HEAD EM' UP MOVE EM' OUT

" Get along little doggie get along",Wyoming will be your new home by Woody Guthrie, and written years ago by a ole movie cowboy Gene Autry in the early 30's.The song is about taking cattle from one place to another, it was called then and still today, a CATTLE DRIVE .This morning on the way to Church as we were coming around a cruve in the road there was a genuine ,Thai cattle drive ,walking down the middle of the road,cowboys and all. There are lots of small farmers in our village that move their small herd up and down the sides of the road and every once in a while into a flower bed or two , for the purpose of getting free food for the herd, as not to many grow hay for the feed. This was not one of these ,but a real cattle drive taking the fattened cattle to the market, and very slowly as not to walk off the extra fat put on the few days before, I read about cattle drives in a few books and they say that calttle can loose as much as 300 pounds on a long cattle drive as the ones in the song " Get along little Doggie". They have raised them and fattened them in hopes of getting a good price for them at the cattle buyers in Kanchanaburi .at the stock yards.Was only a short wait as they moved them over to the side to let us pass , it also gave me time for a few photos ,and to see when possible, a few smiles from the cowboys as I gave them the thumbs up sign, for a job well done. I also read on a few web sites that there are many ranches in America and other countries where you can join them for a cattle drive , some long, some short drives, your choice for a fee and expereince the old west and a real CATTLE DRIVE, and be a cowboy or cow girl for a day or two . Sounds like a fun idea to me , how many of you would like to go on a cattle drive and be a cow poke for a few ???Eating beans and beef, from a chuck wagon , sleeping under the stars , branding the cows and riding behind them in all that dust ,and of course cow dung as they call it , I hear they even burn dried cow dung for the campfires , just like the good ole days . I think maybe I'm going to add A Cattle Drive to my Bucket List , and put it close to the top as I like the thought of sitting around the camp fire and singing the song "HOME,HOME ON THE RANGE". Where the deer and the antilope roam, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skys are not cloudy all day. Malcolm

When is a Orchid more than a Orchid

When it becomes a home.What a surprise yesterday morning when I was giving my orchids a drink of cool water before the hot day , flutter, I saw a little winged thing fly from under the gazibo ,where I have a few of my favorites hanging .I took a close look and there in the top of one of my orchids was a little bird nest, I got the ladder so I could get a closer look and peered inside to find these three little red eggs,I ran and got my camera to get a shot of them and hid behind some bushes near,in hopes of getting a shot of the mama bird, I did'nt have to wait to long because she was there looking to make sure all was ok with her babies to be , and hopped right in to keep them cool from the hot sun,that was surely on it's way . I'm so glad I saw her fly before I sprayed everything real good as is my normal habit. We have had birds build nest around our yard in the trees , but this is a first for me , to have a nest so up close and personal, and two of my favorite things in life together as one.I do so love all my little visitors to the back yard bird bath and for the little show they put on just for me every day ,and now I get to enjoy the beginning of life and growing up for a few weeks before they fly off into the Wild Blue Yonder . Malcolm

MONEY FOR THE BIG MOVE TO THAILAND 2004

CIEJAY WITH APPLES, PLUMS AND PEACHES

AND THE ALL TIME BEST SELLER TOMATOES

EVERYONE LOVES STRAWBERRIES TO EAT AND MAKE JAM

MY FRIEND MIKE BRINGS THE PRODUCE FROM HIS FARM

CIEJAY SELLING AND EATING HER FAVORITE

CORN,POTATOES,ONIONS, TOMATOES,SQUASH,BEANS AND ALL KIND OF SEASONAL BERRIES AND FRUIT.

