Those first days back were hard - we were guests in someone else's home, we were struggling with the heat, we had no vehicle (only my motorbike and a rather clapped out vehicle that Anake had lent us). We all got sick. In addition to a bout of flu, I also developed an ear infection. Trish and I were fairly ratty with each other - so all in all, not a great time, and yet, we were also happy to be back in Thailand and fairly positive about being back and getting stuck into ministry. And Anake has a stunning place, with lovely lush green gardens, and a pool!Our first priority was to get a car, so that we could travel to Lampang, 100 kms south of Chiang Mai, to take care of our most pressing priority - finding a house. Apparently, a contact of Anake's had found a couple of houses to let and all we had to do was go and choose one. I was very excited and anticipated that finding a house would be a doddle. Anake had arranged that his PA would take me to Lampang to meet the contact and check out the places he had found. Well, it was a disastrous trip as I was shown one dump after another! Eventually we ditched Anake's contact and went driving around by ourselves in search of a house to let. Nothing!! I went home that night in a black mood.
A few days later I went down to Lampang again. On my motorbike, by myself this time. I rode around all day looking for houses to let and once again, I went home disappointed - this time I had a sunburned face (riding around town without a helmet) to add to my woes.
In the meantime, we had been telling our Thai friends in Chiang Mai that we were looking for a house in Lampang and slowly but surely, people were calling us and telling us that they knew a friend who had a place available, do we want to look? So a few days later, having purchased a super-dee-duper family vehicle, the whole family went to Lampang and booked into a hotel - we were not leaving until we had found a house. (Unfortunately all this happened over the Songkraan festival time, placing a delay on everything, but that is the subject of another blog!) From our hotel base in Lampang, we then set off to check out the various places our contacts had found. On the second day, after lunch, I struck paydirt! I was finally shown a house that was decent - it was in our price range and big - maybe a little too big and too fancy. We were so desperate though and had seen so much junk, that this place was like a dream come true, a prayer answered, manna from heaven and so we took it. Two days later we moved in!
What lessons have I learned from this experience? The rental market, or more precisely, the marketing of rental properties, in Thailand is unique. There are no classified sections in local papers with a "to let" column. There are no community notice boards outside the shopping centers with ads. There are no estate agents with rental properties on their books (if there are, we didn't find any). There are no Internet sites with rental listings. So, one has two options really; drive around until you see a place with a handwritten "to let" sign on the gate and phone the number. (I also contacted those which had "far sale" signs up, in the hope that a desperate seller would be willing to rent). The other option is the social network. You need to know someone, who knows someone, who has a friend who lives in a neighbourhood where there is a house to let. Through our network of friends and contacts, we found not only our house, but 2 other houses for our team mates - and we made a couple of new Thai friends and contacts in the process!
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