A friend at work is always asking us how we have so many stories and how we run into just the oddest situations–even in the same town as her. How do all these things happen to us?
I don’t know.
Honestly, I don’t know. I used to just blend in and read books and be boring.
I think living in another country and culture changes some things. Disorganization always adds a little chaos, and choosing to laugh in the middle of a mess certainly creates some stories, but honestly: I just don’t know. It’s just our lives for now–for better or for worse.
And our lives struck again.
We had meetings scheduled in Chiang Mai on Monday, but they were moved back when we spent Saturday through Monday lying in bed sick.
We still managed to head out early Tuesday morning to make a quick trip up to Chiang Mai for our meetings. So: three sick days, six hours of driving, a short nap in the hotel room, and off to a meeting about 3pm on Tuesday. We then enjoyed dinner out and went to see a movie about 7pm.
Unfortunately, we learned in line that I failed to notice the small “T” beside the 7pm movie; the next English showing was two hours later. We spent two hours wandering the mall, had our two hours of Western entertainment, and headed back to our hotel around midnight.
As we pulled into the parking lot, the “security guard” began to motion wildly. I put security guard in quotes not to dishonor him–so thankful he had the job, and as you’ll see, he helped us out! However, whatever you’re imagining as a security guard isn’t what we were looking at. He was wearing a tshirt, sat at a table outside the hotel, and was watching something on his phone.
His motions told us he didn’t want us to park here, so I got out to try to explain that we were staying at the hotel. He kept telling me that they were closed and there were no rooms; I finally got my room key to show him we already had a room and our things were inside.
We got the car parked, and he settled back into his spot. We walked down the hall and noticed right away that our hotel door was open just a bit.
This is never good, particularly when your laptop and other valuable things are inside.
I nudged the door open but saw that the extra-security flip lock was pushed over, so even with a key we were locked out of room.
What? Did they give the room to someone else? Did they not notice our stuff sprawled all over? And what are we supposed to do at midnight when the front office is closed and we can’t get into the room?
Talk to the security guard.
All I said was “I’m sorry” over and over in Thai and motioned for him to follow me. He tried a few times to no avail. We did determine no one else was inside, so somehow we must of managed to shut the door and flip the lock behind us? No idea. Who else does this happen to?
He gave us the “one minute” motion and headed off. We thought he’d somehow break it off, as we were now observing how flimsy the whole contraption was. These are things you never look into closely when in a foreign country. What you don’t know you usually don’t want to.
We weren’t feeling overly safe at the idea of just popping off the lock with a simple tool, but alas–it was even worse.
Soon we hear the window open, as the security guard opens the window from outside in seconds and proceeds to climb onto the bed, walk across with with his shoes, and open the door for us.
He makes an “Aha!” noise, we say thank you, and he climbs back over our bed and out the window.
Oh, we’re feeling very safe now. Can’t wait to crawl into bed–now with shoe prints across it–and sleep tight between a crappy door and a crappier window!