Friday 3 October 2008

In Oz...

Well, hasn't it just been forever and a day! I wonder if anyone still checks in at my lost and lonely blog these days...

Just for a one off update...J and I have been back in Australia on the east coast for almost 2 months, J got 2 jobs within the first 2 weeks of being here...both in Thai restaurants. He stopped working at one but is still happily working with other southern Thais in the other.

I have now got a permanent job starting on Monday, working for the government in the city, which I'm pretty stoked about...lots of perks and not too early starts!

We are both feeling very settled in and I am feeling fab.ul.ous about being back and having friends and having a social life again! Funnily enough (for all the long time readers) I've been invited to a karoke hen's night in 2 weeks time!! Karaoke!!! I just can't escape it!

I'm still thinking of making an Oz adventure blog but will wait til I've got time to burn..life is oh so very changed from the 'quiet' days in the village. Thanks to all who've been with me along the way, I hope you're all doing faboliciously wonderfully. xxxxxxx

Thursday 24 July 2008

Things I'm looking forward to...

It's less then a fortnight to go til we leave Thailand. We're planning on coming back for holidays and a friend's wedding in about 8 months time though.. I think without setting firm dates for coming back to the homeland, J would sink into a fit of depression, so we must have a yearly trip back.

I'm fantasising about western food like nobody's business!!

1. lightly toasted focaccia with sundried tomatoes, avocado and goat's cheese

2. a fat slab of fresh salmon and salad with balsamic dressing

3. real muslie with real, unsweetened yoghurt for breakfast every single day if I want to!

4. eating a huge variety of different food... no more rice twice a day with fish or chicken curry!

5. Cooler weather and not sweating for 18 hours a day!

6. hot showers EVERY day!!

7. real coffee in the morning without adding condensed milk

8. My friends! (definitely number one!)

9. Being able to have time alone again (I swear I am around people/husband every second of every day here! It's not natural damn it!)

10. Being able to read whatever I want, whenever I want! Horah!

hmm...seems to be mostly food related! Sorry friends and family..have to get the priorities right! ;-p

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Blowin' this Popsicle Stand...

Yay! Finally got J’s visa to immigrate to Australia! Only 8 weeks and 4 days of waiting. It’s such a relief to finally know what we are doing and be able to move on with our lives now.

We’ve been back in the village for over a month now spending ‘quality’ time with the folks before our imminent departure.. rapturous fun as you can imagine. Not much going down in the ville (apart from our mountain getting blessed last week which I may blog about yet!), hence the lack of communicado (not to mention being on dial up internet and having to wait approximately 8 minutes for one website to download). We closed the business up and I’ve been churning through the books I brought down from Bangkok. I am now on to a 30 year old book by Shirley MacLain about her found womanhood (!) and the last book I have, which I’m hoping like hell to not get up to, is ‘The Thorn Birds’, which is all I could find in Hat Yai on my last visa run! Quality goods.

Quite undecided if I shall continue writing an oz blog.. I’m thinking… yes! Once we’ve settled in a bit and got some hi-speed connections going on, I reckon we’ll be gallivanting around Brisbane enough to be able to waffle on a bit. Already in the next month I know we are going to the EKKA.. a fun filled week of show bags, rides, fabulous food and fanfare! I haven’t been since I was a kid and I want to throw J right in and see some dinky-die Aussie culture.. a kiddies birthday party and a wedding is also on the agenda. It’s all on folks, edge of your seat stuff!

We’ve got a week left in the ville, then up in Bangkok for 5 days, then on to sunny Brisbane. Can’t wait!!

Saturday 21 June 2008

Things I'll Miss About Thailand

Since we'll be leaving the country soon (no, still don't know dates!), I've made a couple of lists that I'll potentially continue to build on...

The Things I'll Miss about living in Thailand:-

  1. Easy going lifestyle
  2. So many smiling, laughing people around
  3. Being part of a real community
  4. The views around my village – mountain ranges, rice paddy fields, rubber tree plantations
  5. My father-in-law
  6. Street stall food and being able to holler out my front door at food vendor people passing on motorbikes to stop and feed me!
  7. Fresh food markets almost daily within a km of my house
  8. Living 15 minutes from half a dozen beautiful waterfalls and a hot spring
  9. How ridiculously cheap everything is (except petrol!)…$1 curries that feed 6 people, 1kg of oranges for 50c, gorgeous tops for $3, weekly grocery shop for 4 people for under $10, etc…
  10. Being told by complete strangers that I’m beautiful (perhaps this should be top of the list!!;-)
  11. Eight course Chinese style weddings every 3 months or so
  12. Having farm animals
  13. Having enormous amounts of space and land
  14. Being able to travel 900 km for less then $20
  15. Living only a few hours away from tropical paradise islands
  16. Seeing the King everywhere you go and the nightly 8pm update on the royal family on every tv channel
  17. Seeing 6 people on a motorbike with a poodle in the front carrier basket
  18. Old ladies walking around in lacy bras with no shirts!
  19. Seeing work men building roads, climbing up scaffolding, tarring roads wearing el cheapo rubber flip flop shoes
  20. Seeing the police wearing those skin tight uniforms (won’t really miss it, but it is amusing!)
  21. Fabulous shoes for under $5
  22. Squalling rain storms

