I'd say that I'm behind, but by recent standards a break between posts of only a month and a half is pretty quick!
The final bit of summer break was pretty good. Teay and I took a bus trip to the beach near Bangkok with her Mom and workers from the Public Health Office, adjacent to Teay's Mom's restaurant. There were several different stops along the way, including a wax museum, shopping markets, and a nice park area. I've posted a gallery of photos from the trip HERE. In addition, we stopped at a place with a cable car ride that went up to a scenic overlook, and I got to see my first monkeys in Thailand. Teay liked them, and explains why in this video:Rain... there has been plenty of it! Last week there was a lot of talk about a possible flood. Several school in Muang Uttaradit closed early to let kids go home and prepare houses and supplies, etc. I helped Scott and Pim move some furniture upstairs in their house (which is in a fairly low area and got swamped in the flood 3 years ago), and then helped Howard move a refrigerator upstairs in his restaurant (new project this year for his girlfriend Pui, who is a great chef with particularly good Som Tam!), so we all got pretty tired!
After the school closings and our furniture moving flood preparations, the water didn't end up making it into the town, but Lap Lae nearby had about a foot and a half of water at sidewalk level in some areas, so I think it was a narrow miss. Things have dried out since then, but we're only a couple weeks into rainy season so I shouldn't jinx things by assuming we're out of the woods yet.
Although my house is next to the Nan river, the riverbank on my side is very high and the opposite bank is probably 6 feet plus lower, so I think that historically this area has been above the reach of flooding. There has also historically been plenty of warning time with the waters rising slowly, so I think that in the highly unlikely event that water did make it up to my house, I'd be able to pack my belongings (computer first! -- priorities) into my car and drive up North to the mountains and take a few vacation days in Chiang Mai or something! :)
I guess that is all for now.
