Life in the South

Well it’s been another eventful week here in sunny Thailand, well sunny last week anyway. With all the flooding up north and another tsunami in Indonesia, luckily the worst we’ve has here in Southern Thailand is some heavy rain.

My son Harry continues with all his tricks, I don’t think he could be anymore naughty if he tried, after putting an ice cube down his grandma’s back and taking a dump on the balcony, this morning he got up early and did some heavy modifications to a computer program I was writing. That will teach me to live my computer unlocked; it took about 30 minutes to find all extra characters he’d added.

Sarina my beautiful daughter get lovelier every day, now that the dogs recovered from her illness Sarina has finally stopped nagging about taking the dog to the hospital. It was her third birthday the other week and had quite a good party with our close family, the only person missing was my Dad, but he sent her a nice birthday card which I think she liked more than the presents she got. I managed to nip across to Tesco’s and buy a Barbie set and a nice, proper birthday cake, I was in a bit of rush and picked up the first birthday candles I saw, unfortunately they were the magic ones that re-light themselves. Sarina was not impressed; Harry joined in the blowing and sprayed the whole cake with spit.

We are now moving into the dry season, so we are all getting our beach gear ready. With a bit of look I plan to take the family to one of the many islands just off the coast here, for a few days well deserved holiday. I also need to buy a new paddling pool for the kids, I usually put it up on the balcony, it’s nice in the afternoon when the sun’s moved round a bit and there is some shade.

On the work front still as busy as ever on the internet, had a couple of offers this past month, but unfortunately both in Bangkok which I have no desire to go there. I am actually turning work down at the moment, but should get most of my backlog cleared by Christmas, in the New Year I have two projects of my own that should slowly start to bring in the cash. With a bit of luck we are planning to move up to Chiang Mai early next year, I have some very good friends up there and the cost of living is very similar to here. To be honest the rain here is starting to get on my nerves, it’s seem like months and months of endless rain. Chiang Mai is a lot dryer, cooler and healthier, and I am not really that bothered about the beach.

It’s always been my greatest desire to take my family back to England, but I think now with all the problems in Europe I won’t bother, I read the News and it seems the whole country has become full of criminals, child abusers and loud mouthed thugs. The only person I’ve got back there now is my Dad, and I know he understands, with a bit of look if things continue to pick up I will be able to go for a holiday there within the next 18 months, rent a cottage in Devon and go and see Dad for a couple of days. I really consider myself lucky, I’m not stuck in some crappy job in England, just waiting for retirement having to get up on cold mornings and drive to work, or get public transport. I really enjoy the work I do, I try my hardest to do the best job possible and I always have my family here. Although I complain about the weather here, it’s not that bad, I wear shorts and t-shirts all year round and I don’t own any socks!

Well that’s all for now, the wife’s on her way with some excellent food from a local restaurant and it’s time for me to go and see Mr. Chang (Beer) J

World Cup Fever - Worse than Swine Flu

I’m over it now

The kick-off was 1.30am Thai time so unfortunately as I have to work for a living I decided not to stay up and watch England v Algeria, beside every time I watch England they never perform so I fear that I may be a jinx. The famous 5-1 thrashing of Germany in Munich,

What a Week!!

Well as you can see I have lost a week somewhere, to be honest I have had a week of disasters. First there was the great flood, Noah where’s your boat. I live in what is described in Thailand as a two bedroom shop house. On the first floor or ground floor we have a large shop unit, a small living area, kitchen and bathroom, on the second floor we two bedrooms and a bathroom, each bedroom has a balcony. The back bedroom where we sleep because it’s cooler has a large balcony that is used as a laundry area (weird eh), it’s kind of square shaped and walled in, with two small drainage holes out onto the kitchen roof. As with just about every house I have seen here there is no provision for drainage, no guttering nothing and believe me when it rains here it bloody rains.

