globalwanderer

December 2010

2011-02-14T20:29:00.000Z

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...a very long time

2009-08-07T09:12:00.002+01:00

Such a long time that I didn't even know I had this blog going!! If you do happen to stumble across this dark and dirty corner of the blogosphere, you are obviously lost. You can however find more recent stuff from me here or here or even here if you are really adventurous.

It's been a long time

2007-02-25T04:04:00.000Z

Ok it's been 5 months since my last blog but there is evidence of how busy I've been. On the globalwanderings site (on the Thailand pages of course) there have been a number of new entries including a Ko Samet update, new pages including Ko Chang and Nong Khai (a bend in the river) also new entries in the Bangkok pages - both Bangkok Wanderings and Bangkok burbs so check them out.

In addition the pie team has been busy on www.podcastsinenglish.com We've religiously added a new podcast every week and so now have in excess of 30 on the site and membership and listenership is growing daily.

Added to that, I am down the home straight on my MA (in TESOL) which should be finished by March after which I'll be speaking on Podcasting at the IATEFL conference in sunny Aberdeen in April.

And then in the summer it's time for a new job, new country so watch this space....

Thai military coup a non event

2006-09-20T09:13:00.000+01:00

If the Thais are world experts in one thing it has to be military coups. The latest, which occurred last night (here, in Thai time) ran so smoothly no one would have known about it except for the traditional halting of regular TV programmes and replacement with pictures of the king with martial music in the background. The army leaders know this is the only way they would get everyone’s attention. Everyone except me of course who doesn’t watch television. I certainly wouldn’t have known about it had a friend not called me to tell me he was watching live on TV as tanks were trundling around the streets and that we didn’t have to go to work the following day. The tanks of course were there to inform people actually on the street who would have been the only ones (except me) not watching TV.

I must say this way of getting rid of Taksin has to be better than all the democratic street protests, which only succeeded in clogging up Bangkok streets even more than usual and casued everyone to get hot under the collar. This way everything was sorted out without a whimper. Bit boring really and is it really going to make any difference? One set of corrupt cronies will get replaced by another. Same old same old. Anyway, I’m off to the beach..see ya.

Urban Super Frogs

2006-08-13T08:38:00.000+01:00

Bangkok is synonymous with urban living – we’ve got the heat, smog, traffic and not many wide open park areas to talk about. From a personal perspective, we are right in the centre of it – about 15mins by Skytrain from Siam Square. Hardly even suburban.

The advantage of the Skytrain is that it travels above street level and so you get a pretty good view over the city. However, even from this elevated aspect there are no green areas as far as the eye can see. Pretty depressing stuff. It’s not all bad though as our home is set in a mini oasis.

There’s a small garden out front and the moderately-sized swimming pool is surrounded by tropical plants mainly palms. I’m also sure David Attenborough would find plenty to keep him happy with here as far as the animal kingdom is concerned as well. The insects are naturally quite prolific and a bit scary and we often see squirrels running fearlessly along the electricity wires between the palms. In addition by night we see plenty of bats flitting by – both the large fruit bats and the smaller insectivorous – they often hang around under the overhang of our balcony. There is also often the soulful croaking of frogs – especially if we’ve just had a good downpour. I really wonder where they go in the dry season though – the ground is baked hard and there is not even a scent of water vapour in the air – but then if there is a shower, the call goes out and the toads all give throat in praise of the rain. You never see them in the pool though.

And that is actually the point of this particular blog – last night we were sitting on our balcony, on the second floor (3rd if you are American) eating dinner. Although it is the semi rainy season, it hadn’t rained in days and the grass outside our place was a uniform dusty brown. All we could hear was the distant hum of the evening traffic. It was dark, but I saw something move by my foot – It could have been a cockroach (although thankfully, in our apartment these are very rare) or a gecko, which are fairly abundant – but it was a frog – about 4cms long. How did he get up here? Certainly not hopped. There is only one way. He must have crawled up the sheer face of the wall. These frogs are nothing if not extremely hardy (and stupid, as there are no ponds up here). Of course by morning he was gone

Ko Samui

2006-08-06T08:17:00.000+01:00

Another holiday and more pages to catch up on – same old story. This time we’ve just got back from a trip to Ko Samui. First time I’ve been there actually. It has often been billed in the past as a paradise island and famed like many of Thailand’s beauty spots as having beaches of the purest white sands and skirted by gently waving palm trees. Well the beaches are still as beautiful, but I’m afraid many of the trees have been uprooted and the ones that remain stand between hotels and condos. Off the beaches are main drags packed with MacDonalds and Starbucks. Any piece of land that hasn’t been developed has a ‘For Sale’ sign on it or a large banner offering apartments for sale and guaranteed returns on their investments. The whole island has been blighted by rampant development and shows no sign of stopping.

