A new baby, a good day shopping and a long day in government offices.

Our new granddaughter was born about 8:44 this morning. I am told she only weighed about 5 ½ pounds but is very healthy. I saw a video of her that Ning brought back and she seemed calm and curious. I hope I get to see the baby tomorrow. I don’t know how long a mother and new baby stay in the hospital in Thailand. I guess I will find out soon.  

Phai’s older sister is applying for tourist visas for Phai’s younger sister and her husband to visit them in Florida. We had to take them to a bank branch in Na Klang to pay the money to the account of the American Embassy. Then they will get appointments for interviews at the American Embassy in Bangkok.

We spent several hours at Tesco Lotus shopping and eating lunch. First we stopped at the government offices which are near Tesco Lotus and left a person there to take a number and hold our spot. We got a call from her after about 3 hours that they were getting close to our number so we payed for our goods, bought ice cream cones and headed back to the government offices. They finally got to us after another hour. We are transferring title of land from Phai’s daughter to her oldest son. Showing he has land and a house here to come back to should increase the odds of him getting a tourist visa to visit us in the Florida. Phai and I waited while they did the paperwork. When they came out Phai said lets go. They said “not yet”. We had to wait for the documents to be processed. Finally after another hour we were able to leave. From the time we got a number to be waited on until we left took about 6 hours. Thai people have amazing patience while waiting for things to get done. This is why government facilities like this have a food vendor on premises. 

When we got back to the house I got word that all the paperwork was done for Phai’s son and his wife for their tourist visa’s and the company that is helping us would pay the Embassy for us. I was able to do an electronic transfer directly from my account to their account and they said that we should have word Wednesday afternoon regarding when their appointments at the American Embassy in Bangkok will be. We will probably schedule a trip to Bangkok for the four of us (Phai and I and her son and his wife) and hopefully spend a few days playing tourist. I have actually seen much more of Bangkok than Phai has. I am looking forward to arranging that later this week.

It may be an interesting trip back to the states. If all the tourist visas are approved we will have four additional people traveling with us. They could never do the trip on their own since they speak and read no English. I am not sure what we will do if we cannot get four more seats on the same plane. I will cross that bridge when we get there. 

I have said in my blog in past years that the only way to survive in Thailand is for me to “go with the flow”. That continues to be the case. Not only do I not know from day to day what are plans are, it wouldn’t make any difference if I did because they often change several times during the course of a day.

I didn’t take any photos today but my sister had asked about where Thai’s store things. So here is a photo of a Thai rice storage shed I took a few days ago.

IMG 2977

Thais use these sheds to store primarily rice. After the harvest they store enough for the family to last until the next harvest and sell the rest.


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