Today was a big day for us, we got to go out to Mae Rim where our friends are building a new home and restaurant.  We met Tee and Ian several years ago at their business in the city – a small guest house and a restaurant that we have been returning to for breakfast / lunch / dinner about once a day while we are in Chiang Mai.  In the last couple of years they have started in on a new project about 30 minutes north of the city near the village where Tee’s family lives.

The project when finished will be a new house for them, a restaurant for tourists and the locals in the surrounding area, and a few small bungalows for rentals.  So far the main house is about 3/4 complete, and the restaurant and kitchen was recently finished.  The local monk told them that Friday morning would be a good time to ‘open’ the business and so a blessing ceremony was held, and we were invited out to the ‘soft opening’ in the afternoon to try out some of the menu items, hang out with friends, and get a chance to see how the construction has progressed over the last year.

It was great to see the work that is being done first hand – I have had the chance to see it evolve via pictures, but being able to stand there is so much better!  The main house was just some string lines and stakes in the ground last year, and now the main construction is basically complete, and they are diligently working on the finishing work – installing windows and doors, tiling, painting etc.  It gives me a great chance to see up close the Thai construction methods as almost everything here is done with bricks and concrete, but they are masters at what they can do with those materials.  The patience that they have in being able to makes things from concrete and finish surfaces with great detail is quite impressive, and while I can build a fair number of things back home, I could never master the masonry techniques used here.

Of course the highlight of the day was the opening of the restaurant, and after we had a chance to tour the new house and bungalow it was time to sit down to some serious eating.  The day was mostly a soft opening and a chance for the kitchen to get it’s rhythm and test out some of the dishes.  This is all good news for us as we get to sit around for the afternoon in the tranquil surroundings and nibble away at a fairly constant stream of food from the kitchen over some cold refreshments.

For us it is always a privilege to have the chance to be part of these sorts of events because they don’t happen often, and are typically for close friends and family, so a special treat for us to be part of the ‘in’ crowd. A warm thank you to our hosts Tee and Ian for another great day in paradise!  We look forward to returning again many times in the future.

The other night I went out with Ian, Richie, and Landon, so Mrs. Columbus decided to go back to the hotel and get to sleep early.  No big deal really as this often happens but it means that when I come back to the room later in the evening I usually have to tap lightly on the door and wake herself up to be let in – sometimes this is met with a bit of a scowl, so I typically don’t make a habit of it!

Anyway, it is approaching the wee hours as I tap lightly on the door, and am surprised when Mrs. Columbus throws the door open because every light in the place is on, and the Mrs. has her sleeping mask on? I am about to ask why she just did not turn the lights out instead of using her mask, when she leaps into a story of her evening.

According to her rendition of the story, she has not yet had any sleep, and she is not at all prepared to shut the lights out because when she returned to the room earlier and went into the loo, she saw a giant cockroach running around on the wash basin.  By her description it was a big as a dog, and should have had a collar and a leash!

After trying unsuccessfully to trap the dangerous beast with a glass she decided to close the door and leave all the lights on as a warning to the rascal to keep his distance.  The downside of course was that with all the lights on she would not be able to sleep, so the solution to that problem was the face mask – sadly that did not work and no real sleep was had….

So on my arrival I was ushered to the dunny to try and hunt the creature down, but he must have been sufficiently scared by Mrs. Columbus that he had retreated to some dark corner and I was able to negotiate turning off all of the room lights as long as we left the bathroom lights on to create a dangerous photon barrier to those within.  Of course the simple solution would have been to just go to the reception desk and let them know, but it took another night of trying to sleep in a semi-lit room for the creature to re-appear and for us to engage ‘the big guns’.

The big guns it turns out are a couple of equally squeamish girls from housekeeping but armed with some sort of spray (labeled in Thai) that does in fact – kill bugs dead!! After a thorough fogging of the bathroom Mr. cockroach flips himself over on his back and gives up – oddly somehow in the intervening time he has shrunk from the dog sized villain that Mrs. Columbus originally saw to a still reasonably sized bug the size of a small thumb, but not nearly quite as threatening, especially now as he gets swept up by the housekeepers and carted away.  As a warning to some of his friends, the maids gas the room quite well, and when we return later in the afternoon, it looks like remains of a shootout in a drug den as the floor in the bath is now littered with the carcases of a handful of dead comrades.

All is well that ends well though as Mrs. Columbus has now once again strengthened her resolve, and upon seeing the 2nd round of casualties was not even startled, she just brought the maid over to deal with the aftermath and we went on about our business, so kudos to her for being a good trooper!  (We are however still sleeping with a light on 🙁  )