Holidays – Khao Pansa

Holidays – Khao Pansa Today is the eve of one of Thailand’s biggest annual holidays in the original sense of the word as a holy day. Khao Pansa is the start of Thai Buddhism’s Lent. It is one of the…

Discover thrilling tales from Thailand to Wales – 60 novels by Owen Jones!

Discover thrilling tales from Thailand to Wales – 60 novels by Owen Jones!

Holidays – Khao Pansa Today is the eve of one of Thailand’s biggest annual holidays in the original sense of the word as a holy day. Khao Pansa is the start of Thai Buddhism’s Lent. It is one of the…

Being An Expat Summary To those of you who have read the first five parts to this series, I would like to say ‘thank you’. I don’t know what impression of being an expat I left you with except that…

Being An Expat (part five) Etiquette, Loneliness and Coping Often how you should behave, etiquette, as an expat depends not only on which country you live in but also where you live in that country as well. This is usually…

The financial aspect of being an expat boils down to always having sufficient funds to satisfy your requirements, which will vary throughout the year.

I have lived here in northern Thailand for 21 years and I lived in The Netherlands for nine years until 1982, so I am sort of used to being an expat in two countries on two continents in two radically different parts of the world. The first thing is that being an expat is not like being on a very long holiday.

Water! Water Everywhere… Yes, friends, the water is back on and flowing in great abundance. From every house you pass can be heard the strains of old washing machines already on their second or third load of the day. My…

Today’s Thailand This is going to be a collection of random observations about today’s Thailand, because not enough has been happening in my life in the last twenty-four hours to fill even a short post such as this series, which…

Improvement I now know what those twelve-inch concrete pipes are for as they have dug up the two access points to my house – storm-water drainage, as I think it’s called, as opposed to foul-water drainage. Whoever would have thought…

Publication of Asian Shorts The day has dawned for publication. I’ve read through the whole manuscript for the fifth or sixth time, attached the authors’ contact details, assigned page numbers, formatted it and written the blurb for the back cover.…

Our Village Yesterday I went on a pub crawl around our village. It is my romanticised way of saying that I walked around the village and had three pints in various shops. That’s all right, it gives me a connection…

First Edition of Asian Shorts I am inordinately proud to announce that the first edition of ‘Asian Shorts’ will be available as from tomorrow, June 18th – Yay! On the negative side first, it is only 74.4% (see update below)…

Storm Not Monsoon Yesterday, late afternoon, black clouds could be seen on the horizon, then a wind appeared from nowhere and suddenly the clouds were overhead emptying their contents all over us. When I say suddenly, I mean, I knew…
Don't Some People just drive you up the wall sometimes, eh? Is it our fault for expecting too much or theirs for just being stupid?

Holidays in Thailand – How Much? Thailand is, and has been for at least a decade, right at the top of both the world’s holiday resorts and travellers’ wish-list destinations. The same goes for retirees and expats. The question people…

Being a Foreign Man in Thailand. In general, Thai people are gentle and peaceable, but they do know that they are poor compared to the West and they are very quick to notice if someone is even only apparently…

Lickay – Thai Pantomime Lickay tonight, but more about that later. The weather first as according to tradition. Well, it’s so hot today that it is unpleasant to go to the toilet because the water coming out of the bidet…

Doldrums The weather reminds me of the stories of the doldrums on the Equator… Another forty-sixer today, but forty-seven yesterday! I forgot to report our plight. As we approach the Summer Equinox, though, we have gained an hour or daylight…

Expats’ Desires Another forty-sixer today! It makes me so apathetic and dozy. At two o’clock this afternoon I put my head down for forty winks and woke up three hours later! That’s not like me, I haven’t needed an afternoon…