It's hard to find a more pro-Bangkok apologist than I. Many people love Bangkok, but few have lived here for as long as I have and not grown bored. If you've read this site before you'll know that I still find it endlessly fascinating. But the annual Poison Air season, in which we often cannot go outside because of air pollution, has made even a Bangkok nerd like myself wonder how long I can take it.
Over on Twitter I’ve been posting a series of images comparing old photos of Bangkok with the same location as seen from Google Street View. It wasn’t a project I planned, but I stumbled onto a thread of old pics on TeakDoor.com dating from 2008 and started scrolling. I saw one that I thought might make a good comparison pic, and it worked out pretty well. So I kept going.
You may have heard the recent news that Gord Downie, the lead singer of iconic Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, has passed away. It was not unexpected, and Gord filled his last year with a tour that acted as a sad, triumphant thank you and goodbye to Hip fans across Canada and around the world. But unexpectedly, his death got me thinking about a few things,
Fair warning: This post is sort of a rage-filled rant against elements of western media, Asian governments, and the apathy that people show towards what’s really important in life. Why? Because I saw something today that broke my heart and got me mad. Cuss words may appear.
So, forgive me folks, I’m kind of pissed off now. I’ve written before about how a person changes when they become an expat; how living in a strange culture and being constantly exposed to new and different viewpoints can alter how one thinks about the world. It’s one of the great benefits of being […]
When you come to Thailand on a vacation, you hope that your trip will be smooth sailing. No problems, no hiccups, no wrinkles...just your itinerary the way you planned it. That's usually what happens - but not always. A few weeks ago a visiting group of friends had what you'd call a problem...and a hiccup, and a wrinkle - all on the same night! Thankfully, with the help of modern technology - and especially a few friendly Thai policemen - we were able to rescue them from what could have been a very long and very bad night.
The Search for Captain Bush’s Grave started when my friend Andrew sent me an email asking if I knew anything about the old abandoned house that sat, forgotten and forlorn, across from the Sheraton Hotel. The house itself is gorgeous but decaying; it sits as if slumped in a beanbag chair, shutters falling off, paint peeling, bricks missing, weeds growing through every crevice. And the street that it sits on? Charoen Krung soi 30 – aka, Soi Captain Bush. […]
If you haven’t picked up on it during previous posts, I’m the proud father of a beautiful, hilarious, mischievous, lovely little boy who just turned 1. I’ve written pages and pages privately about the experience thus far, but very little publicly. I wanted to reflect on one element of being a parent in Thailand that has never stopped making me laugh and/or frown in equal measure, and that is how Thais – most of the time females – react to kids. […]
Fortune telling – possibly an even older profession than the Oldest Profession – is huge in Asia. (The Oldest Profession is also huge in Asia, but that’s another blog post). In western cultures, fortune telling is relegated to circus side-shows and party tricks, a goofy remnant of a long-forgotten superstition. But if you read the daily headlines in Asia you’ll see that everyone from the girl selling coffee on the street corner to the leaders of most countries rarely make a major decision without consulting their favorite seer. […]
This post will only really be understandable to those who are familiar with Thailand’s recent political past. I’m not going to try to weigh in either way on the political problems that the country is dealing with (there are plenty of others who do it far better than I), but I did read something the other day that struck me as incredibly interesting, and it was too thought-provoking for me not to post about. […]
On July 25, 2014, I celebrated my 13th anniversary in Thailand. Not too bad considering I originally came here for a 4 month vacation. By the time I passed the ten year threshold, I was solidly comfortable with my life in Thailand, and I wrote a post about what it felt like. But as I reflected on 13 years, I started wondering when, exactly, Thailand went from being “the place I’m living right now” to “the place that I call home.” […]