Sound affects...

Thursday 19th

The hotel is about 5 km from the town and more or less in a rural setting. Lying in bed in the quiet of the night, you can hear the crickets and frogs calling over the quiet whisper of your air conditioner. Unfortunately these cabins are not sound proofed so you can also hear everything else that happens. I was reminded of that joke about how Indians get their names when I was kept awake by "Two Dogs Barking" last night. One seemed just out side my room. My neighbours also seem to have changed, with a crying baby being heard last nightl.

You also hear every car starting up, the first at 5am and the temple bell tolls at 6. At home I'm usually up past midnight and sleep in till 8 or later. Here, 9-30 seems late but I don't get to sleep in.

A lot of work done yesterday, essentially re-writing the allocation routine. Seems fine until I tried to split each well's production between its separate reservoirs. I had changed the way this was defined and then realised it wouldn't work, but the old way was still valid. Now I have to change that form back to the way it was yesterday. Tedious and annoying but not fatal.

I left the office around 6 last night, just as the sun was setting. The air has been hazy/cloudy/smoggy every day so the sunsets are quite colourful. The sun is like a huge orange ball, but unfortunately I couldn't quite get that colour on my photos. I eventually found a "sunset" setting on my camera but it was too late as it had disappeared behind the mountains by then. Will try again another day. We also had what would probably be described as a brief light shower while driving to work yesterday. Not really enough to even settle the dust.

Thursday, as loyal readers may remember, is BBQ night at the canteen. I started my pig out with a crab, similar to the blue manna crabs back home and then had some prawns and a mud crab. Finished off with a mixed grill - beef strips, pork ribs, chicken drumsticks and kebabs - fried rice and salad. Ice cream and fruit salad for dessert. There was a spy movie with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley on the TV over dinner which wasn't too bad.

The company has upped their satellite subscription so you get all the channels (except pay per view I guess) including the platinum movie channels. A couple of the guys were talking the other day of getting it in their rooms. Some have already done it and if you get 2 boxes per antenna it works out at 1000 baht each per month for a gold level subscription - $40-$50 - which, given the lack of other entertainment options is probably not a bad investment.

The staff are all very helpful. This afternoon I found someone had, unbidden, put a cover on my mattress and when I made a comment about the cans of coke in the fridge in the canteen not being cold, a cooler with several cans covered in ice appeared at the table a few minutes later.

Ironically, after trying to do some Thai reading every night at home, I haven't got round to doing any since I've been here. Very slack.

Here's an idea whose time has yet to come - Toilet paper only a convenient 2 or 3 steps from where you need it.