A Blog Without End

This will be the longest blog I’ll be posting so bare with me there is a lot of things happening and the posts are back logged as I am quite busy these days doing things instead of writing about them. Now that I have a four day weekend which I have devoted to myself I have the time to write down what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks or so (time is flying by) and what I will be doing for Christmas/New Years etc.

Going from most recent to oldest news.

A fellow CANADEM volunteer David was in Bangkok for a few days while travelling from Laos to Krabi province in Thailand. He stayed at my apartment and had some drinks talked about Canada, CANADEM, and the job search afterwards. I’ve helped him a little in that regard, talking to Marcia about what his next steps might be and providing some information on the Masters programme I was in.

The long weekend was really good. Very relaxing. The weekend started Thursday night with a dinner at Marcia’s followed by a Myua Thai boxing match. It was interesting to watch and as I entered the stadium I was told that if I could give them two weeks’ notice I can go for free with a group of friends. Supposedly they give this deal to all Westerners living in Bangkok.

I took my first boat ride through the city. It turns out there is a dock right near my apartment which means I can now go from my place to the centre of the city for 8 Baht instead of the 100-150 Baht I have been paying for taxi’s and tuk tuk’s.

Hua Hin

I went back to Hua Hin two weekends ago to visit my Aunt Tip who was there visiting family and friends. It was nice to get out of the big city of Bangkok, especially with the current political climate, and good to see my Aunt again.

Hua Hin is a great place to spend a weekend away from Bangkok. Only three hours away it is close enough to make the trip there pleasurable (just read a few chapters from a book, in my case “World Without End” by Ken Follett) but also far enough away to escape the hustle and bustle of Bangkok life on one of the very beautiful beaches.


While in Hua Hin my Aunt took me to see monkey mountain which is a Wat (temple) on the side of a large rocky outcropping where monkeys also live. We arrived somewhat late however so I only saw one monkey. Still very nice though.

I thought about heading back to Bangkok late on Sunday but the weather in the morning was cold with overcast skies so I stayed near the guesthouse. When the weather did finally warmed up and the clouds went away it was after lunch and by that time I just wanted to head back to Bangkok and relax at the apartment allowing myself sometime to prepare for this week.
As some of you may have already read the PAD were somewhat successful in dissolving the government. Somchai has left office and the PAD have allowed the airport to resume operations.

Thai Vineyards

On Saturday a few weeks ago I enjoyed a nice day trip into the country with some friends from work to tour vineyards about two hours north of Bangkok. We met at around 8:30 in the morning which was an early start for me on the weekend. The fact that I had stayed up late the night before did not help. After we met we jumped into the shuttle bus which we rented for the day at a very low price. It took nearly a full hour just to get outside of Bangkok which the size of still amazes me.

We arrived at our first stop which was very nice for the first vineyard I had ever seen. Although the fields were nice to see and the tour on how wine is made was interesting the wine itself was pretty bad. I don’t know much about wine but I know bad wine when I taste it. The wine had very little taste to it. This might be because of the low latitude in which the wine is grown or maybe something about the grapes used. Either way I didn’t actually buy any wine although a friend of mine, Johannes, bought two bottles. After the first vineyard we stopped at a Muslim restaurant for lunch while on our way to the second vineyard.

The second vineyard was almost identical to the first although considerable smaller. What little taste there was to the wine was not very good and I instead enjoyed a cup of coffee, one of the many I had that day just trying to wake up.

After the wine tasting and vineyard tours we stopped at a nice village a little further north that was designed to look like a Spanish community. It was interesting to see as I felt transported to Spain. The buildings had very nice architecture and the ice cream was supposedly very good, although I myself did not have any. This was how we ended the day. On the car ride home most of us slept while some of the lawyers stayed up talking about Dumping regulations or something along those lines. Apparently it is when a country exports products and sells them for less than they would in their own country. From what I heard it is a really big issue.

That’s all folks.


Andrew