finally got them to give me a test-drive, it did not actually seem to run so smoothly. Also they went back on their original offer of 28000 Baht and went up to 29990 Baht with no possibility of reducing the price unless the owner of the shop gave permission, and he just happened to be away today. So off we went (with my local friend Om and her colleague) to another place.

So after a short test-drive, which felt OK (not that I’m any expert on motorcycles) I finally decided to buy a 4-year-old Yamaha Mio ZR automatic. With only 8000km on the clock I was a bit worried that the reading might have been altered, but it seemed to drive OK so I decided to take a risk. And they did promise me an unlimited guarantee although it remains to be seen what that means in the end… The price came to 25250 Baht with insurance and registration. Sadly it was not possible to register it to me since I am here on a Tourist visa, but my friend Om agreed to register it in her name.

A proud owner (sort of...)

Settling in…

Whoa Buriram is HOT! Bangkok was mild compared to this. Easily +40 every day. Yesterday evening we finally got some rain, although not the big storm that I was expecting. But even a bit of rain cools the air quite a bit, so it was actually a pleasant evening. Possibly only +30.

+30 at seven in the morning!

I reserved an apartment from a new apartment building today. Sadly I will not be able to move in until nexth month, so I will have to stay in a hotel until then. The rent for the apartment is 3500 Baht for a month and the next 20 days remaining in this month will be about double that at a hotel, so it is not the best of deals for me. Sadly there’s little choice at this point.

Also I borrowed a motorcycle from my brother today and have been driving it around Buriram. A little bit of practise until I can buy my own… Went to look for new motorbikes and looks like nice 110-125 cc’s with automatic gearboxes will come to about 46-48 thousand Baht. But more on that later…

A Bangkok Moment…

Had one of those Bangkok-only moments on the morning of the 4th of May. Having been out drinking all night, I ended up talking to a couple of guys collecting empty plastic bottles. I dont remember if it was me or them that started talking about the redshirts (the locals are very interested to know what us foreigners think about the whole situation) but suddenly I found myself agreeing to go and actually meet the redshirts in their camp at the Rajaprasong intersection where they have been camped for weeks.

Stage at Rajaprasong

 

The camp and the people seemed quite relaxed and not at all hostile towards a foreigner visiting their site. Talking about politics is always a bit dangerous in another country, but everybody I talked to just seemed interested in what I think about the current political problems in Thailand. I tried to keep my comments quite neutral so as to not upset anybody, so I just generally agreed that an election would be the best thing for Thailand now.

All in all it was a pleasant and interesting experience. I guess it might have ended badly too but sometimes you just have to go with the flow and hope for the best. So a happy morning for me, at least more so than the other bottle-guy who ended up passed out from the bottle of SangSom-whisky I bought for them…

Roadblock

Anyway, the trip did mean that I did not get any sleep and had to pay a bit extra for a late check-out from the hotel. I was tired enough to actually fall asleep on the restaurant chair after having breakfast. After that I just tried to stay awake with coffee and M150 energy drinks until my train trip at 20:30.

The train finally left half an hour late and I got some sleep. It was supposed to arrive in Buriram at 03:41 so I woke up at 03:00 only to find out that the train was late. We finally arrived in Buriram more than two hours late, about 06:15. But at least I was here, safe but probably not quite sound at this point… 😀

EDIT: Had to change the photos as the originals were cropped by the blogging software.

Here at last!

Howdy!

I’m finally back here in lovely Bangkok. The flights went great, no problems whatsoever. I even got some sleep on the plane, though I never sleep well on airplanes. Had a window seat on both Helsinki-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Bangkok flights. The plane on the last leg was huge, a Boeing 747-400.

Nothing much to report yet. Some showers today in Bangkok but no heavy rain yet. Temperature somewhere just above 30 I guess, hot enough for me but it’s sure to get much hotter…