on wheels.

Ya’ll, doing things with one hand is really difficult. Most everything, really: cooking, sweeping, driving, reading, holding kiddos, putting on Band-aids, showering. And writing blogs.

Thus, we have been the proud owners of a car for nearly a week now, and I’m only now telling you! We made a second trip up to Chiang Mai to put purchase the car, transfer papers to our name, and get a few small repairs made (a necessary first step on all good cars, I’m sure!). We are so thankful for this vehicle, and it has been so exciting to see all the little details play out.

Used cars here are very expensive, so we knew we were in the market for an oldie-but-goodie. Trucks are very high priced and have high maintenance costs, but a car wasn’t really a wise option for where we live and drive, primarily for the roads and annual flooding. We ended up with an SUV-style vehicle, a 1992 Suzuki Caribian. It’s high enough for flooding, but cheaper on maintenance! It had a new engine put in last year, and has also been converted to LPG. This is much cheaper alternative fuel here, and it allows us to travel to Chiang Mai for the same price as our bus tickets! This is really exciting to me. We also have the capacity to drive on either gasoline or LPG, which is helpful in more remote areas that won’t have LPG as an option. Really, this is just a really great solution for us. The combination of being an older car and having a low-priced fuel option makes it really affordable for us to maintain the car, in theory at least!

And for the girls who are asking, it’s dark red 🙂

We spent hours waiting in line for an inspection and the paper transfer. I suppose the DMV is slow in all countries.

We also put the car to good use with a trip to the hospital within twenty-four hours of being home!

It’s not the classiest, and it isn’t too fast…but we’re loving it and feeling it really fits us!