POWER OUTAGE & INTERNET SERVICE

I woke up around 3:30 this morning feeling like I had been sleeping in a blast-furnace.  I noticed that the air-conditioner was off as I wandered to the bathroom; the light didn't work in their either.  At first I thought that a breaker had been tripped but when I went out to the back patio I found that the entire village was dark.  Hopefully, the power outage won't last long and it will be fixed before it gets much hotter inside.  I can already smell food going bad in the refrigerator (it's a bit after five a.m. now) and opening up the side glass doors hasn't generated any breeze yet.

At least I can connect to the Internet at home now.  Virtually every ISP available on Phuket offers dial-up only but I can get on a waiting list for ADSL at some point in the future.  Instead of subscribing to a monthly service, most of the ISP's sell cards with a set amount of time available on them.  Similar to the phone cards, these are sold at 7-Elevens and other outlets and come with a set of instructions (no CD-ROM with dialer software in most cases) along with a username and password.  I purchased a 25-hour card for 235 baht (approx. USD $6.23) on the True Network and it works fine; I average around 45 Kbps which is considered fast for Thai dial-up.  One of the few actual monthly provider services I found is offered by KSC Phuket; the best deal is a 100-hour plan at 599 baht (USD $15.88) but you need to send them copies of your passport and other documents before they will sign you up.  For now, I'll just use the cards.

Well, it's 5:25a.m. and the power just came back on.  I think I'll go back into the master bedroom and cool off with the A/C instead of sitting in the living room being eaten by mosquitoes...