CIEJAY AND THE STRAWBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES

WE HAD THE SWEETEST CORN IN TOWN

Most post from Thailand bloogers are about their life upon arriving and about daily living and,traveling in the LOS, but not to many on what causes us Expats to decide,plan, save and finally,make the move to Thailand.So ,I thought I would give it a go. A friend introduced me to Ciejay ,we dated for three months and then we married ,on the fourth of July 2002. A year later Ciejay's father in Thailand passed away and we made plans with her sisters and their husbands who also lived in America to come to Thailand for the 100 day celebration of her fathers life , a tradition in Thai culture.We all flew together and rented a van to take us to their home place , and where the 100 day celebration would be held .We had talked it over and also planned to spend a week ,after all the visiting and family affairs were over, traveling around and seeing the sights .It was my first trip to Thailand and I fell head over heels in love with the country and the people.I ask Ciejay if she would move back to Thailand if we could find a piece of land to build us a house on? ,would she move back to Thailand and we would retire here ?. Being the sweet person that she is,said"YES "which was a total suprise to me because she had just the month before got her green card that enabled her to stay in American ,and being married to me was renewable every ten years with no problem.No every three months visit to immigrations or anything and she could work pay social security and taxes and retire at 62 just like anyone else in America ,a dream of a lot of Thai people.What a surprise answer. Well we spent the week traveling a lot, and visiting relatives and really looking for land and a house that we liked and the place where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives . Well, we could not decide where or what , but on the last evening of our trip before flying out the next day, we decided to visit her brother in a little village called Wang Pho in the providence of Kanchanaburi,right on the famous River Kwai.As we turned off the highway 321 and started driving down the 5 kl. and I do mean down the mountain, into the little village , my heart soared within me and I said to Ciejay "if the village is pretty and we like it , and can find a little piece of land , this is the place ". Well we visited her brother and a neighbor had a small piece of land out of town , with no road to get to it , or water and power was not close at all ,we said thank you ,but no thanks. It was getting dark when we got back to her brothers and we said "well we will have to plan another trip sometime when we had time to look around for land" . We both agreeded that this was the place , I loved the small village and it just had the right feel to both of us.Disappointed that we could not find something we liked, as it was getting late, and we had a three hour drive to Bangkok and were flying out at 6:30 the next morning, I told Ciejay to ask her brother a simple question , if he knew of any land with a empty house on it , and to our suprise he pointed 100 yards up the road and said "yes my friend and his wife divorced 8 years ago and the house is not quite finished inside and the bathroom roof has fell in , but it was for sell ", but because of bad Karma and Thai's belief in ghost and bad spirits no one would buy it, Me and Ciejay being Christians Karma and ghost ,didn't scare us at all. The house was all locked up and all the windows had security bars and screens and they were all tinted to keep out the hot sun, so as dark as it was outside and inside we could not even see inside thru the windows. we looked at each other and said lets do it . We ask her brother if he had the friends phone number, and after a while he found it ,and called . He ask if it was still for sell and how much and the friend said 400,000 baht , my brother -in -law said to him this my sister give her a discount , the friend said ok ,300,000 baht , we said we'll take it.We didn't have any extra money on us and it was night time and we ask if we could send money when we got back to the USA. He said "mai pen rai " I give you 6 months to pay me all at one time,no want payments . We said ok and told Ciejays brother to look after it for us and we would send him money every month for 6 months to pay it off and for him to keep the money ,till we had sent it all, and then pay his friend , He said ok "I keep in bank for you" ,all was settled, we now had a piece of land and a house in Thailand . Located within 1/2 mile of the town square , the high school , the hospital , the city hall, and the local police station, at the foot of the mountain and I mean right at the foot and 1/2 mile from the River Kwai, What a dream come true. We could not believe it .Our other American, brother -in-laws and their wives thought we were crazy , and maybe we were crazy , but we had a dream . We went back home , I had one more year before I could retire (62) with 75% my social security , 100% if I worked till 70. but I was ready to retire, and we had a house in Thailand .Remember I am just a worker bee in America not CEO or owner of a bussiness , no,401 K plan and no monthly retirement pension coming from years of service with one company. Just my monthly S.S.check . So I worked one more year and in 6 months we had sent money to pay the house off and we planned to move over in March of 2004, but we knew that we needed money to remodel the Thailand house and buy furniture and everything else we would need to make the house a home . We sold our cars , everything we had acumalated since we were married 3 years ago , I personally had nothing as I lost it all in a couple bad relationships before Ciejay,if you know what I mean. So when a friend suggested that we sell produce with and for him and we would split it all 50/50, we said ok and changed our plans to leave on Oct the 6th for our house in Thailand , hopefully with enough money,to do what we needed to do ,to make the house a liveable home .We sold produce from June the 1st, till Oct the 1st ,7days a week rain or shine and on the 6th of Oct. 2004 we arrived in Thailand with 11 suitcases of cloths and pictures and important papers , and our dream.

If you liked reading this post (short story) and a little about our lives ,as well as our retirement , please let me know with a comment ,I've got a couple more stories that, I think you might enjoy too , let me know what you think. Malcolm

TO BE MONK AND THE ENVELOPE

PARADE THRU THE VILLAGE SQUARE

THE DANCING GIRLS ON STAGE

SOON TO BE MONK WITH AUNT AND UNCLE

EVEN THE BABY SOI DOGS ARE THERE

ONE SING A SONG GIRL

DAD AUNT AND UNCLE AND TO BE MONK COLLECTING ENVELOPES

OUR TABLE AND WE HAD LOTS OF FOOD

A VIEW OF SOME OF THE FOLKS THERE , A GOOD CROWD

CIEJAY SAID THIS ONE WAS A BOY

THE STAGE AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAINS

Ciejay, showed me envelope a man brought by and said his nephew "TO BE MONK". I guess this is a very important time in a young mans life , for himself and also for his relatives ,I'm not sure of all the Buddish benifits of monk hood , but Ciejay told me that one thing it does is to asure Mom and Dad a place in Budda heaven.And the envelopes is a way to get money to help pay for the party , it seems to me that everything that they celebrate , birth , weddings , engagements , cremation, monkhood , house dedication, that there is aways a envelope to put money in to help pay for their party, and then when you have a party or important event in your family they will put money in your envelope to help you, sounds like a share and share alike thing to me . I ask Ciejay what if you put money in their envelope and then they don't put money in your envelope , next time , she said they lose face and everyone not like them no more , I guess it a important function of the social events (the envelopes) of village life. Have you experienced any of this , married or living with a Thai wife ,or just being a expate in a village ?

Well, we got ours ( THE ENVELOPE)and we put the money in ,and off to the TO BE MONK party we go, and you know a Thai party, for the living or the dead it's lots of music, dance, food and fun , and lots of good stuff to drink , and always in the end a little karoke of course. We had a great time as did , at least 1,000 folks that attended this one , if you get one of the Almighty Envelopes , put the money in and go , you want regret it , and if you loosen up a little you just might have as much fun as the Thai's do .

I took a few pictures of this one ,hope you like them. Malcolm