Author: Sarah Northway

Hey hey.

This is a map of the internet in Thailand: http://iir.ngi.nectec.or.th/internet/map/current.html

See all those blue circles (there are 20 blue circles with a bunch of lines comming in and out of them for those too lazy to click on the link) those are proxies where ISPs are legaly required to route all Thai traffic in and out of in order to censor (mildly) the intertubes.

See wikipedia uses your proxy ip to enforce bans. Consider this fact and the fact that everyone in Thailand is split among 20 proxy servers and guess how long my IP stays un-banned at a stretch. Shitty.

On the bright side the talk page for my IP is pretty amusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:203.147.0.48

Also, quickly: I haven’t updated the flickr page in a while. This isn’t because I haven’t been taking pictures. It is because I have been taking shitty pictures.

note: this is not a blog

I am now the proud owner of one very large kite (actually two).

After spending some time thinking about the possibilities for the future I bought a rig. Among the key considerations: kiteboarding beaches in Tokyo are accessible via public transit, there are large and active communities in Van and Vic, February is the best month for kitesurfing on Koh Phangan, and whenever the wind is up my heart starts to beat out of my chest until I strap a kite to it.

So Woot Woot. I spent all day hangin under my kite. Well, I spent more time walking up the beach because I still suck at kiteboarding and can’t go upwind yet. But after a solid 4 or 5 hours today I have improved an order of magnatude. I predict in the next few days I will be riding upwind and that will be awesome.

Although I find being bad at something is often as fun as being good at it. Especially when that thing is really hard. It’s kind of nice having that clear goal ahead and knowing you just have to put your head down and try and try and try until it starts to work.

In fact I have a theory about why sucking at something is so much fun: because the best part of games, sports, whatever is learning them and getting better. And when you’re really bad at something you’re usually learning at a tremendous rate.

So yay for sucking at things because every time you fail you get to have the fun of guessing why.

A bird
Originally uploaded by Daveybot.

No, we didn’t take this picture… I’ve been trying to get a shot of the Mynas who are scoping out our gutters for possible nesting sites, but they’re all agitated and flighty these days. They’ve been so vocal lately as they fight over nesting territory; really the most beautiful and diverse bird calls. I’m not sure why everyone here keeps Red-whiskered Bulbuls in cages for their pretty songs (they even have singing competitions!). In my opinion the so-called pests, the Common Mynas, sound just as interesting.

You could say Colin has also been flitting around various activities. He has taken up bouldering, as much as one can do it without climbing shoes anyway, and he’s starting to build up calouses on his fingertips for the first time in years. Photography is still going strong; he’s even started referring to the Flickr account has his portfolio. :) And today he’s out kiteboarding again and thinking about buying the equipment now that the season of optimum wind has started.

And I’ve been… writing a game! You may remember Beeble World, a webbased game that Colin and a few friends worked on several years ago. Well this is a webbased mmorpg of the same name, but is otherwise completely unrelated. ;) This is something I’ve always wanted to do and is even more fun than I’d imagined. Plus I’m learning a lot about Java, Flash and game design. I’ll let you know when there is something to show.

Lastly, the dogs live! Well most of them do; sadly Rope was killed by a truck a few weeks ago. But I thought they’d all been poisoned or something when they disappeared in mid-January. Turns out a visiting French couple have taken on the duty of feeding and caring for them. We went up to their place last night and practiced our French; it’s remarkable how much harder it became as I got tired; maybe this is why I did so poorly at French in High School?

Laurence has a friend who was recently offered a job teaching english in Thailand. He asked me about our experience thus far so I wrute the following email. After writing it I thought it was probably a good summary of the events thus far so:

Hullo!

You are a much more experienced traveler than I am and I am well into
my second gin and tonic so remember that as I try to find something
useful to say.

I have not been to Rayong. As you know from the travel journal (not a
blog!) we are living on a southern island in the gulf.

I found the transition easier than I had expected. Thai people are
outwardly very friendly with a good command of english. We have
learned next to no Thai and have had no problem with tasks as varried
as setting up stalite internet and buying squid at the local market (a
good command of numbers is useful).

On the other hand we have made very few Thai friends. Here, at least,
friendship between Thais goes only so far. Thanksin’s major political
party was, afterall, ‘Thai Rak Thai’ or Thais love Thais. Not Thais
love people, or Thais love the world. Comming from a Canadian
perspective of multiculturalism this took me by surprise.

That being said, a friend of mine taught englush in a northern
mountain village and had the opposite experience. I can put you in
touch with her if you like.

Living on the Gulf of Thailand is extremely pleasent. As I write
this, in the dead of the Thai winter, I am slung, shirtless, in a
hamock connected to our internet connection wirelessly drinking a gin
and tonic listening to the lap of waves on the beach. The temperature
stays near about 30 degrees all year. It is essentially a paradise.
I’m sure Rayong is similarly blessed.

I know Rayong is close to Pattaya, which is a popular beach due to
it’s proximity to Bangkok. Locals here do not speak highly of it.
They also don’t speak well of Bangkok, which I can personally atest is
a smelly, foul city very unlike the rest of Thailand. Still, living
within striking distance of Bangkok will be usefull for those hard to
hard-to-find items.

In terms of money: we spend 15,000 baht a month on an air-conditioned
house right on the beach with a full kitchen and western style toilet.
A place to live can be obtained much more inexpensively. If prices
in Rayong are similar to prices here I would guess that 5000
baht/month would get you a small 3 room place with no
air-conditionaling near the beach.

Food costs vey little. Thai food eaten out cost 40~60 baht for a
really great Thai curry. Western food costs more like 100~200 baht.
Beer in a restaurant goes for 60 baht a bottle and is half that in a
store. We go to the vegetable market a few times a week and buy an
armload of fresh Thai produce to cook our own curries for basically
nothing.

It is probably possible to survive on 5000 baht a month but
comfortably on 15000 and exhorbitantly (like us) on 25000.

Personally, the first three months went extremely quickly, but I will
be glad to move on to new scenery after six. The lack of deep
relationships with Thais makes me miss family and friends no matter
how heavenly the climate (and it is spectacularly pleasent).

Hope some of that is usefull. I’m happy to answer any specific
questions about our experiences.

Colin

but seriously: http://www.todayonline.com/articles/166274.asp