While sitting in the train I had just met a new friend, a friendly and beautiful girl from Hat Yai. But the train just arrived at Tung Sung, so in a hurry I left the train. At the train-station I would meet the family of Ricky's wife. At the platform was a group of Thai people with a sign "Charlie". As I am not Charlie and as I do not know any Charlie I passed them. But they asked me "You friend Charlie?”.
Charlie? Who is Charlie? No of course not. I am a friend of Ricky.
“Yes Charlie”.
"No, Ricky ...... wait a minute, there are probably not 2 foreigners here at the train-station".
I learned that my friend Ricky is nicknamed Charlie. So in the back of a police truck (family of my friend Ricky is working at the police) I was brought to a house that I would never build for myself, but here I was renting it. It’s a typically Thai house with a huge living room and a lot of unpractical small rooms. And of course a high wall around it, no trees in the garden and an steel gate as entrance.
Renting an all house for myself .... really? Well there were some family members also staying in the house, but they would leave the next day. Well actually they left 10 days later as there was a wedding party at the house after 2 days. Not my marriage!
And one of the rooms was rented to 2 student girls from the local University. So actually I was not renting a house but a room. Now you would think “That’s nice two female room mates” but as I was a guest of the family of a good friend, I remained at a save distance of that fun. And language barrier and Thai shyness made that in the next 2 months living here I actually had almost no contact with the 2 girls at all.
After bringing my stuff to my room I took a shower, to see that actually the hot water machine that should be there was not there. And actually there were some more things missing in the house, like a hot water cooker, a motorbike, a fridge and some other things that were all supposed to be there.
Of course I did not mention this at first but I did mention it later to my friend Ricky. And what a surprise within a week it all was back, except the motorbike. And it was all brand new. To my friend they had told the story that they needed money and had brought it to the pawn-shop. But then why get it back all new? Well later I heard the real story. One of the handsome boyfriends of one of the lovely students’ girls had stolen everything. Also the fridge?
You can hardly blame the family, they were only suppose to take care of the house (and being paid for that), not to rent it out to students and making money with it! But now it would be my house, well and that of the 2 girls of course. And as I was staying there they did not dare to invite other boyfriends anymore. If they did come along they would be waiting outside the gate at the entrance of the garden.
So there was a marriage of family member and the party would be held at “my” house. What they did not tell that 6 family members would sleep and stay in the house to prepare for the party. And that the party took 3 days. And that the all bunch of family stayed another week to clean up the mess. And then when finally everybody was gone, the nearby family would come everyday to check the house, clean the garden or to borrow something. It started to irritate me every day more and more.
OK in hindsight I start to think there was another reason for coming to "my" house. The family had 2 18 years girls, twins to be exactly. And soon was declared that they did not have an boyfriend. As they were totally not my type and as we could not speak to each other at all, I totally ignored this.
In the meanwhile I started to wander around the small city and did realize that I was almost the only foreigner living here in the city itself. So here I did learn the "problems" of a foreigner living upcountry.
First of all in those days I was hardly speaking any Thai and the locals there did hardly speak any English. The moment they realized I did not speak Thai they would simply ignore me. Secondly the house was a bit out of town and without a motorbike even in this small town of Chinese immigrants I was isolated.
I finally did find an older man who did speak good English and I did meet his daughter who was studying “Tourism” in Phuket. They had a small restaurant and it became my daily escape of my isolation of reality. The old man even had some tourist information about the town and area and he showed me around. He liked to use his English. Maybe the area was actually nice and beautiful but I failed to see that.
It was somewhere in the middle of the month and I was bloody missing my privacy and my party life in the Big Mango. So suddenly I decided to leave this place and as quickly as possible. I packed my back, walked to the 7/11 for a drink and took a motor-bike taxi back to pickup my luggage. I did put the monthly rent on the table and left for the train station. I was not happy and in a hurry to escape stupid questions of the family. I paid the motor-bike taxi 50thb and he looked to me like I wanted to buy his bike. I waited on the train station and I could already hear the train coming. With a relieved feeling I did sit down on my second class sleeping berth and watched Tung Sung fading away in a misty afternoon. Soon someone walked by to sell some drinks and I bought a fanta namsom. Willing to pay I opened my wallet to see that I had paid the taxi-boy not 50thb but my last 1000thb. At least someone in Tung Sung had a happy day.
The next day I arrived in Bangkok and I was lucky as my old room would be free again within 5 days. I emailed my friend Ricky to explain everything in polite words. He reacted a bit unfriendly first. It seems that the family told him that I left without paying the last rental fee. So someone did "borrow" the money that I left in the house? One of that lovely twin’s maybe?
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