12-11-10: Errands

Today was occupied with running various and sundry errands. At the
start of the day our tasks seemed simple enough. We needed to withdraw
more Bahts, exchange one book, procure a Laos guidebook, and buy more
memory cards for the camera. How did we stretch this out into an all
day affair?? We are bargain hunters by nature, which requires a fair
bit of walking. Two errands were straight forward - money and camera
cards. We used the ATM that we typically use when we are in Chiang Mai
(this being our third time here, we are not totally clueless). We
walked to Pantip Plaza, the computer mall, to get the cards. We,
thankfully, had scouted the mall on our first visit, so we went right
to the cheapest shop. Two out of three ain't bad, 66%; it's that last
33% that will get you!

We wanted to trade Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, for another by her,
Poisonwood Bible. Robert wanted to find a book that he was excited to
read and we figured we should get a Laos guidebook as well. That's a
lot of business at a bookstore. We had exchanged books in Chiang Mai
previously, but it was much less of an ordeal. Throughout the day, we
ducked into any and all bookstores we happened past, checking prices
and scouting a book for Robert. Poisonwood was in almost every shop,
with a fairly consistent price hovering around 200B. We wanted a Rough
Guide to Laos, as that brand is our new favorite, but they are hard to
come by; Lonely Planet has the bulk of the market share. Finally,
Robert was at a loss as to what to read.

We could have figured it was going to be a challenge when straight
away we forgot Lacuna in the room and had to make a special trip all
the way home to procure it, with a lengthy stopover at the Internet
cafe for emails and phone calls.

Free Bird Cafe

That worked up an appetite so we further distracted ourselves from our
errand by eating at a place called Free Bird Cafe. As opposed to the
monster burrito joint from home, this place has a humanitarian bent.
The cafe supports a school for Shan Burmese refugees. I enjoyed their
full bookshelf and garden tables, but Robert wasn't taken by the
place, something about their name being too lofty? I never really got
to the bottom of it. No one denies that their food was excellent
though. Robert had gang phet (red curry, which I now know is not
translated directly as a direct translation would result in the dish
being called spicy curry). I had kaow soi tai, which is the Shan
version of yellow noodle salad with kaow soi sauce (kaow soi is a
mild, creamy yellow curry served in the north of thailand inspired by
Burmese cuisine). We also split pak gat rung saa, a Shan cabbage
salad. All three dishes were extraordinarily tasty. If you want to
check out the work they are doing, look at thaifreedomhouse.org. I
haven't been there yet, so let me know what you think. Last note, we
sat in the garden and one of the trees nearby was adorned with a "bird
sound generator;" whenever you walked by, it tweeted at you. It would
have been annoying, but it just sounded like birds.

Books, Books and more Books

Back to our book errand. All told we visited eight shops, that I
distinctly remember: two locations of Gecko Books, Gecko Books Annex,
Lost Bookshop, Mango Books, Backstreet Bookshop, On The Road Books and
one that Had an unremarkable name, so I forgot it. Actually, we
visited most of these multiple times. I don't even remember at this
point why it took so many visits to finalize our purchases. I guess we
started the day with only a hazy plan and it solidified only very
slowly as we made laps around town. We finally decided against getting
a dedicated Laos guidebook, opting to use the Southeast Asia on
Shoestring tome we have been lugging. Robert would read Drop City by
T.C. Boyle (hippies, back to the land, Alaska, highly recommended by
his girlfriend - how can he not like it? cross your fingers for me).
And I wanted to trade lacuna for poisonwood.

After our plan coalesced, it only took us one more lap and an
intervening rest period to make it happen. We started asking how much
we could get for the gently used, newest novel by kingsolver, only one
copy of which graced a bookshop shelf in Chiang Mai to our knowledge.
Our first offer was 80B, too low - we wanted a fair trade for an older
book by the same author. Our next offer was 120B, better, but
poisonwood was selling for 200 and he wouldn't accept our trade. At
this point we were utterly perplexed. In any reasonable world, our
book was more valuable than the book we wanted, we shouldn't have to
pay a difference. When we got a third offer of 100B, a lightbulb
slowly illuminated. They didn't care that Lacuna was a new book or a
rare one. It was a book. Books are bought at half price and sold for
full price. It makes sense because it would be challenging for anyone
here to be able to accurately price a book based on merit, but in this
instance we were getting screwed. It is a silly system, but we had no
alternative.

We went home to lick our wounds and cheer ourselves up with showers
and fresh laundry, leaving the arduous task of returning to a previous
offer to complete the transaction. In keeping with our day of
continual missteps, we forgot the laundry downstairs! We played gin to
100, loser had to get the laundry. After a spectacularly bad first
hand (0 to 43), I clawed my way to tie before eventually losing. Beers
and potato snacks were added to the errand, all three were enjoyed
disproportionate to their price.

Final Five Errands

Upon leaving the guesthouse we had invented five errands for
ourselves: bookshop, razor, fruit, dinner and Internet. The bookshop
man was thankfully subdued in gloating that we were back to accept his
odious price. The razor was long overdue - don't worry, robert is
keeping the beard for now, although there was talk of shaving his
'stache... We got green apples at a fruit stand for tomorrow's bus
ride. Dinner was at an excellent homegrown place. We had a little
trouble ordering though and ended up with Chinese kale on ice, in
addition to three other tasty dishes - no idea where the kale came
from or how we were supposed to eat it. Was it normal or had he
misunderstood me and given me what I ordered, however odd it seemed to
him? We will never know. The tasty dishes were roast pork on rice, Tom
yum het (mushrooms), and fried veggies. Internet was good - I checked
up on most of my grad school applications and sent emails alerting the
graduate coordinators of my whereabouts.

All in all, we accomplished our errands and are ready to head for the
Laos border (a new country!), but some errands were more annoying than
others.

Omissions

I forgot one more errand that was interspersed - more zithromax. Most
places wanted 550B for one course, more than we paid in the states,
but we eventually found a generic for half price. One, please.

Also - don't step on money here. We knew that from our handy dandy
guidebook, but when that 5-piece bounced and started to roll away, my
cultural sensitivity went out the window. We don't honor dead
presidents at home. I looked up after successfully stomping on the
king to see my success did not go unnoticed. I immediately realized my
error, apologized and looked awfully sheepish I'm sure. Sorry, Your
Majesty.