Things I Won't Miss About Thailand

  1. MIL – goes without saying really
  2. Living with the parents
  3. Being surrounded by so much PORK! (and living next door to pig killers!)
  4. Fish Gut Curry and Geng Som (spicy yellow fish curry, a staple at 90% of meals in southern Thailand)
  5. Going to funerals and monk parties almost fortnightly and made to eat Fish Gut Curry whilst watching everyone else devour 7 different types of pork dishes…literally, I am not exaggerating!
  6. Being stared at constantly
  7. Having no friends close by
  8. Cold showers in rainy season
  9. The dust and mould the pervades everything
  10. Being told that I’m slightly fat (although #10 on the above list kinda cancels this one out!)
  11. Rampant corruption both locally and nationally at every level
  12. The smell of wet rubber (think vomit mixed with baby poo…really!)
  13. Seeing so many little kids with black, rotten teeth
  14. Being woken up at 5.45am every morning by the obscenely loud radio news program over humungo speakers 10 metres from my window
  15. Being ‘asked’ to do English school camps that I can’t say no to because my husband’s family are all bloody school teachers! (this is my number one actually.. it even beats the MIL!)
  16. Gangs of howling dogs in the middle of the night
  17. KARAOKE! (no, I really won't miss it, not even a wee bit!!)

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Around Thailand in 80 Days...

Well, about 40 days or so I should say...so, what have us tiddly winks been up to this last month gallivanting around the gorgeous tropics of Thailand.

1st: Went to Hua Hin... otherwise thought of as a developing resort area for rich tourists. Us not being in the afore mentioned category, we stayed for free at J's sister's newly purchased 3 bedroom house that was sitting empty waiting for us to give it comfort.

The beach is nice and all but not a scrap of shade to relax under. The dozen horses that mill about the main entrance begging for release from the hot sun but must endure beach runs worth 300 baht for half an hour and the toe to toe deck chairs that line half the beach are a real turn off.

2nd: My lurvy palio of over 20 years (bring on the aged pension!) came to visit for 2 weeks and was treated to all the luxury of village life.. Yes we did venture back not knowing what to expect but the parents were on best behaviour and J's mom actually touched me (!!!!) and told me she really missed me! Should have taken action aaagggesss ago!

Anyhoo...went to the day spa
Went to the cave but the lights kept on spontaneously turning off just as we entered the really dark area (thank goodness for the fandango torchy thang on my mobile!).

Went on the lotus boat trip again but at sun rise and wasn't disappointed..was vury purdy.

And the overall reason we made the trip back in the first place was so J's brother could get his new car blessed by our village monk. In over 3 years living here, I've never seen this done before so it was beyond cool. Monkio chants while walking around the car 3 times , then walks around it again blessing with water, pretty much trying to cover every inch, including the tyres of holy water, then he jumped in the car to write some scripture, then jumped out and wrote some more on the bonnet.

Went to my favourite waterfall in the ville, which is about 20 kms from home and palio enjoyed some uber risque rock jumping (jokes..very deep, hardly any rocks!)

Went to the hotsprings that are 7 kms from home and burned our lil bot bots off. It took a good half an hour just to get our feet fully submerged..scorchin'!

Then on another day we went to my other favourite waterfall..the biggest in our province and the place I fewl in lurve with hubby dear!

Back to Bangkok, went to Grand Palace (for the 5th time!)..is truly splendiferous though!

Also, just around the corner was Wat Pho, the home of the reclining Buddha and land of original Thai massage!

Went for a 15 baht, one hour boat trip on the Chao Praya River that runs through Bangkok and had a scrumalicious lunch at the other end of the public boat service at Nontiburi.

Then we went to see the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi (2 hours west of Bangkok). I've always wanted to go there and made it my mission before we left the country to go there. Well, it could have been my last mission in life due to my near death experience. We were staying at the wonderful C&C Guesthouse right on the river, not too far from the bridge when we went for afternoon nappage time and a squalling gale hit our humble little raft room. After the room started lunging around a bit, I'm feeling a wee bit insecure on just floating bamboo polls, when an almighty current hit us and I thought we were gonnas down the River Kwai to fall off some monstrous overhanging waterfall or some such. I had grabbed my bags and was about to jump ship when we finally came to a stand still and we went to inspect the damage. All the bridges that connected our itsy bitsy floaty home were in piles at the bottom of the river (well, almost!). We were a stranded! J ended up skimming over the top of fallen logs while I acted the damsel in distress and awaited proper rescuing which took about half an hour. Oh...the adventures!

After a short recovery (next day!) we rode a hire motorbike 68 km one way, up to Thailand's most beautiful waterfall...Erawan. And what a beauty she be! 7 levels of stunningly aqua blue crystal waters. Definately worth the trip, even though got a bit of a numb bum on the return leg!
So, that's me up to date... back in the ville now just awaiting visa news for J to come to Australia!

Saturday 31 May 2008

Just Pottering Aboot...

No, I'm not dead! I just have no computer while in Bangkok and am sustaining my life through a paid internet shop down the street, so don't really have time/dosh to download pics and update the blog for now.

We're still in Bangkok, have just had a fab 2 weeks travelling aboot with my ol' buddy and visiting tropical islands (Koh Chang), visiting the village for 3 days and lolling around at waterfalls and hot springs and all the touristy biz involved with being in the big city (like going to Grand Palace for the 5th time! Not that I mind cos it's super deluxe beautiful!). Having an awesome time and trying to delay having to go back to the ville actually! Off to Kanchanaburi (as in Bridge over the River Kwai place) for a few days as it's only a few hours west of Bangkok, then reassess the sitch.
Still waiting to hear back about the Australian visa for J, but good news that we didn't have to have an interview because it was so apparent that we're a real couple. **Sigh**always good to know that I'm not a trophy wife after all ;-D
Hope all is well in your worlds....