Having said all that if you are in your hotel and just look forward to the sea and try not to look at all your concrete neighbours, you may still enjoy the view. We also managed to find a fairly quiet beach and get in some quality relaxing time. Ko Samui is definitely off our schedule for return visits though.

At least the break also allowed me to find time to complete the Kanchanaburi page of the website. I know we went there in March, but I’ve been busy. In addition to the Globalwanderings site, me and Jackie have been working on our new venture podcastsinenglish.com this will be a site for students to download podcasts of our interviews with all sorts of people and news stories to help with their English. Worksheets are also available to members who pay $30 a year. Anyway check out the site and see what you think.

new pages to the Thailand site

2006-03-27T16:28:00.000+01:00

Another holiday and now more pages to catch up on. We've just got back from a few days in Kanchanaburi - of bridge over the river Kwai fame, taken some more photos and therefore more material for another page on globalwanderings.

At least I'm slowly catching up - I've just completed Ayuthaya, Sukhotai and some photos and film of our apartment on the Thailand pages, so check them out by clicking the link to globalwanderings on the right.

Back at work for a couple of weeks and then it's a dive holiday in the Similans for a week and then the UK from 18 April - 3 May.

I've also included a RSS feed on the site so you should be automatically updated when new pages are posted.

all th ebest

R

gw update

2006-01-27T15:11:00.000Z

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

2006-01-10T03:19:00.000Z

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

2006-01-09T02:45:00.000Z

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.

merry christmas

2005-12-21T11:27:00.000Z

not an auspicious start to my blogging career - as this is only my second. However, I have been busy on my website and as this blog is partly to inform of updates etc, that's a good excuse. If you're a returner you will have noticed the total reformatting of the Wanderings asia site - hopefully making it more user friendly and navigable. I intend to use the same template to update the africa pages within the next few weeks.

Although having lived in Thailand for the last 4 months I still haven't managed to add a Thailand page (hence the empty link) but hope to add a page on my trip to Ko Samet in November and also may have a few 'home' photos up and running soon. Similarly Malaysia is empty - but I hope to put on a page about Penang soon.

It's going to be a busy time as it's Christmas hols now and we're off to the north of Thailand on Friday - exploring Sukhotai and on to Chiang Mai - so another page in the offing.

As a Brit I've always got to sign off with a weather report - it's amazingly cool her e in Bangkok at the moment. No fans no a/c at all and a bit nippy first thing in the morning. - I doubt if we'll have snow though!

Anyway that's all for now - Happy Christmas and look out for further updates to globalwanderings in the new year.

Bangkok intro

2005-12-01T11:24:00.000Z

Welcome to my humble blog which accompanies my humble website Globalwanderings. Originally, I just had a website to post pictures and travelogues of my times spent in various countries while working for the British Council. But upon arriving in Bangkok, I thought it was time to join the billions of other self obsessives and start a blog – so here it is. A bit late in starting as we arrived in Bangkok almost 3 months ago, but better late than never.

I hope to post something every week about little quirks of living in Bangkok, little bits of trivia and minor culture shocks which seem to occur every day.

Of course the first thing about moving to a new country is getting settled in the job and finding a house – boring. My first real job was to get a new computer, so I headed down to Panthip Plaza. It was gobsmacking. I am no computer geek but even I had my chin on the floor when I saw 6 floors of wall to wall computer shops surrounding an inner atrium, lights flashing and dodgy blokes whispering ‘sexy movie?’ to me. As well as providing tons of hardware – there were also tons of accompanying (pirated) software, CDs, DVDs etc. So much for Thailand’s crack down on piracy. Even ignoring everything but desktops there were still simply too many shops make any disciplined choice. So I just picked one at randowm, gave them my specs and picked up my computer the next day for a fraction of the price in the UK. So far (2 months down the track) I’ve had no problems. Since then I’ve hooked up to 24 hour broadband at home which costs an amazing 500Bht (£7) per month and I’m away.

Managing to stay away from my new toy at home has been tough, but I have managed to do a bit of sightseeing which I’ll cover in my website, but the trip from my house to the skytrain station (Ari) and on to work has been interesting in itself. During my second week here I happened to be walking down the road as normal in my own little world when I noticed that everyone else was stock still on the pavement, what was going on? Had time frozen? I could also hear some music and then it dawned on me – it was the national anthem. I was later to hear that at 8am every morning and 6pm at night, the public address system blares out the national anthem and everyone within earshot stops stock still for about 20 seconds. Bizarre. The traffic never stops though – it still continues at a crawl.