Brain Explosion

The last couple of day I have been dedicating a lot of time to think about how I can make money on the internet, it’s my only option really I live the middle of Thailand, I cannot work because of local labour laws and even if I could there aren’t any jobs I could do. I think it’s something that a lot of people could be interested in, the different angle my blog will take is some of the existing bloggers have already made a lot of money before they start blogging. I plot my successes and failures from the start.

I spent certain amount of time reading about various internet superstars who are already making a fortune in an attempt to gleam some valuable information. Don’t get me wrong I am no novice I have been around the internet for about 15 years; I have good knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP. I have also spent some time using various PPC (pay per click) programmes as well some affiliate systems, I have run a couple sites, created a fair few and worked on many more. So all in all I think I have the basic building blocks required to becoming an internet entrepreneur.

Having said the Internet is such a large beast, with technologies changing daily it is can be mind blowing trying to get your head round it. As I already said I am no techno-donkey, I have been working in the IT industry for over twenty years, but still everyday something new comes along.

My current inspiration is a guy called Jeremy Shoemaker, in the world of internet marketing he is legendary, his system is supposed to be one of the best, unfortunately I don’t have necessary cash to buy it, so I am sitting on the edge of his world trying to absorb as much information as possible without paying any money. Anyway I am always very sceptical about so called “perfect systems” I still remember Frank what’s his name from InstantInternetEmpires.com and the subsequent court case.

Any the information I gleamed from Shoemoney so far suggests spending as little as possible, which is good because I have nothing.

So here’s the story so far I intend to start blogging i.e. creating a web log of something that I am interested in, a niche something that other people are interested in. I will then build up my blog with interesting content. I will monetize with initially Google Adsense, I will use as learning curve for various marketing strategies. You are reading this on my first blog, which not really planned as money maker, it’s just a blog. If you have a lifetime blog just think interesting it might be to your children, grandchildren etc. so for that reason along it’s worth doing.

I will also be expressing my opinions on various subjects as I feel I have something to say.

Please Close Your Shop So I can Buy Some Beer

Sounds a bit crazy, but every night I have same problem. Every night I like to drink a couple of bottles of beer, usually Chang Beer, only two no more. Being as this is a tropical climate it has to be cold, very cold. Now the nearest shop to me belongs to a lovely couple who are friends with my wife, they stocked Chang Beer because my wife told them I drink it. The problem is that she keeps it in a normal fridge so it’s not ice cold; in fact it’s barely cold at all. Now occasionally I buy it and drink with ice, which to honest I don’t really like.

So now I have to wait until she closes her shop so I can go and buy beer from the other shop. I know you all think I am mad but we live in a very small community here and I being the only foreigner don’t want to get on the wrong side of anyone.

So here I am waiting for the lovely Nu to close her shop so I can go and buy it from shop a little bit further up where they keep the beer in the icebox. Just as I wrote I think I here her closing, so bye for now, it’s time for some refreshment.

Reds Go Home

Well not much happening here in sunny Trang today so I thought I might as well give my views on recent troubles in Bangkok. By the way Reds Go Home is a statement not an order.

As my wife comes from a working class family who are very similar in many ways to a lot of the Red Shirts a part from they live in the South of Thailand, which is equally poor when compared to Bangkok, I feel I am well positioned to comment on what happened. Thaksin when he was in power saw quite cleverly that if he made policies that helped this large majority of Thais’ he would guarantee his re-election, so he came up with free health and poured money into various schemes in Isaan (north-east).

Not a Bad Dinner

Tonight I was planning a sort of tomato, seafood pasta sauce but in the end it turned out a bit different.  I went across to the market and no tomatoes, well not quite one stall had some very green ones, no good for a pasta sauce. 

The wife had already bought some squid so I had to do something. I decided on a squid and bacon creamy sauce (I know it sounds odd, but actually squid goes very well with something salty like bacon). 

So I chopped up a large onion and fried in a large frying pan, as it started to brown I added 3 rashers of bacon finely chopped, and then threw in 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped. Stirred this together for a few minutes then added the squid (cleaned and sliced), covered the pan and let it all cook together until the squid was nice and white, you don’t want to cook it too long because goes like rubber. 

