Tuk had organized the agent to check out the container from Bangkok harbour and organize the transport to Sukhothai. We spent our days with looking around for some building materials and also for natural stone to put into the bathroom and kitchen in the Sukhothai house. A stone mason from Sukhothai had given us a Bangkok company where we were able to find amazingly cheap natural stones. My brother and Tuk decided to order the kitchen stone there and organize the transport to Sukhothai using the overseas container. With the stone so cheap, we decided the night before the container arrival to also buy the bathroom stone at that company. So we spent half the night not sleeping, but planning the whole bathroom without having neither the room nor the stones to look at.
Next morning we were supposed to get up early. We did, but not early enough. We were supposed to meet the agent at the harbour at nine to open the container with customs. It soon turned out we were stuck in Bangkok traffic and nobody knew the way. Well, we sort of knew the direction, that had to do. I doubt we went the shortest route. If we would have, we could probably even have been on time. It's amazing how fast you can cross Bangkok once you reach the motorway. Just about 15 minutes too late we arrived at the harbour.
Everyone was excited to see, if the open container would present the same picture as it had last time we'd seen it. The agent guided us through the harbour area to the customs gates. Minutes later the opened container made us proud of our packing skills. Nothing had moved, everything was exactly like we had put it when we had sealed the container. The customs officer was not as impressed and started with some helpers to unpack the couches. He had immediately noticed the bicycle and after removing the couches he saw some of the new machines still in their original packaging. This meant customs fees. Usually. Our agent took the officer to the side. No need to say publicly what they did. After that the couches went back into the container and customs was done. We instructed the driver where the natural stones shop was and quickly we were on our way there.
The night before we'd copied instructions from Google Maps to get from the harbour to the stone shop. The do work, I believe. It's just bad, if the first direction doesn't fit the signs on the road and you go wrong on the first turn. We realized about five to ten minutes late and tried to go by orientation. We failed and after going right through the center of Bangkok ended exactly where we started. This time, we took the correct turn and Googles directions turned out to work. But we had lost Tuk's trust and she directed us by staying on the phone with her brother, who knew the city well. Still, that made us go another way, not sure if better or not, but we did get to where we wanted.
Of course, in all the morning rush, we had left the reciept for the stone already paid at the house. So now we had to find the sales person first who had served us the last time. We did and there was no problem, they did remember us. Now we had the hard task to quickly pick the stone for the bathroom we had planned last night. We found stone to work with, but not in the dimensions we had hoped to find. So a quick replanning on location was done and all boards were chosen. That must have taken about the first hour of our short stop at the shop. We had told the truck driver, we'd need about half an hour for loading the stone board already chosen for the kitchen before. With that change in plan we were already half an hour over time. It would be a couple of more hours in the end.
Before we could start loading the stone we had to make some space. In a fully packed 20-foot container we needed 11 feet of space. Moving around some stuff took the next 30 minutes. And then followed another four hours of waiting for the next slab, organizing that we got the right stone and loaded and finally repacking the container items. We didn't really stand still most of the time, but I cannot actually tell, what took us those 5 hours to get these 16 large and 36 small stone boards and into that container.
After loading we were good to go. Go home. With some more shopping done in the previous days in Bangkok, we had so much stuff to carry that we had switched cars with Tuk's brother De. His large pickup truck made the ride much more comfortable than it would have been in the Honda. Still, we didn't get to the house until nine at night and the truck finally arrived just before midnight. We convinced the driver that it was impossible to unload in the dark and that he and his family would spend the night in the house.
Next morning started more relaxed than I would have thought. Nobody was in a rush, not even the driver, who'd later receive a good tip to honour his patience. Bon, the son of Tuk's sister, had organized about eight or nine of his friends to help us. I have no idea what we would have done without them. Within two or three hours the container was nearly empty and the house had boxes standing everywhere, so it seemed there would never enough space to put all their contents. But there was no time to worry about that, yet, as there were still 16 stone slabs left in the container. We built a ramp from a long aluminum ladder and unloaded the slabs one by one, sliding it onto the ladder and carrying it to the back of the house afterwards. It took eight men to carry one slab safely. After three or four runs we had to take a break. I felt like in a sauna, as I was bathed in sweat like I haven't been in a very long time. About three or four o'clock the empty container left the premises and we were left there with a house full of boxes. For the helpers it was time to take it easy and have a little party in the back yard. For an hour my brother and I joined them for a couple of drinks before we started moving the boxes around the house to win the space so everyone would have a place to sleep for the night.
Good thing, we had already move many boxes into the correct room during unloading. Bad thing, circumstances changed immediately after. It was decided that Toni would get the room initially assigned to his father. Now all boxes for two rooms were in the wrong place. We started reorganizing right away. Within about two or three hours the chaos started to clear and one could move around the house again. Beds were in place a little later, but even though it had been a tough day, I decided to meet with Lucie for a drink. My brother joined for the first bar and left me to learn some more Thai alone with Lucie in the next bar.
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