Summer Vacation to Amphawa

Yep. Last post in January. Now late April. I didn't die or anything -- just got way behind!

After Teay's school term ended, she returned to Uttaradit and has been staying with me here. We have enjoyed the vacation time, staying in Uttaradit a fair bit and traveling around a bit. I have been slightly less lazy in updating my Picasa photo galleries than this blog, so you may have seen some newer photo sets. Here are links to galleries from a trip to Nan province, Dream World theme park in Bangkok, and Songkran in Uttaradit.

I recently got a new desktop PC, which I have been enjoying setting up. My Alienware laptop that I got just before coming here developed some vertical bars in the built-in LCD display that spread to being over an inch and a half thick. I limped along for a while by literally suspending it from the wall with a rope, connecting a keyboard, mouse, and new flatscreen monitor, and using it as a non-mobile "desktop". But having a proper new machine has been good.

I couldn't decide which OS to run on it -- Windows XP for best game compatability, Windows Vista to see if the new flavor is as much of a train wreck as I've heard, or trying a new Linux variant even though I've been out of that scene for quite a while. So, I decided to go with all 3 at once, and can choose to jump into XP, Vista, or Ubuntu Linux at boot. I am extremely impressed with Ubuntu -- no need to boot into XP or Vista other than to play games or run Photoshop (if any *nix'ers feel feel the urge to inform me about WINE, I'm already aware of it. GIMP also. I learned Photoshop first and I'm too lazy to reform).

And that brings me basically up to now. Teay and I just got back from a trip to Amphawa, which is sort of the Thai version of Venice, with most of the houses and storefronts facing canals and the river. We actually stayed a bit away from Amphawa, but still on the river, at a resort called Baan Tai Had. Our room was next to the pool, and had a balcony looking out at a canal with carp and lotus plants etc.

The first day, we mainly stayed around the resort and swam in the pool. We borrowed a bicycle from a lady with a shop there (bike free after Teay bought us matching pink t-shirts from her shop) and rode it about 5 km to a ferry that took us to a market area across the river for supper. Five baht for the ferry -- 2 baht per person plus 1 for the bike. Two baht would let you ride your motorcycle onto the ferry and drive off once at the opposite pier.

The second day, we went swimming in the morning, borrowed the bike again to get lunch, and got a private long-tailed boat tour that took us down the proper Amphawa canal and floating market area. We did some shopping there and ate supper, and then the same boat took us to see the fireflies in the surrounding area on the river banks. The fireflies are quite interesting -- they are attracted to a particular kind of tree, so they swarm on those. They don't fly around as much as the fireflies I am familiar with in the states, and they flash their light on and off much more quickly than those also. So, the effect is that these particular trees get dozens or hundreds of fireflies crawling on them blinking rapidly all over the place -- they look like Christmas trees.

Here is a link to the full gallery from that trip.

OK, I guess that is all for now. I'll try to be a bit more regular with updates in the future... But no promises!