This is a lighthearted article about how I became Sherlock Holmes for two moments.
For some reason, both cases have something to do with Béla.
Béla himself
When I moved here a week ago on Sunday, I already knew that a German guy lived in the other room.
But on Sunday, he played Colombo’s wife. We talked about him, but we didn’t see him.
He came home late on Sunday night, I heard him open the door, but because of the late hour, I didn’t jump out of bed to introduce myself to him. I thought, maybe the next day.
But the next day, he slept late, and I left home after lunch. So we didn’t see each other again.
But in the afternoon, the ice broke.
That was the first noble moment of my becoming a detective.
The apartment I live in is in a housing estate. It’s a wide avenue with palm trees, a very pleasant environment. It has dozens of small neighborhoods where doormen take care of traffic. And there’s also a main entrance where several doormen work together.
So, the area is quite large.
For example, the main entrance is 2 km from the apartment.
Before that, I met Béla on Monday in front of the main gate. It happened like this.
I turned off the main road into the housing estate, listening to my book, my head down, my 12th kilometer of the day, when I saw Béla’s feet. There was a guy standing there, waiting for something or someone.
We were 2+ kilometers from the apartment we lived in, there are hundreds of houses in the housing estate. I was still a little unsure when I turned back to the guy and – in medias res – improvised a conversation with him.
– Hello!
– Hello!
– Sorry to bother you, aren’t you the German guy? – He looked at me quite puzzled, I was unsure for a moment, but then understanding was reflected on his face.
– But yes, then you are the Hungarian guy!
– Yes, I am István.
– And I am Béla. – Of course, now it was my turn to be confused. – Yes, it’s a Hungarian name. My parents really liked it, that’s why I became Béla.
I also told him that I had seen one of his shoes put aside at the door of the house. And here, now I recognized it on his foot, that’s why I was sure that he was my roommate.
Even Holmes would be proud of me for observing this detail and using it in the real world.
I was, anyway.
Let’s take a shower
Here in Asia, almost every apartment I’ve lived in (this is the 5th one) uses instant water heaters to solve the showering problem.
The exception to this was my hotel room in Denpasar. I guess it was a hotel room, so it had central heating.
I wrote at the time that there wasn’t much hot water there. But I also wrote that I like the fresh feeling that cool water gives.
Well, here in Chiang Mai, this fresh feeling specifically means the crazy cold water. I wasn’t prepared for the first shower. I was waiting for the water to suddenly be hot, but after a while I gave up waiting.
The water heater didn’t light up. There are two buttons on them, I pressed them separately and together, nothing happened. So I refreshed myself very quickly.
On Tuesday, I asked Béla what his experiences were with hot water. I was specifically curious if I was just stupid, that is, if he might know the secret to hot water.
He assured me that he wasn’t able to get hot water out of the tap either, but he consoled me that the little shock of cold water was good for the body.
That was all we had left.
Béla left on Wednesday. I woke up on Wednesday feeling pretty groggy. Probably because of the fresh shower, but I had a hard time falling asleep at night. So I went to the bathroom half-asleep. It’s located in such a way that the light is almost always needed.
So I automatically reached for the switch.
I’ll show you what I noticed after 2.5 days.
Yes…
The picture shows a light switch and a safety switch above it. After the introduction above, it won’t be hard to guess what this safety switch switches.
I won’t describe what it is right now, because I feel like that would ruin my Holmes experience that I had built up two days earlier.
It’s strange that I didn’t notice this not-so-small device for 2+ days.
I told Béla that hurray, there’s hot water.
True, he was already waiting for the taxi with his backpack packed. He assessed the incident as being good after all, that he had been bathing in cold water for 2 weeks and that 10 minutes before he left, he would find out that it could have been done differently.
We said goodbye to each other and discreetly neither of us asked him how on earth he hadn’t noticed that switch for 2 weeks.
I think it was because there were no shoes next to the switch!
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Short introduction