Men's House

I got up late on Saturday. Once again. It didn't seem the women were going to leave for Bangkok, but that was just another normal change in plans that happens so often here. Too bad, I'd been looking forward to it a bit. With so many people and dogs in the house all the time I could have used a time a little bit more quiet.

My brother had used the morning to layout the kitchen so we'd be able to order tiles for it. But finding the right tile 4x4 inch white and glossy was the actual problem. While we were driving around trying to find a tile shop to provide those we got a promising phone call. Tuk ordered us back to the house to lock it. They were all leaving to Bangkok, the women, children and dogs. Another normal change in plans. We'd have the house to ourselves the whole weekend as they would not return before Monday.

The next tile shop we went to, the supposedly biggest in town, informed us, we wouldn't be able to get the tiles of our desire in Sukhothai. Maybe Phitsanulok, rather Bangkok would be the places to go. We didn't want to believe. We'd learned by now that different from a couple of years ago, you could find and get just about everything in Thailand now. We stopped by Home Mart, a discount home improvement store. They, too, didn't have the tiles we wanted and told us the same story. Looking around and trying to find what we could work with now we found a pile of tile catalogs. Reading them carefully revealed that all our desired tiles were available through the distribution partners of Home Mart. My brother took the catalog and started explaining to the sales persons what and how to order our tiles. Three days to wait and we'd have the stuff we'd been dreaming of. No problem, you can get anything and everything here now. It's just, that noone does, as things get slightly more costy. Seriously, it's not much more, but a Thai will not care for a more expensive 4x4 tile if he can get the same in another size. Farangs are so different!

We left Home Mart in a mighty good mood towards downtown. It was lunch time and time for a meal. As we rolled into town the engine suddenly wouldn't take any gas anymore. I pulled over, but as soon as I had stopped everything was fine again. But that didn't last long. Right in the town center it did the same again, but this time the engine went off and I had just enough momentum left to pull over to park. Now the engine wouldn't start anymore, right during the best time of the day, in the boiling midday heat. I quickly checked the ignition points and as they were okay I suspected a problem with the fuel pipe. I pulled the hose of the carburetor. We were completely dry, no fuel in the pipe. I wondered were it was blocked and if we would need to have repairs done with the fuel pump. A look at the old fuel filter made us walk to the next shop, fortunately not far away to get a new one and some new hose as well. Back at the car, I pulled the hose from the tank. To my surprise, even there was no fuel. I was bemazed.

We were already covered in sweat from a little walk and pulling off two hoses so we decided to have a break and eat first so we'd also have some time to think about how to fix the problem. After lunch I poked into the tank with a wire I'd found but I couldn't get down to the fuel and would always have resistance in the pipe before I'd reach the bottom. So either the pipe was congested or it was rotten and sucking air. We hoped for the first, but decided to put some more fuel in. Before we could call a taxi a woman from the nearby street businesses approached us and offered help. With her scooter she took my brother back to the house, where he got some tools and the fuel can and brought that back on the scooter of ours.

Using a garden hose and a somewhat dodgy construction we connected the full fuel can to the fuel system in order to first get the car back to the house. We got it to start that way, so we secured everything with straps and went on the way to the house. Well, not quite, we didn't go that far. I made it about 10 meters up the bridge before the engine stalled again. With no motor I rolled backwards through the now busy traffic back into my parking position. Okay, that hadn't worked. We checked our construction and found the garden hose to block the fuel supply where it bent. So we decided to give it a shot and put all fuel in the tank. No luck, the engine still wouldn't get fuel.

By now we'd somehow spent a couple of hours trying to get our Datsun running again and dark was approaching. Before shops started closing, we went to buy a guitar string. That was the perfect tool to follow the pipe into the tank. Bingo! It was blocked. The string wasn't strong enough to push whatever was blocking out of the way so we decided to get some longer and stronger wire from the house.

Back at the house and a shower later we were digging though the tool boxes and found some appropriate wire. Next to the tools our eyes fell on an electronic air pump. Hmmm. Air pressure seemed at least as appropriate. Equipped with that pump and the wires we were soon back at the truck. The air pump nozzle fit the fuel tank pipe quite nicely and a few short burst of air later the fuel was already running over my hands. I quickly reconnected the hoses, done. The car started immediately and we were finally good to take it home. We decided it'd be best to flush the fuel tank next day.

Saturday night was planned for a movie night, with just the two of us in the house and the TV all to ourselves. For dinner we'd have farang food with potatos, meat and sauce. Lucie called just when we bought the missing ingredients from the market. She'd come over for a while bringing a friend along. How else could it have been, we ended up chatting and drinking all night which made good practice for my Thai again. So we postponed movies for the next night.

Sunday was planned for flushing the fuel tank. But I couldn't help but installing a radio in the truck first. With a car that old, there's not much to work with. Putting the speakers in the doors, building a support frame for the radio and doing a lot of wiring I was done in about three hours, covered in sweat and with a sunburn on my back. After we had music now, we started flushing the tank using a big bowl from the back yard. It seemed as if the fuel flow wouldn't stop and the bowl filled up almost up the the rim. Just a few small bits and pieces were washed out, hopefully enough so we won't have the pipes blocked again. To refill the tank we used a bucket and the fuel can. We've probably been high afterwards with all the fumes sticking right in our faces.

For a about month we'd planned to go swimming at the local swimming pool. After we were done with the Datsun we suddenly realized, today we'd have time to do so. Quickly, we gathered our shorts and towels and were just about to leave as a scooter pulled into our driveway. It was Bon who asked us if we could pick up a friend of his just down the street whose scooter had broken down. So we squeezed in a short trip down the road to carry the scooter and the boys to the garage. The Datsun didn't even notice the little bike and five boys in the back. That's a car!

Finally, the night was for movies. My brother fell asleep during the second one, just after Bon had come to the house and spent about an hour in the bathroom puking his guts out. Inbetween movies we'd sat out on the front porch and pondered about how great life would be if it was always just the two of us in the house, what a quiet yet wild life we'd be living, how we could go doing about anything that would come to our minds and what parties we would have. Monday the women returned. Our men's weekend was over.

They returned with two new dogs, little puppies the'd bought for Toni. While the dogs were fun for a couple of minutes a day, the rest of the day they were merely annoying. Pissing in the house, jumping everywhere and getting onto everything you left standing at a level too low they could actually be a real nuisance. And now we had two more, even though still small, and we had to keep them separated from the big ones.