Since we moved to Mae Sot, we’ve had a cattle farm just down the road from us. The smell wasn’t overall pleasant, but in an odd way I liked motorbiking or running by–it smelled like the little farm town I grew up in. It’s funny how when you grow up on in a farming community, you learn to know the smells between cattle stink and pig stink. This was very much cattle stink. And compared to the many other stinks around town, it was familiar.
I was kind of sad to see them building on it just a few months ago. I assumed it would be another development as Mae Sot continues to grow and grow around us.
Until one day, there was a sign up. No English in sight except for three words in the top left corner: Extreme. Water. Park.
Now, this was a small plot of land. We didn’t think it could be too extreme, per se. But a water park, nonetheless? For a town that has relatively zero entertainment options, it was something.
And I do love my water parks!
Then it unfolded before us: literally. They actually unfolded blow-up structures and it became a blow-up water park. Not huge compared to most water parks, but huge as far as any blow-up water parks I could imagine.
I was feeling oddly neutral. Inflated plastic in 110 degree weather sounds pretty hot to the touch, even with water on it. The $10 price tag–which apparently includes a swimsuit?–seemed steep. And, our lives are crazy: visiting a water park didn’t make the top of my list.
So we haven’t been yet.
But in my head, it’s been, Oh! The water park. Some Saturday that will be a fun little outing.
Until this week. Now I put on my angry eyes and think, Oh. The water park.
You see, we ran out of water this week. And it didn’t come on for three days.
After a few days of getting behind on laundry, showering at the pool, and eating out, we were now out of water for even flushing the toilet. So we purchased a truck load of well water {read: brown water} for 200 baht, or $6. They filled our tank and we are now able to wash our clothes, flush the toilet and shower with expensive, sort of gross water.
Kelvin & Laura ran out of water the next day, and it was now 350 baht, or $10, less than 24 hours later from the exact same truck and with the exact same brown color.
Oh, and this is the fourth time we have run out of water this month.
The water park has been open for one month.
Coincidence? I think not.
They are just a smidge nearer to town than us, so when water is turned on–which it isn’t always–it has to go through the system. As it is filling up other houses and locations, this lessens the pressure, so there isn’t enough to get to our house. Once they are all full, we get a trickle of water in our tank. It’s usually every night between 2-5am, and we get enough stored up for a day or two of use. If it isn’t on for a couple days, we’re alright with our storage tank…
But not if the water park is sucking up all the water every single day.
So, boo. Not sure what to do about that. Just going to go wash a load of laundry and finish up our dinner dishes with some brown water…