Got a good vibe going on in our neighborhood. And for Steve's work it couldn't get any better. His boss likes him and knows a good thing when he see's it. He has decided that he doesn't want Steve on a bike as there are many crashes on the mopeds, so he has set him up with a truck! We love the comforts that comes along with the ride. Safety, aircon, and no limits when shopping, oh and if it's raining we stay dry! At Steve's work they have hooked him up with a phone, a computer and along with the truck a gas card! Yahoo for us as in the past we were both self employed and these are things we had to take care of ourselves. No wonder those that are in a union love the little extras. We are seeing things a bit different now. He has the full benefit of a big staff and there are many people to take care of all the little things that as a sole owner would do himself! Steve's got secretaries for payroll, purchasing, translating, as well there's people that take care of sales, engineering, autocad, design, etc...lots of staff, 30 plus with skilled tradesmen and plenty of laborers. All is good. He draws many pictures to get through a workday and even sometimes gets his ideas across. Communication is the key! We wish him all the best! When he needs help there's Mod and Cherry to complete the translation. He will have to add to the blog as his work has many funny stories, one of those would be new charade skills! His company sent us to Malaysia for a visa run and paid for my expenses too! They were unable to fly us out as it was a big holiday and the flights were booked, so they sent us on a minivan-visa shuttle run. Now these companies that do the visa runs have got it down to a science (almost). We were told to be ready for 11:00 p.m. and the place to meet. We had prearranged a taxi. Well now it is 9:00 p.m., we get a call and the van is waiting for us..... What!! They're 2 hours early, we call the taxi but they cannot pick us up, go figure? So luckily we have our truck so we zip over to the meeting spot (local police station) and hop in the minivan. We are the last guests to be picked up, there are 8 others waiting! I am sure they thought "oh great these will be the slackers"! We later found out that the driver had called everyone else to say we will be leaving early accept he forgot to call us, what a loser! The driver and I will mention, not a friendly guy, (also, not a lot of smiles here), tells me to sit in the front passenger seat, nice! Then he gives Steve the only other available seat which happened to be a crapola middle seat with less leg room, you know the one that sits behind the driver's bench console, big and fat and takes up a large portion of leg room. Steve rides the short seat as there is no other option. (I might have considered changing spots with him). Well, I get my blanket(sarong) and settle in for the 10 hour journey and hope to sleep most of the way! We have many stops for bathroom breaks and part way through the night we change drivers. AND VANS!!! I was a little more together and asked Steve if he grabbed our bag, but he did not get it so needless to say about a half hour or so later our new driver gets a call and there is a bag left in the other van! (Steve thought we only changed drivers). We pull over and wait and our not so happy driver #1, pulls out a bag and yep it was ours, ooooppps. The bag that had all our paper work! Once again the other visa runners I am sure are shaking their heads and thinking losers! So now we are on the road again and get to the boarder and we wait and wait and one of the other passengers is keeping us all there for way too long (a two hour wait). The driver says they are having a problem processing this particular passenger. We are told that we only have so much time and if we do not make it to the embassy before 10:00 a.m. they will be closed for a few days because of Songkran (a big holiday here) Steve is getting 10 days off with pay even and this is the start of it! So as a group we say leave the guy behind and do not want to spend any extra days in Malaysia. So we ditch the guy, who knows what the problem was but we do not care and his lack of organization or troubles is not going to become our problem! A few more hours of travel, we see the sun rise and the many people getting to work and the daily hustle of this busy country. We cross over a huge bridge onto the Island of Penang, Malaysia. Now this bridge is huge, I have never crossed one quite so long. Later I researched and found out it is the longest bridge in Malaysia, spanning over 13.5 k.m. When we arrive at the embassy we quickly unload and follow our drivers instructions to que up and sign in. My check in time shows 9:55 and Steve's 9:56. We just made it! I hand in my simple couple pages for my tourist visa, and the officer says to me, NEXT TIME YOU HAVE TO GET THIS PROCESSED IN VANCOUVER! Not a friendly guy and all I am thinking is it's a good thing I'm going home this summer! Now Steve is applying for a Non-immigrant visa and hands in a 2 inch pile of paperwork that one of his secretaries has put together for him and the officer he gets says YOU ARE MISSING A PAGE FROM THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE AND WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PROCESS THIS. Yikes...... We check into our hotel and make a call to Mod and says she will phone the embassy. We have our fingers crossed and only hope that this all gets done. You never know and this is our second time in this country and it is not one of our favorites. They do have some incredible buildings here as they also did in Kuala Lumpur! But....Not too many smiling faces and it's like an ole boys club. Maybe if we were to plunk ourselves at an all-inclusive beachside resort things would be different but we wouldn't want to stay there anyways! So now we just wait and see what tomorrow brings! We shower up and decide to wander around and see some sights, hop on a free bus and jump off to check out this big mall with a movie theater, we watch a show,and find Steve some much needed shoes. It is like going back 20 years or so as people are smoking inside! Kinda weird. Later we catch a bicycle rickshaw and have him take us through China town where we get Steve a couple shirts, also much needed as when he is working with the high humidity there's a few changes throughout the day. Out for a yummy East Indian dinner. Early to bed to wait out what our visa outcome will be. Yipee we made it! We don't have to stay there and hope we don't have to return for awhile! The trip back was quicker as when we hit the border, more stalls open up and officials are able to process the many mini-vans full of other visa-runners quickly! Our driver just wants to get home as we speed along at 12o kms plus. I found it best to just close my eyes and pretend we are safe, much like an ostrich might do. If you can't see it, it won't happen. We get back in about 8 hours, record time I'm sure. Nice, home sweet home, our comfy king size bed awaits, even our security dogs are happy to see us! Now Songkran is happening, it's a major celebration, like our Christmas. Many people travel back to their family homes to celebrate. We decide to cruise around in our truck to get pictures and later ride around on our new mountain bikes. Now a little info on Songkran, it's like a country wide water fight! It marks the Thai New Year and the traditional religious activities take place in the morning, involving showing respect to their elders and sacred temples by sprinkling water on them.
In some areas they celebrate for a week, literally dousing everyone with water and colored powder. It is quite a sight as in the morning it is serene as many families go a temple and worship. Then as the day progresses you see lots of families in the back of pick up trucks with huge garbage cans full of water, they also have big water guns so let the games begin! We keep our camera dry and get a few nifty shots, the streets are running with water and all are having fun! Later we drop off the truck and decide to peddle around the neighborhood. Many Thais have colorful powdered faces and as we ride around our area. We are asked to stop as they put their hands up and come over to us a gently and put the colored powder on our faces, some take their bowls of water and pour it on our backs and give us a blessing. All this is done in a very caring way. We ride down one side street (soi) and there is a group of older men, they wave us over and want to share their Thai whiskey. We join them in a celebratory shot and then ride home to pick up a bottle of leechee liquor we brought back from Malaysia, to take and share with them. They were quite happy to see us return and loved the leechee! Of course. We decided to not be out on the streets late in the day as there are many accidents during these festivities (like our new year), with a lot of alcohol being consumed, combined with miss judgement, best to play it as the saying goes, "safety first". We now have a week left over for Steve's holidays and spend it getting to know our new area! Beaches, dining and scouting it all out! It has been nice to have time together as it has been an adjustment having Steve away working when we have been used to spending every hour of every day with each other. Can you say......attached at the hip? Appendage?? Two become one???
