A New Car

Our new car was delivered yesterday to our hotel. Remember, we aren't allowed to drive? It is a very strange feeling to have a new car just setting in a parking lot, it doesn't feel as exciting when you know that you will most likely never even drive that new car! There is an outside chance that Mark may ask permission to obtain an International driver license to drive some, perhaps to church on Sunday, out to the soccer field on Saturdays...I'll believe it when I see it because I can't imagine that Mark is going to have any spare time to pursue that. It is very restricting not to be able to drive. Last night we were invited to the Clarkson's for Drew's birthday and it was hard to relax knowing that Songkran our temporary driver was setting in the car just waiting to drive us back to the hotel. Yesterday, he picked me up to drive me to my Bible study and we had to return two times to the hotel because I had forgotten my passport, then I remembered I needed some additional paperwork. In the states, when something is forgotten it's not big deal you just turn around and go back. Forgetting something here feels embarrassing and like you are putting someone else out, even though you are paying them. Wait till he sees how many groceries I buy a week. I really believe that the no driving policy may be one of our biggest adjustments. In Bangkok there are lots of transportation options but in Pattaya our only other choice for transportation is the Baht bus. We are considering giving our permanent driver, whoever that may be, Sundays off. That would require me riding to church in the back of a pick-up truck in my skirts, we still have to get all this driver stuff worked out. We are interviewing our second applicant this afternoon, we interviewed our first one Monday evening, he has been a limousine driver in Bangkok for 30 years and speaks fairly good English but he just couldn't imagine anyone that would need to go to church every Sunday. Twice he said, "You go church EVERY Sunday?" like he was in total disbelief. Anyway our new car that we purchased for someone else to drive while we are in Thailand is a silver, Toyota, Fortuner-I can't ever remember seeing one in the states but it's the closest thing to a Suburban we could find here!

Another interesting thing about owning a car in Thailand is the collision insurance. The first year is covered by Toyota, it comes with insurance! If you don't have any accidents the second year it costs about $20,000 Baht, remember my conversion trick? That's about $600. Anyway, I think that's how it all works! I had to sign my name to a lot of paperwork that I couldn't read a word of, now that is a weird feeling. It was also an interesting experience getting the cashier check from the bank. We conquered having the money wired from the states to our Thailand account fairly easily. Mark had the for thought to have the password and stipulations in place prior to us leaving Virginia, that was a huge help. Just a call over the Skype computer system and presto the money is in Thailand in our account in about 24 hours! It was frighteningly easy, hope we never lose our passwords. At the bank, even though they can see that the money is in your account, you can not cash a check for an amount greater than $9,000, so I had to write a few checks to obtain 1 cashier check-it's just a different way to do things. We will pay all of our phone, Internet, cable, utility bills at 7-11 with cash. This is a cash society, most places do not accept credit cards. Anyway, our new car looks really shiny and nice in the hotel parking lot.