• CategoriesExpat Life · Travel

    Playing the Tourist in Phuket – Part 3

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    When I last posted, an ungodly amount of time ago, I left the story of my long weekend being a tourist in Phuket on the drive back from a cruise around Phang Nga Bay. The minivan dropped my friend, Malinda, and I at my apartment at about 6 or 7pm. We decided to immediately go and look for something to eat.

  • CategoriesExpat Life · Travel

    Playing the Tourist in Phuket – Part 2

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    My weekend of looking at Phuket through the eyes of a tourist, instead of an expat, continued with a trip to one of the most famous and impressive parts of Thailand – Phang Nga Bay. This has been on my bucket list for much of the four years I’ve lived in Phuket for yet, just like the Big Buddha, it has taken me the better part of all four of those years to get around to it. If it’s always going to be there, what’s the rush?

  • CategoriesExpat Life · Travel

    Playing the Tourist in Phuket – Part 1

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    During August, I had the opportunity to play the tourist and look around many of the key points of interest in Phuket. The reason was that a good friend of mine was visiting from Bangkok – Malinda. She was coming to celebrate my birthday with me, though she also wanted to do some surfing since Phuket is virtually the only part of the country with any descent waves.

  • CategoriesParadise Abandoned · Photography

    Phayun Beach Condo

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    My Paradise Abandoned project returns, but in an unusual format. A couple of weekends ago, I flew up to the quiet Phayun Beach area of Rayong province, just south of Pattaya, Thailand. It was something of an odd variant of urbex, in so far as it bore a closer resemblance to urban warfare than urban exploring. I was there for an airsoft event.

  • CategoriesExpat Life

    The Expat Bug

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    Living the expat life brings a lot of advantages and I would never choose any other. However, as much as I would like to continue with upbeat articles and share some more of the wonderful benefits to a life overseas, a friend was recently hit with some of the more endemic downers. I diagnosed The Expat Bug.

  • CategoriesTravel

    Overlander: Day 5 – On the Road

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    Alas, it’s not really an overlanding trip without travelling long distances by road. Several days of my adventure through Southern Africa in 2011 were just getting from point A to point B, and Day 5 was the first of these.

  • CategoriesExpat Life

    Why Being an Expat is Awesome

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    A lot of my recent posts have been rather negative about the expat life. Actually, a lot of my posts generally have quite a negative slant, but that’s an inevitable result of having been a journalist for a fair few years – you develop an innate cynicism which is hard to shift. Anyway, it occurred to me that one or two of my readers might be wondering why I would choose to live overseas if I apparently dislike it so much. The reason is simple: Expat life is awesome!

  • CategoriesExpat Life

    Why I Own a Tuxedo

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    I seem to recall reading or hearing some general life advice, at some point, which advised owning your own tuxedo. The suggestion was that it would save you money in the long run since renting them is expensive. I think that assumes that you would go to a great many high-society events in your life because I have owned a tuxedo since I was 21 and I think I’ve used it maybe twice in the decade since.

  • CategoriesExpat Life

    Farewell, Lady Macbeth

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    Alas, the Adventures of Lady Macbeth must finally come to an end, just as my time with my 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo did. If you recall the ending of the last episode, the old girl had just had another major meltdown. The electrical system was out, from a suspected alternator failure.

  • CategoriesTravel

    Overlander: Day 4 – Fish River Canyon

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    When I awoke on the fourth day of my adventure through Southern Africa with Dragoman, I still had the same energy boost travel always tends to give me. I don’t really like sitting and watching people labouring for my benefit, so I volunteered to help Dougie out with making the bacon-and-eggs breakfast for everyone.