Market Day Today

Well in my exciting world today is the local market day, not that it is very special, and in fact there was a market yesterday. I actually live right next to the main market, and market days are Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.  As we are out in the sticks most people buy just about everything from the market, a part from a few general type stores the market is about the only place you can buy anything. Of course most of the stalls sell fresh produce, meat and vegetables, fish is also very popular. At the roadside end there are a number of people selling ready-to-eat-food such as fried chicken, various fried other stuff and drinks. In my opinion none if it is very special, one of the few things I buy is fried chicken breast coated in breadcrumbs, that not bad and at 10 baht a piece it’s also cheap.

Recently a women appeared selling Sushi, which is actually excellent and at 5 baht a piece good value.

Lazy Day Today

One of the big problems here is that everyday seems the same; it can be difficult to tell what day of the week it is. I must admit with my daughter Sarina starting nursery school this last couple of weeks at least now I know when it’s a week day. Anyway today I had to get up early because my wife was at work and I had get Sarina ready for school. Actually that’s not exactly true because I have my wife’s 11 year old daughter Ked to help; in fact she does most of it.

Not A Bad Day

Joke of the Day

A teacher was sitting in the park when I young boy came along sat on a bench and started to eat 10 chocolate bars one after the other. The teacher thought he must say something to the boy.

"Do you realise that eating 10 chocolate bars one after another is bad for your teeth, it will also make you fat and give you spots", said the teacher.

"Well my grandfather lived until he was 95", replied the boy

"and did he eat 10 chocolate bars one after the other". said the teacher

"no, he minded his own bloody business", replied the boy

Quote of the Day

“To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.”

--Philip Howard

Today's Post

Well today started off pretty rough, I had worked until the small hours getting a web site finished for the Rotherham crew and so when I woke up I had brain ache. Luckily the wife took the kids to "wicked witch of the east" the mother-in-law. So had a coffee and some pain killers and went back to sleep. The wife came back about lunchtime which was lucky because I got paid for the web site and money was in her bank account, so I got her ATM card and jumped on the motorbike and heading off to the bank. While I was I got a couple of tins of Pedegree Chum for Lotus because she is sill off her food. (Lotus the dog of course)
So paid the rent, and so me the wife and the women from next door but one, Baa Re (Baa meaning Auntie, and Re her name - Barry!!) decided to go off into the big city - Trang.

Thai Dart Champion - A night at the Fair.

Occasionally here in the sunny south of Thailand a fair appears just down the road from us in the local government offices car park. We can't fail to miss it as they play music so load we can feel it (not hear it- feel it) pumping throughout the house. Well last week it appeared I think it is to do with the Royal Ploughing Ceremony which marks the start of the rice planting season, anyway it is usually here for a couple of weeks. My daughter loves it because they always have a bouncy castle or slider in her language, so we have to go nearly every night just so she can play on the bouncy castle or "len lider" in Thai.

Went to Thai Wedding Today

If you ever have to choose between a a Thai Wedding Party and a Thai Funeral Party, the choice is simple, obviously one is a very sad occasion, the Wedding, so go to the Funeral they’re much better. A funeral could last a week, were as a wedding last barely an afternoon or morning. This wedding today – Tuesday!! – started about nine thirty this morning, to be honest I had no idea I was going to a wedding when I got up. I went to pick the wife up from work and told me we had to go to this party because it was her family. That phrase ‘her family’ from what I have seen so far could mean the whole south of Thailand, in fact I am still waiting to meet someone down here that’s not one of her relatives.

Anyway, we got to the party about 9.30am and it was in full swing, the food was being served out and a few people had been down to the shop to buy booze. The food is nearly always the same, Wedding or Funeral, some sort of pork soup, pork stewed with shitake mushrooms and Chinese 5 spices (that ones not bad) and of course spicy pork curry, to drink you get water, coke, sprite or very sweet green soda (I don’t what the flavour is, the bottle says Sala ??).