Getting Settled in a Chiang Mai Condo

Hi all!   I made it back to Chiang Mai in one piece and the next thing on the agenda was to sign the contract for my new condo!  I had spent the week before I left looking at places with an apartment broker.  I was looking for something small with a kitchen.  What I found out was that most apartments and condos don’t have kitchens, just a fridge and a microwave.  I finally found one in the location I wanted, an area called Nimmanhaemin, which is preferred by foreigners because it has easy access to lots of restaurants and shops. The little one bedroom condo I found is right in front of a construction zone, so the owner was having a hard time renting it.  They’d been doing construction on the apartment building behind my condo in Sacramento for years and it wasn’t that big of a deal, so I decided to go for it.  This enabled me to get it for almost half price, quite a good deal (8000 baht = $245 US per month)!  What’s funny is that it’s not the construction that is the loudest, it’s the planes.  There is an airport nearby and I swear, half the time I think they are going to fly right through my window, they are so loud!  So that’s something to get used to.   Other than that, I love this place!  It is so cute and perfect for what I need!  After all my exotic (and expensive) travels, I need to take a break and save some money so I am going to stay here at least six months, go to my Thai classes, try to learn how to cook and whatever else I discover during my stay here.  It is nice to have a place to call home again and have some time to really dig in and learn about Thailand on a much deeper level than just a tourist.  I am looking forward to what I will discover!