When it rains...

it pours here. People say you can set your watch to it. I do not think we are at that point yet, but we do get the occasional storm every couple days. It's beautiful when it's just lighting storms over the ocean off in the distance. We are dreading riding the motorbike to work in the rain. Ugh.

Speaking of water related subjects...  Brian washing clothes in the bathroom...Tsunami Wave!

This past weekend while he was at Dive School, I decided to be Susie Homemaker and do the laundry. He was feeling a bit ill, and I had nothing else to do but plan lessons. I had a nice system - soak in the sink, rinse off in the tub, ring out on the side of the tub, hang on the drying racks out on our balcony. No mess or water all over the place. A long process but easy enough. Your fingers do start to ache. Makes you appreciate washing machines! or Jang downstairs :)

I went into the bathroom today to find my sacred stash of tampons soaked! It was like interviewing one of my kid's at school! He wouldn't confess. I had to use the phrase, "It wasn't like this when I left!" Still didn't confess...

Later he turned on the puppy dog face and uttered, "Babe, don't hate me," that I finally got it out of him. He thought he might have accidentally got it wet yesterday while washing his work pants.

Not 30 minutes after this confession did he proceed to wash another set of clothes. He was cursing about not having enough towels in the apartment, so I walked into the bathroom to help. He was on his hands and knees sopping up water. I dove under the sink to check on my corner of stuff. Sure enough, He took out my waxing kit and medicine kit! Urg that boy... kind of funny though because it totally proved what happened the prior day to my beloved tampons. Caught red handed!

I told him to let me do the laundry from now on! My items are all currently laid out on the table with the fan pointed at them. Fingers crossed.

Laundry

Conveniently, We have Jang downstairs who does laundry. We took our first load to her the other day. Just under 50 items. Our work clothes were in the bundle.

Jang's place is on the left and ours is on the right. We enter through this front door, but our apartment is behind this building. There used to be a street in between the buildings, but they built between them. So we walk to the back of this building through to ours and walk up to the 5th floor. That is our rented motorbike parked out front. Key card entry into building.

It was suppose to be done the next day. But of course it wasn't....

We went to dinner and came back. It still wasn't done.

The upscale hotel right by our apartment.

Brian was craving farang food...so this is where we ate. A bit pricey no doubt, but good.

Laundry in Thailand is quiet different than the states. Alot of the apartments/condos do not have washing machines. There are alot of places to take your laundry too. They are just as common as 7-11's here. Even expats with washing machines at home take their laundry to be serviced. Obviously, money isn't really a factor to them. We are even considered well off here... though we really can't wrap our heads around that because by American standards we are poorer than poor. We just have to stop converting everything back into American dollars.

Anyway, Brian grabbed his essential items and we went back upstairs. We would pick up the rest of our laundry in the morning. Hopefully.

The soi/street we live on. We live under the second illuminated sign on the left. A nice quiet street!

A couple hours later, I heard a faint knock at the door. We were not expecting anyone, and the security is pretty good at our place. I woke Brian up and told him someone was at the door. I wasn't going to answer it! We both had our knifes pulled. We always travel with knifes... just a cautionary precaution.

Brian opened the door. Neatly stacked in front of our door was our laundry. Nicely ironed and folded into bags.

Jang had walked all the way up to deliver our clothes. To get in our building she would have had to ring the door bell and get the tenants on the first floor to let her in. Then she would have to climb countless flights of stairs to the 5th floor! Poor Jang.... But we were happy to see our laundry.

I crossed checked the inventory with my list of things we dropped off. We had been give an extra pair of socks and underwear. We were missing a jacket. We would inquire tomorrow... no need to go up and down 5 flights of stairs :)

After returning from work, We stopped by Jang's. She already had the jacket ready with a pair of shorts. The shorts where not ours. Hmm... good thing I did inventory before we dropped our laundry off!

While waiting for the tab, I almost tripped over her dog. It had decided to lay beside my feet so when I stepped back I nearly fell! A man quietly laughed. His name was Aaron. He was a tenant at Jang's (She also rents out rooms). He was on a business trip. Aaron was an older gentleman from Texas. He had been traveling through Asia since August looking for prospective retirement property for his client. He is staying for a week in Jomtien and then is moving on to Malaysia. I almost envied his job until I remembered the hassle with real estate here. He was a very interesting character, but then again aren't most that you meet off the beaten path...

He was surprised we were from America. In his opinion, American's don't travel. Only a fraction of American's have passports and only a percentage of those use it. I would have to agree with Aaron on this point.

Laundry cost... 550 baht ($17). A discount for Ajarn or teachers with the agreement to help Jang with her English :)

Although Jang did an amazing job, I think we might stick to washing things by hand and drying them on our patio. Maybe using Jang's services once a month.

This is where Jang hangs the clothes to dry. It's right across the street.