My first blog

Hi all
This is my first venture into the blogosphere, although I have been aware of the concept for a number of years, I now have the excuse to actually contribute something to the vast malaise of useful, topical and insightful information that inhabits the ether. (That is irony by the way; I hope you are keeping up). As most of you who know me well enough are aware I am just about to embark on a little excursion around a good slice of South East Asia and taking in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The mode of transport will be a motorbike as soon as I can source one in Bangkok.
It is 4:00 PM on the 14th July and I am sitting in the lounge room of my good friends Handle & Rebekah in Caulfield, Melbourne. They will be taking me to the airport later this evening and I will be taking an overnight flight to Bangkok with Thai airways. Ad, Kwan’s brother will be meeting me at the new Suvanibugh airport in Bangkok at about 7:00AM tomorrow and then taking me to the Asia Hotel Bangkok in the middle of Bangkok. Admittedly it is a bit of a luxury and I will be lowering my standard of hotel in the following weeks but it is a nice hotel for me to find my feet for a couple of days and has all the facilities you’d expect from a 4 star hotel at around $50 per night. The real good thing about the Asia hotel is that the foyer connects straight onto the Ratchathewi Skytrain station and for the princely sum of 40 baht (about $1.10) one stop down is Siam Central where the Siam Paragon is located. Siam Paragon is a new shopping/entertainment complex which is roughly twice the size of Chadstone. For those of you Melbournites who are familiar with the size of Chadstone will appreciate the size of the place. The ground floor is entirely food so not only can you get real good Thai food but just about anything else including French, Italian, Mexican Japanese etc etc. Not that this is anything particularly I’m looking for but it is a source of decent coffee which is high on my priority.
I could have stayed at the condo with Ad which is OK but it is quite a way out of the city and I will be needing to visit bike shops which are located closer to the city centre. I have taken the trouble to learn a bit of Thai but after about 20 lessons I reckon I can just about order soup and get a hotel room. I’m sure I will be whittling on about the Thai language in future blogs needless to say it has been a fascinating thing to learn but is a very difficult language to learn for a furongse (westerner). Language note: all westerners are referred to as furongse which means “Frenchman” thus confirming the fact that the Thai’s although having a pleasant and genial disposition have a cruel and sadistic sense of humour.
Well I reckon that’s about enough for my first blog in the next exiting instalment I will be going through the process of buying a bike and getting it on the road. Yes it is going to be fraught with red tape and bureaucracy and it will not be straight forward, however if you can stay awake long enough it will be a coverage of someone actually going through the process and not just talking as though they have. Case in point, the one item I do not yet posses is GPS system which has been a comical search over the last few weeks. After looking at a couple of units in Hardly Normal and Dick Smiths if you ask the question “Can you download maps for Thailand, Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia ?” the answer is always “Yes, go to the website and download the maps”. This is not true. The one thing I have discovered is that the manufactures of the GPS systems such as Tom Tom, Navman, Mio etc. Do not like you phoning them up and asking awkward questions such as “Do you have maps for SE Asia ?” The net result is I am waiting to see what’s availability in Thailand before I purchase. The Mio customer service assured me I will not be able to get maps for Thailand even though Mio do have a Thai website www.mio.co.th which states that you can get maps for Thailand. So who do you believe ?
Obviously this is not just an adventure but also a personal journey. After the tragedy of loosing Kwan last year (13 months now) and the process of the funeral etc. I did gain more of an affinity with the Thai people and culture. They do think very different than westerners and have a different perspective than we do. As with everything in life, it is not all good and there are many aspects that us westerners would find difficult to deal with, but generally they are a charming and friendly people who honour guests with hospitality you would find hard to match in the west. Their calmness and patience especially in the ”in your face” nature of the Bangkok lifestyle is a credit to their culture and I believe we could all learn something from this.
I am happy to receive feedback on my blog. I hope to make it at the very least slightly entertaining and hopefully I can give some thought provoking insights into the wonderful world around us.
I will welcome comments such as “Can’t you find anything better to do ?” or “Is Ewan McGregor and the other non famous one with you?”
Glom Tiang Yaai is the closest I can get to in Thai for “Long way round”.

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