Wednesday, January 26, 2022
8:45 a.m. Room 1102, Phannu House
Mae Sot, Thailand
A lot of big changes took place in my life yesterday. It was a bit of a whirlwind day from that point of view. For one thing, I did decide to return the scooter. It was so sad. And yet not so sad. I’ve already gone out for several walks, as I had errands to run, and it’s nice to be walking again. I enjoy the slower pace, because it gives me time to look around the world and see things. So, I don’t have a scooter anymore. And I’m fine with that. I don’t really have a use for it right now. Even when it comes time to return to immigration to get my visa stamp, I’ll probably just walk the eleven kilometers there and back. I could use the exercise, as I said.
Another big change from yesterday is that I paid for this room for a month. I thought about it for a while, and I decided that was the best thing to do. In fact, it is kind of a no-brainer. The monthly rate is extremely low. Renting the room for ten days at a daily rate is the same price as renting for a month by paying in advance. And I know I’ll be here for two weeks for sure. And paying for the whole month is much cheaper than if I just paid for those two weeks. So even if I stayed in this room for just fourteen days, it’s cheaper to pay for the whole month than for those fourteen days. I could leave after fourteen days and still come out ahead.
And I was very pleased at how the transaction went. The woman here at the Phannu was just as organized as before, and she told me all the pertinent details about a monthly rental. I have to pay for the electricity on top of the rent, and she showed me where the meter for my room was located. And she took a picture of the meter reading for her records. And at the end of the month, we’ll check the meter and see how much electricity I used. And the rate is seven baht per “unit”, which is what they call a kilowatt hour. At the Green Guest House, they had the same system, but it was total confusion and chaos. I never was able to figure out how it all worked. That was probably the biggest issue for me at the Green Guest House. The landlady just kept presenting me with what seemed to be large electric bills (jotted down by hand on a scrap of paper), but she could never explain where the numbers came from. I think she just made them up based on how much money she wanted and on her estimate of how much I might have used the air conditioner. She kept insisting that the numbers came from the meter, but the meter reading never matched the bill she gave me. And no matter how many times I pointed this out to her, she never seemed to grasp even that basic fact. According to the meter, I would owe a certain amount. But she would hand me a bill that was five times higher. And I’d walk her over to the meter and show her the reading and show her the math, but we just went around in circles for what felt like hours. She just wore me down, and I would just give her the money she was asking for. It was easier to just pay than to talk about it endlessly. To be honest, I think the bills she presented were reasonable. When I talked to other people in Thailand, they told me how much a standard monthly electric bill was when you used your air conditioner a lot, which I did. And what my landlady asked for was always within that range. However, the meter always said something entirely different. And that issue was never sorted out.
The one wrinkle I wasn’t expecting at the Phannu is that when you rent a room by the month, you are expected to supply your own bedding. It’s understandable that you would no longer have the cleaning and laundry service of the hotel. You’d naturally clean the room yourself and wash your own bedsheets. But I assumed the room would come with bedsheets. I’d just have to wash them myself. But I was told that I needed to supply my own. In fact, I always have my own single bedsheet. I travel with one, and I currently have a very nice and very large sheet. I sleep with it all the time in all the hotels I stay in. But it’s just the one sheet. And I could somehow wrap myself up in just that one sheet on top of the bare mattress. But I wanted to be more civilized than that, so I went out yesterday and bought a queen-sized set. It consisted of a fitted sheet, two pillow cases, and two bolster cases. Here in Thailand, bolsters appear to be all the rage. Every bed sheet set comes with bolster cases. I wasn’t even entirely sure what a bolster was, but now I know.
This is an added expense that makes the monthly rental a little bit less attractive. And I will end up buying cleaning supplies, including a mop and a broom and the usual toilet brush and floor scrubbers. I bought all that for my room at the Green Guest House and then left it all behind. But I don’t mind. And the sheets that I bought for myself are far, far nicer than the ones that the Phannu had on the beds anyway. They supplied their rooms with plain white and extremely thin sheets. They’re so old that they are practically tissue paper, and they aren’t very comfortable. And there was just a fitted sheet over the mattress anyway. No top sheet. No flat sheet. That’s why I travel with my own flat sheet. And my new fitted sheet and pillowcases feel luxurious against my skin compared to what was on the bed when I moved in. Plus, they are a somewhat nice blue with a colorful pattern on them. They are much cheerier and less institutional than the standard white sheets the Phannu supplies.
I also spent a solid hour yesterday rearranging the furniture in this room. Since I had paid for the month, I figured that gave me the right to move things around. The way the room had been arranged was really silly. And I found it uncomfortable as well as nonsensical. The bed, for example, was pushed up against the main window. I like to sit on the bed and rest against the wall behind me. But that was awkward to do in this room because the wall behind me was the window. And with the bed blocking the window, it was really difficult to try to open and close them or move the curtains. So I turned the entire bed by ninety degrees so it was facing in the other direction and the head of the bed was against a smooth, solid wall. And it is so much better. This arrangement is perfect for the room, and it allows for easy access to the window, plus it provides a nice, wide lane on both sides of the bed. I have no idea why they arranged these rooms as they did when I moved in.
