A Hard Days Work in Isaan Thailand.

Last night my friend John rang and asked if I would like to help him tomorrow at his house. He wanted to put a concrete slab out the back of his house for a shed. He wanted it 2m x 1m x .5 deep. No worries that’s not a lot of concrete to mix.

So, John was out early to visit some home hardware centres here in Ubon. We have two large ones that stock nearly everything you could want. He was miffed when he found that they didn’t have the pre-mixed sand, cement and aggregate that you simply order how much you want and they throw it in the back of your truck.

So he thought he would buy pre-mix bags but those too were sold out. This was at the two biggest stores in Ubon. So in the end he bought sand and cement and we used some rocks he had onsite at his home.

Now, the shed grew a little. It ended up 3.3m long x 1.7m wide and 100mm deep. I wanted to sand the base up to about 50mm of concrete but the more concrete the better was the idea. This meant a lot more concrete to mix, nearly half a cubic metre.

















John and I got to work and had completed 2 mixes when his step son turned up to lend a hand. Thankfully it was shady in the afternoon at the back of the house. We were using a large tub to mix the ingredients together and then add the water to complete.

Here X2 is combining the sand, cement and stone.


















This was 3 mixes; we still had a few to make. John the trowel (that’s his new nickname) was in charge of keeping the slab close to level. We didn’t have a screen so John used his one good eye and put his glass eye in his pocket. Like he said “it’s just a garden shed.”
















We eventually finished the job. It was a lot more work than we had planned but it got done.











Now, I haven’t done any real hard work for a while, so my hands were a little worse for wear. They were sore and red and I have some lovely blisters, also there are a few pieces of skin missing here and there. I have gotten soft in my old age.









At home Noot’s sister Joom and her husband Jack came over with dinner. The girls started getting dinner ready and I could smell that infamous fermented fish sauce.















There were some real Isaan dishes on offer. The top right hand dish is very nice and is fish pureed. It isn’t salty and bitter like the other dishes. The bottom right hand disk is a vegetable and it smells and taste like, crap!
Noot was doing some cooking in the hotpot.















It was mushrooms in smelly fish sauce. The fish sauce if pretty fresh at the moment as it ahs only been on the shelf for 5 weeks Noot said.
















For my dinner I had pork skewers, beef balls and chicken liver with sticky rice.













We had dinner Isaan style by sitting on the floor and a straw mat.













Cola was sitting in his cage. He has seemed a little sulky since I haven’t let him have the run of the house.













He still has a very large area of the house he is now fenced in but he is grumpy as before he could go anywhere. He will come around I am sure. I still get in and play with him everyday but he just can’t come hopping in to see what is going on whenever he likes now. Being a rabbit in Isaan Thailand is tuff at times, Cola will tell you.

Brunty