Christmas 2013 in Chiang Mai

As the main part of Christmas is over it's time to reflect, it's not a holiday here in Thailand so that in itself makes it a bit wierd. To be honest Christmas is not something Thailand does well, in many parts of the country it's the high season with plenty of sunshine and tourists; it's more like summer in Europe (but hotter).

This year in Chiang Mai it's been a bit different, the week before Christmas the temperature plummeted and for the first for me it was cold, with temperatures below 10°C at night and only warming up to about 20°C during the day. Higher areas experienced temperature approaching freezing.  I'm sure many of you think these temperatures are warm but you need to remember Thailand is a tropical country and no one is prepared for cold weather, houses don't have heating people don't possess warm clothing etc.

Back to my point although the cold has been quite serious it has also made it feel like Christmas for us northern people, although I'm not happy because I've just moved to a sub-division that has a communal pool and it's too cold to use it.

For many of us Christmas is really for children, and for me I have 3, although Jessica is still only a baby, in Thailand of course no one believes in Santa Claus, so it quite difficult for us to get our children to believe when everyone at school tells them otherwise. The argument of course is a simple one - if you don't believe in him you don't get anything! Harry and Sarina are now firm followers of the fat bloke in the red suit.

We actually got some presents ourselves this year my wife got a Thai Silk Kimono and I got some Thai Silk Boxer Shorts, I believe Santa sourced them from those lovely people at Fashion Chiang Mai.

Well that's it for now, we are looking forward to New Year which is a bigger celebration here in Thailand.

Keeping the Wolf from the Door

Let's face it's many people dream of leaving those dreary winters, boring jobs and high cost of living to go and live in a tropical beach somewhere. Places like Thailand look like they offer that perfect utopian lifestyle.

In face many people have already done it, unfortunately a lot them have also run out of money. A strange this has happened here in Thailand in recent years, we are starting to see an increasing number of westerners 'down and out' on the streets of Thailand. People who would rather live on the streets with no social security than return home, it's becoming an real problem for the Thai Authorities.

So how do you stop this from happening to you? One answer would be to make sure you bring enough money to last your lifetime, or make sure you have some form of pension. Some people that have done these things have still run into problems, the financial collapse in the west, the currency exchange rate has been particularly harsh, with many foreign currencies losing up to 25% of their value.

There is another problem with retiring to Thailand, boredom, believe me the endless white sandy beaches, great food and beautiful people won't keep your interest forever. Being on vacation in Thailand and living in Thailand are two very different things, life here quickly becomes very routine.

So, I believe the only solution is to do something that keeps you occupied and also brings in some money. Depending on your circumstances, that could be just some extra cash every month or some serious income.

Myself and my friend Tony Jones are developing a website that aims to highlight some of the ways you can make some cash with just a laptop and an internet connection. We are not just concentrating on Thailand you could potentially live anyway in the world. Our site is called Amazing Expat Life it is designed to provide real information on making money online. In the Amazing Expat Life Blog we will be sharing some information about life here in Thailand.

To get people started we will be giving away a free ebook that introduces the concept of making money online. So don't wait until you retire start planning your escape now and the Amazing Expat Life could be your life.

Resources: http://amazingexpat.com

Size of an Elephant - I Need to Diet

Well sorry about the odd title but those of you who are old enough will know it as a reference to the Arabian Knights cartoon from the Saturday morning TV show the Banana Splits. Well it's basically how I feel at the moment, since moving up to Chiang Mai I have had access to a lot better food, not just Thai food, so my waste band has expanded accordingly, it's so bad that my kids have started making pig snorting noises at me.

So I need to lose some weight before I pass the point of no return and turn into an obese monster with large areas of fat in places where I currently don't have places. I have actually tried a lot of different diets in the past and to be honest none of them have actually worked, and most them cost a lot of cash. Meal replacement diets in my honest opinion are ridiculous, you're just fooling yourself into believing that all you have to is put up with these horrible shakes for a few weeks and you will be slim, the problem is soon as you go back to normal food you put all the pounds back.

This time I'm going Paleo, yes I am going to try the Paleo Diet mainly because it suits what I like to eat and it is something I can keep too even after losing a few pounds. I created a special website to allow you to follow my progress and I will be posting before and after pictures so parental guidance is recommended. My site is called Paleo Diet Power and is at http://paleodietpower.com. I hope for my next post I will be telling you how many pounds or kilos I have lost on the wonderful Paleo Diet.

Take care.

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.