A trailer full of noise
Mama minding the shop
What amber nectar?
Celebrating a new shop at another village.
Early this morning I was woken by loud music out on the main road so I grabbed my camera and went out to have a look. I expected to find crowds of people twirling and dancing and celebrating the end of Pansa, the Buddhist Lent, but all I found was an orange tractor and a trailer loaded with speakers. These were belting out the message... come to the temple. It's the end of Lent.
Wandering back I dropped in at our shop and found Mama in charge. Ben had gone off on his motorcycle to get more alcohol. As it's the end of Lent, everyone is now free to drink again so sales are brisk. Not that they ever stopped, and he's not supposed to sell in the Mid-day period either. But this is another world where Bangkok rules hardly bite.
On the table stood a row of bottles filled with an amber liquid. Sang Som the bottles said. I enjoy a tot of Sang Som and Coke, but oh no, this isn't rum. Nothing is what it seems. This is petrol.
Locals with motorcycles sometimes forget to stop at a filling station so they buy a bottle here instead. It costs them the small mark up that Ben makes on the deal but then what's wrong with capitalism. He won't get rich but he seems to be making a living.
Somebody's doing okay too if they could afford to buy that tractor, though in all probability they couldn't. It's almost certainly on the never-never which usually means the never ever. Finance deals usually come to grief round here which is all very sad.
In the meantime it's doing a useful job of waking me in the morning and invading my ear drums. There's no right to silence in Thailand.
Copyright The Thai Girl Blog
POSTSCRIPT
I wrote a longer version of this blog but when I came to download it I found that the file had been wiped and there was a rude message saying, "Hack by Debugger!" I've lost all 'My Documents' and have little idea what to do. How am I going to write and post my blogs now?
6 comments:
Its a script virus, a varient of the VBS.LoveLetter script hack around a few years ago modified by a Thai Hacker. You most likely picked it up from an infected PC by using a memory stick or flash drive as this is how it works, all pc and memory devices used on an infected computer will have the virus on and need to be cleaned up.
Here is removal information mrom Symantec... http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2000-121815-2258-99&tabid=3
Here is a free removal tool... http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/fix.vbs.loveletter.html
For some reason most free versions of Antivirus software will miss it, I use AVG Pro and when my memory stick got infected in Bangkok it picked it up.
Sorry to hear about this. It doesn't bode well for the blogger's future does it? A good virus checker that automatically updates daily is probably the best we can do. I also use AVG Pro to good effect.
Lloyd,
Thanks so much for that.
Yes, I think that's exactly what happened. When my TOT internet was not working, I took a memory stick into an internet cafe with text and pics on it to post a blog article.
Before seeing your comment I took the laptop and stick into Sangkha to a grubby little computer shop. It's cramped and dusty with trucks pounding past but he seems to have worked wonders and got it all cleaned up, as well as restoring my lost files and adding an extra free anti-virus which he says will complement my subscription to AVG.
That was yesterday, and today I'm now trying to find out what doesn't work any more.
When a technician has a go at ones computer half the thing come back running in Thai, defaults have changed and so on, but so far almost so good.
And I've managed to write and post a blog about Nan's birthday.
Now I have to go into the hospital to get a rabies jab.
Don't we all love doggies.
Andrew
Andrew- may I ask you how you connect to the internet? I am in the process of trying to get on line in Thamuang (north of Ubon Ratchathani) and it seems the only option is satellite. The only experience I have of this is in Ohio where it was up and down depending on the weather. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks -
Dear Thamuang Farang
I have just ditched my TOT IPStar satellite internet. It is widely held to be a disaster... I'll be posting a blog on this in a day or two.
I've now got internet linked to my AIS mobile phone at 380 baht for 100 hours per month. Go into an AIS or DTAC shop in Ubon and they will set you up. It depends which gives you the better signal.
It's slow but cheap as opposed to slow and expensive.
Alternatively CAT can give you mobile internet... is it called EDGE? The modem thing you plug into your computer costs about 11,000 baht.
I'm hopeless on these things and find that getting info across the lanuage barrier is impossible. There's lots of threads on Thaivisa but all are confusing.
Choke dee!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew. I look forward to your post. I will look at the options. My work revolves around the internet so choosing the right one is going to be a challenge especially if I want to work from home!
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