I saw my first ever seahorse - seepferdchen in German - while diving a Karst wall near Ao Nang in the Andaman Sea a couple of days ago. Renate Schoenbach and her daughter Julia - pronounced Yoolya - from Deutschland have joined us in Thailand. They've decided that my German language skills need some work and have placed me in a course of study. I've found over the past week that this sometimes gets in the way of what I'm trying to write or say. The ...

 I was just listening to Elenka who was having a Dionne Warwick, "Do you know the way to San Jose," moment. A few days ago we found ourselves at the bus station in the Andaman coast town of Ranong where you catch the ferry to the island of Koh Phayam. It had taken a far-too-fast five hours to drive what should have been a six-and-a-half hour journey from Prachuap Khiri Khan, over on the gulf side of Thailand. We were travelling in a 15 person mini-bus and I fel...

 Daniel and Sara live in Sweden. They come to Bangkok every couple of years, but they might very well know this city better than Elenka or I know Toronto. We flew up for the weekend to visit these two wonderful Swedes who'd recently returned from a tour of North Korea. They'd booked us a room next to theirs at the Siam II Guest House and then took us on a whirlwind tour. We walked from one park to another in search of paper mache pandas (see photos); too...

  "Live and Let Die", was Ian Fleming's second James Bond, 007 novel. I've just finished reading it. While I do find Fleming's work to be quite well written, his Bond just isn't the same one I grew up with on the silver screen.    In the below excerpt from "Live and Let Die", 007 has rescued the beautiful Solitaire from the clutches of the gargantuan, evil Mr Big. They're on a train, in a luxurious 'private' compartment, travellin...

 Koh Jum is a small Thai island in the Andaman Sea not far from the coast. It's inhabited by sea gypsies and has quite a large Muslim community. Its visitors are mostly from what used to be called Western Europe. Elenka and I had mixed feelings after our first two nights on Koh Jum. The only reasonably priced place we'd been able to find had dark, airless cabinas with no electricity, hence no fan. On the flip side the place had tasty grub and a good vibe...