George in Thailand: My New Home in Chiang Mai, Thailand

My townhouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Welcome to my home in Chiang Mai, Thailand! I'm like a little kid with his first big toy. Sure I have owned or rented houses and cars and lots of goodies, but somehow my new home in Thailand is like the first place I call my own. It's a house! And I am the only person living here. This only happened one other time in my life. When I went on my Peace Corps assignment in a small rural village in Costa Rica, the United States Peace Corps in Costa Rica made all the arrangements. I just moved in. They even got a horse for me! But this place I got on my own, with lots of help from my good friend Taq. Here I can live better and cheaper than in public housing in the United States. Not that I am against public housing. On the contrary. I simply make the comparison in cost of living here and cost of living there.

One of the things I like most about my place is that it's a two-story house divided into three sections without walls: Going from the front door straight to the back door, the layout is Living Room Area, Dining Room Area, Kitchen Area. The Bedroom Area is above the Dining Room Area, so the Living Room and Kitchen have 2-story high ceilings, while the Dining Room and the Bedroom have only 1-story high ceilings. Nice! What I like least about the place are the stairs. Very steep, as you can probably see by the photos. Also, the bathroom is downstairs while the bedroom is upstairs. So I get walking exercises not only during the day but also during the night! All in all, though, I love the place!

The Living Room:

In the first photo is a photo of one of the most beloved kings of Thailand. The former tenant left the photo, so I have decided to keep it. Living in a kingdom means learning to honor the kings treasured by the Thai people
The reflecting tiled floor is not only beautiful, but it is also of a high quality, so it is easy to keep just the way you see it here. I feel like Fred Astaire every time I see my reflection in it! Where are you, Ginger!
The townhouse comes with basic start-up furniture. Here you see the entertainment center, although until I get the appropriate piece for my Buddhist altar, it serves my practice well now. Actually shortly after this photo was taken, an American teacher friend from Indiana sold me a nice big Sony T.V. So now the Sony and the Buddha share the same space!

The Dining Room:

Stark, isn't it? I am actually considering leaving my place with a very stark, sparse, New England Puritanical look. There's something very calming about having lots of open space within the closed space of a house. I do not like the crowded look some old Boston Beacon Hill apartments have. Like the desert, open space invites a contemplative response. I just do not feel like "filling it up."

The Kitchen:

A student of mine commented on Facebook, "I like the Pink kitchen." I do too! Actually, pink is the color of the King of Thailand. You see a lot of pink in Thailand. In Bangkok you even see lots of pink taxicabs! I find that in the tropics, bright colors and pastels are very popular. After all, here one is surrounded by the most beautiful and varied colors Mother Nature has created. A plain brown New England house would be lost in the background here. Since I first hit the tropics in 1962 in Puerto Rico, I have never ceased to be impressed by all the shades of green that exist in nature. Amazing!
By the way, in the long shot of the kitchen, you can see the door to the bathroom (to your right) and the start of the staircase next to the back door.

The Bedroom Staircase:

It's six steps to the landing and then 10 steps to the bedroom door. Like all stairs in any building I have been in either here in Thailand or in Taiwan, the stairs are very steep. As most of you know, nature calls more frequently as one gets older. In this case, she's calling me from 16 steep steps away! It's a test of bladder versus will. Luckily, I never sleep through the night, and as I have nothing urgent to do the next day, like teach classes, often I just stay up for awhile watching t.v., using the internet, reading, or praying. It's a good life, really!

The Bedroom:

It truly epitomizes its name, for the bedroom is occupied almost entirely by the bed! Not crowded, mind you. There's space for a bureau along with the wardrobe that comes with the place. But, for now, I'm not adding any furniture. It's the only room with air conditioning, which is fine with me. I put it on for a couple or hours before my first trip to the bathroom. When I return, I switch to the fan. Then after a few more visits downstairs, I switch off the fan and go to sleep with a wonderful tropical concert provided by critters I recognize and some which I think I'd rather not know! The volume and quality of sound is worthy of Carnegie Hall! I cannot describe it. If you ever get to see the Thai movie, Tropical Malady, written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, you'll hear what I mean. It's used as a soundtrack in one whole section of the movie.

There's a window on either side of the bed. One looks down into the kitchen and the other looks down into the living room. Cool! They are windows not opened directly to the wind, but only indirectly through the front door and window and the back door and window. It's like living in a tree hut without the tree!

The Carport

So what! It's a carport and I have no car or any vehicle. It's purpose, for me? It's a nice "buffer zone." Neighbors will come up to the gate and call out my name. Even if the gate is open, no one will enter. So no one actually comes to the front door, yet they are obviously there! It's a big piece of real estate, though. What shall I do with it?

In the photo below, notice what's at my front door: sandals and shoes, as footwear are removed when entering Thai homes; insect repellant, it's the tropics, baby; bottles, all consumed water must be from bottled, boiled, or chemically treated water; and a drying rack, no need for a clothes drier with the tropical sun available for free!