Krusin' the Mekong: December 2008

So... this trip to Udon got more interesting with time... here, we released our van to some guy and left! While we understood he had been a friends mechanic, the reality was our friend only knew him a couple weeks.
We didnt hear from this guy for over a week... he never answered his cell phone, home phone or business phone.. you can imagine our fear and assumptions! David and I both thought, 'our car is SO in Malaysia by now being sold for parts'. We would both die laughing because, of course it would happen to us. What a great (future) story. :)
In the end, we were finally able to get ahold of this guy who apparently had a major trial going on in his own home with his marriage (he is a Believer we were told)... he was finally able to let us know that the van needed a complete new engine rebuilt and that he couldnt find any parts or service the car in Thailand because they dont have this car. Argh!
So... now its been two weeks and our car is supposed to be traveling back here via a Lao mechanic who will take care of the car here.
In all of this we see Gods goodness as this past week not one, not two, but Three cars were available to us to use while folks leave on Christmas leave! :) Whew! He knows everything doesnt He!
Its like this!~ Jen

This past Monday I took Bethann and two of the Cama staff to Udon Thani so we could all visit the dr. and do some holiday shopping. I started out as always praying for safety over our journey and we took off. The border, thankfully, was not busy which I was extremely grateful for because I figured it would give us more 'play' time in Udon. I was in and out of the Dr. in10 minutes, while Sodachan had to wait a bit. As we didnt know how long she would be, Bethann and I decided we better run some errands the other gals wouldnt care about. We had said we would be back in an hour, but realized when we got back to the hospital, it had been 2. oops! Somphou and Sodachan were gone. Not only that, I had forgotten to pay my bill. Massive embarrassement. These poor Thai people thought the falang (foreigner) had gotten tricky seeing the dr. and not cared to pay. As if! So, I nonchalantly paid as if Id planned to return after shopping anyway.... haha and we sat around wondering where the girls were. The receptionist helped us use our Thai phone card to get ahold of the gals who protested ' we were Done and have money.. must shop!' They didnt want to wait around for us and who could blame them. AFter picking them up we decided to head to Nong Khai to get shopping done there as its close to the border and it was getting late. Not 15 min. out of town the gears started sounding funny and we started smelling burning rubber. Hmmm. I tried to slow down and as I downshifted the pedal wouldnt let me accelerate anymore. The gears quite working and the steering wheel started to freeze. We were on a MAJOR freeway going fast... thankfully, there was a turn I could pull into. Forgetting I was in Thailand where we drive on the Left hand side, I turned into the wrong lane (the right) going in and the guard of the premises freaked out... There was a truckload of Thai all laughing at the falang. The steering wheel was now comletely locked up and the car died. I couldnt turn it back on at all and as we sat there, smoke started rising up from the front. Right at this moment my Knight in Shining Armor called me (for the first time that day) and we explained what happened. He had our friend Verdun call a Chr. mechanic in Udon and we worked out a plan to get home. Somphou and Sodachan were life savers explaining why we needed to sit there waiting for someone to get us. I would have been in tears if alone. (i think!) After a while the mechanic came, and stuck a pole under our car and his little truck. He was going to take us to a gas station where Dave would come meet us and take us home. However, he asked us to sit in my van while he towed us. I was cracking up. I dont think so! I knew the wheel was locked and that we could easily (or so I thought...) come undone from the little pole connecting our cars. In the end, his buddy took to our car and the four of us crammed in his little truck. He had to stop the truck at one point and go tell his buddy to quit swirving so much (apparently the wheel was better)... when he came back he said his friend had never driven a car with the wheel on the left side and didnt know how to stay in the lane. We were cracking up. He dropped us off on the side of the busy road and we took all our purchases and dashed across to the other side to wait for David. By that time it was quite late and while we did not get done what was on all of our lists, we did have a great bonding experience with S & S. The Very bad part is, its Fri. and our only car is Still in Thailand probably needing a whole new engine. Sigh. I am grateful that throughout the whole of the experience, I was not angry or frustrated.. just weirded out that it had to happen and yet, learning to live by the phrase 'its like that'. What do you do? And, WHERE is AAA when you need them!? :)