There was also a giant TV on a counter. And the only space available for the mini-fridge was on the floor underneath that counter. That didn’t work for me, because I don’t need the TV. I do need the fridge, and I open it a dozen times a day, and it was hard to reach on the floor under the counter like that. So I unplugged the TV and dumped it on top of the wardrobe. And then I moved the fridge from the floor to the top of the counter. I then went around the room and took all the junk that was sitting on top of counters and other places and put it all away inside drawers. None of this stuff had any function. And it just used up valuable real estate. Once I moved all this furniture and got rid of all the junk and put on the new bed sheets, the room was transformed. It is now a thousand percent nicer and more pleasing.
My first day inside this room, I thought it was kind of gloomy. My back was to the window as I sat on the bed. But now, I’m sitting at ninety degrees to the window, and I have the curtains pulled aside, and I have a nice view outside where I can watch the sun come up and I can see people coming and going. Plus, I can see the dogs.
The dogs are a strange feature of the Phannu. I noticed these dogs in particular the first time I stayed at the Phannu, and they bothered me. They bothered me because they are large dogs, and they are kept in quite small kennels with no place to run around and no comforts and no views. They seemed to be trapped in those small spaces forever, and they looked miserable and unhappy. The dogs were still there when I arrived this time, and I continued to be bothered by their living conditions. However, now that I’ve been here three nights, I know a bit more about their lives. Their daily lives are still not great, but not as awful as I first thought. The family has a routine that lets these dogs out of their kennels three times a day – once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. And they can run all around the property.
It’s a weird situation, though, because in order to let the dogs run free, they have to close the gate to the property. And this is an inconvenience for guests, because when they try to leave or return, whether on foot, on a scooter, or in a car, they face a closed gate. And the family members have to run over and open the gate while making sure to keep the dogs inside. It’s a whole process.
Another awkward aspect is that one of the dogs, a very large husky, appears to have developed a bad attitude. It often barks and growls savagely at anyone that comes in or out of the hotel grounds. The only way into the hotel is down a narrow lane, and you walk right by the kennels. You have no choice. And the husky can erupt in a savage series of growls and barks. And there is a sign on the kennel warning people to keep their distance and not to put their hand in or near the cage. Given all of that, you have to wonder about what is going to happen when this husky is suddenly running all over the hotel grounds with unsuspecting hotel guests wandering about. It’s just a weird situation.
Of course, I have no concerns about the husky. I can charm any dog. And I’ve already set about befriending these two dogs. I’ve been keeping track of their routine, and when I see the dogs outside my window running around at their appointed time, I grab my cup of coffee (if I’m drinking one) and go outside and sit on the bench outside my room. The first time I did this, the black dog came running right up to me, and we became instant friends. He’s a very friendly dog and loves nothing more than a good scratch and petting.
And this morning, for the first time, I convinced the husky to come over and check me out. He sniffed me all over. And to my surprise, he let me pet him and seemed to enjoy it very much. He’s still a bit unstable, though, and when he decided to leave, he stopped for a minute and looked back at me. And then he gave a pretty savage bark and growl. It was almost like he was embarrassed that he had been so friendly. And now he had to make sure and tell me that he was no dog to mess with. He just seems to be a bit unsteady in his mood. It’s probably because of the long periods of time when he has nothing to do but lie on the cement floor in that small kennel and bark at people as they go in and out of the hotel grounds. Anyone would go a bit mad in those conditions.
I’m still not happy about the dogs and their living conditions. The husky in particular is in dire need of a good brushing and perhaps a bath. When I pet him, his hair came off in thick handfuls. I’d love to get a good brush and brush him down.
This issue of the treatment of pets and animals in general is always a problem. Perhaps we Canadians are a bit nutty in terms of how well we treat our pets. They live like emperors in our homes. But in a place like Thailand, they seem to go too far in the opposite direction, and people can often keep their pets in very bad conditions and think nothing of it. Given the space available here, I don’t think it would be that hard to provide these dogs with much more space to live in. I guess they can’t have them running free on the grounds all the time. But they could easily provide them with happier lives, I think.
And the last big change yesterday is that the government of Thailand announced that the covid-19 visa program has been extended for another sixty days. I was glad to hear that. As always, I have no idea if I will take advantage of the extra time. I really should try to move on, but it’s nice to have the option, especially now that I have this relatively comfortable and inexpensive place to live. With the extra sixty days, I will be able to stay in Thailand for February, March, April, and May, if I wish. That’s great news for me.