Going to live in Isaan (part 2)

The Inquisitor has become a commuter. About every two weeks about 850 km back and forth between Pattaya and an unsightly village northwest of Sakhun Nakon. And he begins to discover Isaan. The first period he still sleeps in the parental home of the girlfriend, it even seems to become a bit of a home. 

Sleeping in is not possible here. It starts at sunrise, just before six o'clock. Cackling chickens and calling roosters roam freely and usually under his bedroom window - a poorly closing wooden shutter that lets all sound through. At the stroke of six, The Inquisitor hears the strange “boommmm”. Less than five hundred meters away is a Buddhist temple where three monks live. And they strike a gong every full hour. Fortunately not at night but from 6 o'clock in the morning.

For a moment The Inquisitor tries to turn over on that mattress-on-the-floor, but it is hopeless. At a quarter past six, loud Thai noises groan through the countless loudspeakers he had already noticed, they hang in every village. The village chief wakes everyone up with a metallic sound, they have to go into the rice fields with some good advice beforehand. The feasts, tambuns, are also announced and he reports when the rice subsidy will be paid. Handy such a thing in the village.

Sleepy and stiff, a fixed morning ritual is gradually taking place for De Inquisitor: looking for coffee. No evidence here because everything gets a different place in the household every day.

Yesterday he saw the 3-in-1s in the kitchen on a worktop, but this morning they are on a cupboard in the so-called living room. Fifteen minutes to find it. The next quarter of an hour is spent looking for a spoon and a cup. Then the kettle that The Inquisitor himself brought. Did someone put rice in it, nice and handy. Then water. Not a tap to be seen. A huge pink-red stone vessel with a tap attached. Rainwater, filtered through a kind of nylon stocking. That's the water used for cooking, so you can also make coffee from it, right?

Exhausted, The Inquisitor reaches the terrace where he wants to wake up completely with a delicious cup of comfort. A hot cloud hangs around him, seven o'clock in the morning and it is already 35 degrees. The Inquisitor remembers that there is a ceiling fan on the terrace and looks for the switch. A lot of sacks of rice and empty cardboard boxes have to be overcome for this, the switch is strangely enough suspended at a height of about two and a half meters. But there is no movement in the hot mash. The electricity has gone out. So no coffee either.

The Inquisitor is amazed at the construction techniques in Isaan. Somewhere images surface of housing construction techniques from the XNUMXs, but oh well, who cares. Everything is done by hand except for a concrete mixer. And so it is that little by little he is being manipulated towards a kind of “mai pen rai” attitude.

After four weeks he no longer loses sleep over the fact that the support poles vary in thickness from 20 to 25 centimetres. That there are even four support poles completely crooked. That walls seem to float, that there is hardly any connection between bricks. According to the this is all solved by the cement occupation.

Worse is when De Inquisitor finds that the contractor has 'fooled' in the heights. The ground floor is a good 60 centimeters lower than on the construction drawings. Why he will never know. But now the walk-through height under the stairs is becoming a bit low, and the mastodon refrigerator that has moved with it can no longer be placed under the niche of the stairs…. That will be revised in the kitchen because now that mastodon must be given a new place. Mai pen rai.
It gets even worse when De Inquisitor notices that widths and depths were not respected. The carefully designed bedrooms on the upper floor are 60 centimeters less wide and 40 centimeters less deep. The (expensive) furniture to which the rooms are designed to be moved no longer fits. Mai pen rai.

The bomb explodes when it turns out that the interior doors purchased by the contractor - exceptionally - are all too low. In Belgium, the floor pass is sacred. From there, all heights are determined, you avoid useless and annoying thresholds, in short, an important fact. Here in Isaan that is secondary. 'We'll cut some cement' is a firm rule. But despite that fact, De Inquisitor does not swallow the 'fake' doors. A passage height of one meter eighty-five is ridiculously low and no visibility.

The contractor refuses to buy new doors (yes, at his expense) and gets his own "I quit" threat right back: "No, you're out."

And The Inquisitor condemns himself to his hardest 4 months in Thailand. Just like in his golden years, he will finish the construction himself with the help of a few day laborers brought in by the brother-in-law. He tries - in vain - to ignore the daytime temperatures of over 40 degrees. Forgetting that the enthusiastic day laborers drop all hammers, spirit levels and chisels sometime in mid-May to start working in the rice fields, the rains are here.

Only The Inquisitor, his wife and her brother still work in construction. Repair poorly occupied walls. Keep an eye on the electrician and tiler – fortunately they are full-time 'craftsmen' who buy their rice and don't grow it themselves. Install a water pipe, starting from the pump in the back of the garden. Where we also immediately build a pump house (straight support posts, straight walls in connection) and a shady shelter.

All carpentry work including new interior doors. Finishing the roof, fortunately the stone tiles were already attached, but all kinds of finishing touches still had to be applied - The Inquisitor does not like the 45 degree roof slope he drew, not so handy to work on.

Install bathrooms. Install kitchen. Until the last screw, until the last lick of paint we continue and mid-July is the day. We can decorate, furnish, in short, the fun work.

It gives great satisfaction that own work, but the Inquisitor is exhausted and six kilos thinner than at the start - the Isan rice menu with supplements from forests and fields did not add many calories. And it's not done yet. Although you don't have to apply for a building permit, you don't have to submit building plans, you don't have to hire an architect – there's paperwork.

The cohabitation contract must be registered and the house must be registered at the Land Office, including the special conditions.

The Inquisitor is registered without question at the new address – which strangely enough has no street name, only a house number. Officially he now lives in Isaan, unofficially he still lives in Pattaya until he visits his new Immigration Office - a lot of hassle because it will be just fine with the annual visa to be renewed.

The Inquisitor proudly travels to Pattaya for the last time – the move can start, he thinks that's not such a chore. And once again enjoy the oh so pleasant -western- comfort there. Chairs. Tables. farang food. Even a greasy bite, Belgian and Dutch.

To be continued…

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