Descriptions of places I have visited with tips and overviews
I am currently in Perth, Australia, and recently went to Rottnest Island to see the quokkas. There was information I would have liked to have known in advance, and I thought it might be helpful to share it. What are Quokkas and where are they found? Quokkas are marsupials and are roughly the same size…
Plus, is the show any good? I just finished watching The White Lotus Season 3 and loved it. As I mentioned before, tons of friends hassled me into watching the show because it was set in Thailand, where I live. I’ve been here about 12 years and have been asked about how realistic it all…
I just got back to Thailand after six weeks from the UK. I hadn’t been back to Blighty for around two and a half years and the difference was a bit of a shock. Nothing major, but enough to possibly be of interest to anyone travelling in either direction. I was in a Bangkok bar…
I am currently doing this weird thing called travelling abroad. People used to do it all the time, but it has fallen out of favour the last couple of years for some reason. Being something of a contrarian, I went from sunny Thailand to London. In March. I hadn’t left Thailand since 2019, so I…
Haunted Thailand now has a new book cover! You probably guessed that from the headline and above picture. It was a necessary purchase as the old one made me cringe every time I looked at it. I consider myself a creative person, I write and draw, but creative or graphic design is sadly not one…
I finally got round to getting a new book cover done for my ‘Australia, Morocco, Thailand’ travel stories collection. The previous ones I did myself and I am not ashamed to say, were bloody awful. There is a very talented lady on Fiverr who does them and it’s amazing what she can do with some…
A brief sojourn in Baan Krood, Thailand. As I mentioned last week, I have been travelling a lot recently but only locally. I live in Thailand, so local travel is what a lot of people travel around the planet to see (I don’t mean to gloat, we also have the coronavirus and pollution at the…
Winter is coming! I have had several friends and a couple of near strangers ask me when is the best time to visit Thailand when it comes to weather and budget. So I thought I would help. The two things are very much linked like everywhere else. My favourite time of year here in Thailand…
The internet is currently talking about the new Disney+ streaming service. I have to say, it looks amazing and I desperately want them to have my money. Except I can’t. I live abroad. I spend a lot of time in the UK but most of my life is based in Asia. I am currently living…
A month ago, I left sunny Bangkok for the equally sunny (but much less warm) environs of the UK, Lyon and Venice, where we saw the world famous Biennale. Which was great. I see a fair amount of art as I enjoy it, Mrs Word of Ward is an art curator and an ex I…
Travel writing, when done well, is a joy to read. It transports you to somewhere exotic, giving you a taste of the sights, sounds and smells of exotic foreign lands. A glimpse of adventure, reminding you that there is a big world out to explore and here you are, probably just wasting your time at…
You wouldn’t have thought a time lapse of a cargo ship sailing halfway around the world would be so relaxing and pleasant to watch. Especially 10 minutes of it. It really is though. Someone called Jeff.HK posted this on youtube and I meant to watch a little bit of it and get on with my life….
Dawn over Angkor Wat was beautiful. The huge Angkor Tom was amazing. Ta Phrom was downright cool.
Loving Vincent is a project that was begun by Hugh Welchman, the Oscar winning animator of Peter and the Wolf in 2006. He saw the Royal Academy’s van Gogh show in 2010 and decided he really needed a ridiculously long and involved project to sink his teeth into.
I currently live in Bangkok and transport is pretty dire/awesome depending on how you see it. When I first spent more than a couple of hours here in the early 90s, public transport was basically buses, taxis, tuk tuks, motorbike cabs, riverboats, songthaews, random elephants, blah and so on. There are now two skytrain lines,…
China’s Idea is to build a mega-city called Jing-jin-ji that encompasses the nine major conurbations that surround the Pearl River delta.
A fascinating clip called Hong Kong, Gateway to China which was released in 1938 shows how much the place has changed.
I have just moved back to Bangkok and need some Somtam money so thought I would plug my travel book: Australia, Morocco, Thailand – Three True Travel Stories.
The idea the plane boffins have had is to get rid of all the windows and turn the walls into massive screens. This has the benefit of reducing weight (apparently) and making the whole fuselage more structurally sound. Another big benefit is that it looks fucking awesome. Essentially, cameras will film the outside and then project the images on the inside.
If you have ever played Assassin’s Creed for hours then left the house, you sometimes find yourself looking at real life buildings to assess easy access to rooftops or cool things to run over. If you like Assassin’s Creed or Parkour then you should enjoy this 3 minute clip set in Paris.