WATERFALL, SPEAKERS, ETC.

It's sometimes difficult to get Tim out of the house in order to check out some part of Phuket that we haven't yet seen.  There remains an awful lot of unexplored territory out there but we are making a small bit of progress at filling in that map.  A good example was our visit to the Phuket Zoo last week in that Tim remained skeptical until we actually found it.  Yesterday, I found a spot on my ThinkNet Phuket 2006 map (the absolute best!) labelled "Kathu Waterfall" and convinced Tim that we should go and check it out.  This was located at the end of a very scenic road (on which we passed the entrance for the "Phuket Water Ski Cableway") very close to the center of the island.  The area around the trailhead reminded me of a classical Chinese garden with it's bridges, pools of water, and red-flowering trees.  The trail to the actual waterfall was a long series of stairs broken up by the occasional covered shelter that housed benches on which to rest.  One of these shelters contained a mail box in which to put postcards.  The top of the trail had several picnic shelters under large shade trees and several large basins which would be good for swimming if only they had more water in them.  The waterfall itself was only a small trickle of water tumbling down twenty or so feet of rocks — I'm sure it's quite a torrent during the rainy season, however.  All in all, it was a very worthwhile drive.

On our way back down to Chalong, Tim remembered that I wanted a second look at the computer speaker-and-subwoofer set I'd seen at Central Festival the previous day.  In the mall, our first stop was at the Watsons Pharmacy to purchase some ointment to treat a rash Tim has developed (an allergic reaction to eating some oysters a couple of days before).  Instead of checking the speakers in the audio/video store I'd visited earlier, I noticed a Sony store and dragged her in there where we discovered a better set to buy at a slightly lower price than the Creatives.  Before leaving Central Festival, I bought a couple of newspapers ("The Nation" and "Bangkok Post") in order to catch up on happenings in the outside world and we made a quick stop in the supermarket to restock coffee, sugar, and other "essentials".

Back home, we had a light lunch (fruit and salad) and Tim did a bit of laundry while I hooked up the new speakers to the TV/DVD player in the master bedroom.  The set included a secondary cable so I could hook up the laptop as well.  The system works so well that I'm considering buying a second one for the TV/DVD player in the living room (which we don't use very often because it's usually so hot out there, even with the fan going full blast).  It's perfectly loud enough for our purposes — the CD's and DVD's sound great now — and the entire system cost less than USD $90.  I'll probably buy the second set of speakers/subwoofer sometime next month along with a standalone DVD recorder if we don't have too many extra expenses.

Tim's friend Puk showed up in the early evening, having driven in a torrential downpour.  Of her inner circle of friends, Puk is Tim's least favorite because "she talk too much."  She had been working as a cook at Kamala Beer Garden but just began a new job driving a car.  She tried to talk her way into our planned May trip to Lamphun, driving us but I know neither of us could stand to be cooped up in a car with her for so long.  I explained that I planned to use that trip to take Tim on her first-ever airplane flight and that we would be spending a week in a Bangkok hotel while waiting for her passport.  I'm not sure if Puk got the hint as she began telling us inflated amounts of what it would cost us and then giving us a low-ball estimate of what she'd charge.  I do think it will be easy to convince Tim that she shouldn't tell Puk when we leave for the north.  At any rate, we played the good hosts last night and listened to Puk blabber on about nothing while we waited for the rain to stop.  At least she didn't eat much of our food (a bit of rice and half the can of Pringle's I'd found at the Central Festival grocery store).

After Puk left, we listened to some music (we found that my Western CD's sound much better on the new system than Thai music so I finally got to play a bit of what I wanted to hear — disc 2 of The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac and the eponymous Sand Rubies album).  I fell asleep while Tim watched the James Bond 007 "Die Another Day" DVD (she really likes the action flicks).

Today, we are waiting for the phone company guys to come and hook up our home phone line.  They already delivered the phones (one is a very nice speakerphone/answering machine combo and they also gave us a free mobile phone which Tim loves because there's an FM radio on the phone!) and just need to hook us up and check to make sure everything works inside.

I'm not sure what we'll do later other than a brief visit to the Internet cafe (I'll need to sign up with a Thai ISP before dialing into the 'net at home).  Hopefully, I can talk Tim into another scenic drive using my Phuket map (it's published by ThinkNet and includes a CD-ROM — everything is in both Thai and English and all the gas stations, 7-Elevens, hotels, police stations, post offices, etc. are marked; it even includes our housing development, Ananda Garden Hills Village).