Moving to Cha-am

Making my move from Bangkok to Cha-am consisted of 2 parts: extracting myself financially unscathed from a serviced apartment in Ladprao, then moving more items than I could fit into my small SUV.

Departure
My Thai friend summed it up best, "It's always so easy to move in, and so difficult to move out."

They inspected everything at least 3 times. They even flushed the toilet 3 times. At one point some staff tried a catch-22 approach concerning a 25% penalty on the first month for staying less than the required 3 months. But I stayed 4 months .. but,"That was on a different contract." So I invited them to show me the 25% penalty clause in the original contract .. yep, not there. I kept telling them, "I have paid for the whole month but I'm moving out on the 15th .. so you can keep that."

Sometimes Thais don't listen. I ended up getting my 25% back plus being refunded the two weeks. And after being held up for 2 hours, I figure that I deserved it.

The Move
One of my friends had hired a pickup truck and two able-bodied Thais. Apparently these trucks are parked here and there around Bangkok with "We're for Hire" signs. So if you need a mover, look for one of these guys near a local wet market. The two movers carried everything downstairs and loaded my Toyota RAV4 and their pickup. Our drive should have been 2 hours but we stopped for lunch and treated the movers , both very nice folks. At the condo in Cha-am, getting in was easy. Deja vu?

With all and sundry possessions deposited in depressingly unkempt stacks strewn to all corners of my 40 sure meter room, I paid the movers Bt 3,000. Then I said adios to my buddy who headed back to the Big Mango with the movers.

Surveying the task ahead brought a sigh. Now where did I put that keyboard?