Bukittinggi
West Sumatra
Republic of Indonesia

July 5, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

It would have been a long, bumpy ride so I opted for the short, uneventful flight from Medan, my base in North Sumatra, to Padang in West Sumatra.

Padang is the coastal gateway to the Mentawai Islands, an archipelago that draws a younger crowd for jungle trekking and surfing in the Indian Ocean. My own less vigorous route, however, was inland from the coast and into the mountains to Bukittinggi and the surrounding lakes and villages.

Bangkok
Thailand
July 7, 2008

Dear Friends and Photography Fiends,

Before I left Bangkok for Sumatra , I decided to take a peek, finally, at the Advanced User Guide to my digital camera.

I leafed through the pages and lit upon "Photo Stitch."

I focused on the directions but with only modest comprehension. I also needed to find the disk that came with the camera, two years ago! I found the disk. I loaded the program.

Here's the way it works: you shoot a series of photos of the same wide subject with each shot slightly overlapping the previous shot. Then you import the shots into your computer and the Photo Stitch program performs as you would expect. Your shots are stitched together, seamlessly.

It's a miracle.