gw update

Been busy behind the scenes. I have now put up my page on Malaysia/Penang and also Ko Samet on the Thailand section - this one a first as I've uploaded two videos in Flash format - check them out and see what you think. Flushed with the succes of these vids I am now keen to put up pages of further explorations in Thailand - notably the new year's trip up to the Karen villages near Burma and a more down to earth video of our flat!

Dogs in shirts

Most people in Thailand live in a soi or lane. Most dogs in Thailand live down a soi also and are not surprisingly called soi dogs. Although I have heard stories to the contrary I find most of these dogs very passive and polite. They get on with their lives - just hangin' out mainly, and you get on with yours. Most are in fairly good shape and usually quite intelligent. Our soi happens to be next to a very busy highway. I suspect one of our soi dogs has a girlfriend across this highway. Naturally he uses the footbridge to cross the road. I also used to think these dogs were strays as they tend to just wander around the area. However a recent holiday up north convinced me otherwise.

Thailand is a tropical country. However we still have three seasons - hot, wet and cold. At the moment it is the cold season - OK 'cool' season and in Bangkok it can get down to the low twenties (centigrade that is). Further north it can get into the teens - really cold to Thais - especially Thai dogs. On this holiday (to the ancient capital Sukhotai and then on to Chiang Mai) I noticed the usual soi dogs - but well over half of them were wearing T-shirts!! And I must say a lot of them looked rather sheepish about it even though they still went about their usual business. Talking of which with so many dogs roaming the streets - how come I never see any "dogs' business" on the street. But I guess that's the subject of another blog.

globalwanderings update

We are now back from our little sortie up north. Had a great two weeks exploring the ruins of Sukhotai and then hiring bikes and wandering up the Burmese border, staying in a Karen hilltribe village in the middle of nowhere for New Year's Eve.

I have pretty much finished updating the globalwanderings site now (let me know what you think and about any broken links etc) so I should have some time to start the Thailand page with photos and travelogues of this trip and other recent ones (eg Ko Samet)and also add a bit of info about Bangkok.