Doug’s 45th birthday is today but he is in Chiang Mai and I am wishing I were with him to celebrate his 45th. I sing Happy Birthday when he calls in the morning. “Oh quit it!” he says. 🙂 As for me, people seem to be looking curiously at my clothes I acquired in the islands. […]

Josh Cooks For Greg’s Friends I get an email from Josh saying that he and Greg and Polly had a great time on Manhattan Beach California with Greg’s friend Jeff, an old roommate when he lived in Phoenix. After some time with Greg in Las Vegas, Josh and Polly and Greg flew to NYC where […]

Well, the media had hyped the violence over the poll on Feb 2 which Yingluk introduced in an attempt to mollify people and stop the protests. These were at my On Nut skytrain headed downtown. So Bangkok hotels are pretty empty…including my VXTheFifty guesthouse. But I was welcomed back by the proprietors and the maids as an […]

The taxi at the airport wanted 400 baht to take me 5 minutes up the road to Bang Rak Beach. I just laughed and set out on my own down the road. Next two taxis wanted 300 baht but finally talked the third one down to 200 baht. Good grief, I could have gone clear from […]

A lot of memories here where Doug and Luk lived 14 feet from the water on Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi until they nearly succumbed in the 2004 tsunami. Ten years ago! Seems like it happened yesterday and hard to believe so much time has passed since that tragic day when I learned about it […]

Doug flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and spent a couple days with his dad in Pattaya before going back to Samui again to say goodbye to old friends and close down his rented house. I flew into Samui a few days later on Jan 19th and stayed at a guesthouse he had found for me […]

Stayed in a good location…the ThaiLanna Guesthouse just outside the Anapurn Night Market. Good to be off the Soho bar street except for a couple very loud young Russian women next door. By this time, after an orgy of seafood and Chinese food with Josh and Polly in Hong Kong and all the great Thai […]

Josh and Polly have treated me to five days of an eating orgy. From famine in Oaxaca, except for extraordinary Oaxacan food, to Chinese feasts in Hong Kong! Oh my!

Yesterday I took a Dragon Air flight from Chiang Mai to Hong Kong. The efficient 20 minute high speed train from the airport passes through Kowloon and ends in Hong Kong…at the building, incidentally, where Josh works in the penthouse location of the American Club restaurants. Heading to the turnstiles I see his smiling face on the […]

Doug had been on Koh Samui while I was in Bangkok having my teeth taken care of after we first arrived in Thailand in November 2013. While there, Doug had taken his boat, that he had just finished refurbishing, out into the open sea off Samui. It was just a little fishing boat and the boat […]

Christian holidays are an excuse for a party in a Buddhist country. I spend it quietly…with Doug in Chiang Mai and skype calls from Greg and Josh…bless their hearts. Greg spends it quietly too in Las Vegas…making my recipe for Beef Stroganoff. Josh is busy feeding hundreds of Christmas celebrants at the American Club in […]

Meanwhile I try to track Thai politics so I know which intersection and skytrain exit to avoid. My Yellow Shirt friend feeds me information. My Thai friend who is a professor of fisheries at Kasetsart University issues warnings. I scour Twitter and read the ThaiVisa alerts on my local phone. The middle class has finally […]

VX The Fifty Guesthouse in Bangkok Sukhumvit 50, a nice quiet street, is at the OnNut Sky train exit with Tesco Lotus conveniently at the corner. 10 baht takes me down 50 to the guesthouse/hostel on the back of a moto taxi driver. Lovely proprietors and friendly staff. The lady wears the latest panty hose. I […]

All has been quiet today in honor of the King’s birthday. American born, he is 86 today. And dearly loved by Thai people. But he is very ill and people are worried what will happen to Thailand when he passes. The last two weeks Bangkok has been beset with protesters again…a conglomeration of Yellow Shirts, […]

it has been raining and humid outside so am watching the Blue Sky Channel showing 4 different groups of protesters in Bangkok today. Comments on the ThaiVisa blog are interesting as usual. Of course I don’t have a clue what any the speakers are saying, singing, yelling and chanting. A so-called million man march is being […]

Need new crowns on implants I got last spring while in Bangkok. Need to see my son Josh and his lovely Significant Other, Polly, in Hong Kong. And spend some time down south in Krabi Thailand with my son Doug and his little fishing boat. On my yearly trip to Asia, I flew from Oaxaca to […]

OMG, it’s almost been a year since my last RTW! I am planning my next trip back to Thailand to get some teeth in November and to see my sons in Thailand and Hong Kong. I am beginning to anticipate…and remember… An expat took his laptop battery to the computer shop opposite Makro in Samui […]