Little Wandering Wren …. chats!

Dear Blog I'm sorry for the neglect, I am waiting for my new life in a hot land far away to settle into some sort of regular pattern... and maybe to feel cool with it! I'm not sure what my 'normal' life here in Thailand will be. Slowly each day things are starting to seem a little more familiar. I hardly notice the wires in the street, the uneven pavements, the strange smells wafting in.  I am beginning to feel less like all is foreign and I'm less like a foreigner. Slowly I'm feeling like I belong. I am getting more adventurous, I have yet to make it in the back of a motorbike taxi, but the weird and wonderful street food is starting to be more tempting! Of course, the Lifers can spot the newbie in town by my huge bag. I never leave home without being properly kitted out. I take my Japanese paper fan, plus my electric fan, a lady can never have enough fans in these sweaty Betty conditions. Together with a face cloth to dab my glo

Ever since I arrived to live in Thailand, I've been in and out of Bangkok like a yo-yo. A combination of accompanying my husband on his business trips and a holiday to Laos has seen me amassing Airmiles like nobody's business. I'm pretty sure I'll soon have enough frequent flyer points to get me to the moon and back, possibly in a private spaceship.  Arriving back in Bangkok last week the weather was it's usually steamy, sultry self. I find it hard to believe that our Thai summer is now officially over and hooray for this as I'm definitely not my best in these conditions. Five minutes of waiting outside for the car to arrive and I'm a puddle of a mess. Humidity is not my friend. Surprisingly Hong Kong was far less humid and all I can say is bring on the Bangkok rains which are supposed to lower the temperature... Oh, and my upcoming trip to the UK. This should sort out my desire for some cool reprieve. Bring it on. Despite the 'oh no, I'm b

As it's Sunday, I thought I would share photos from the  Buddhist alms giving ceremony that we participated in this week in the  UNESCO World heritage city of Luang Prabang. Laos is an amazing holiday destination and we frequently asked ourselves why it has taken us so long to get here?  1. Laos is Authentic: it's real, it's raw. It's is one of the world's least developed countries where you appreciate the simple pleasures, whether it is a stunning landscape or walking through streets and villages where time seems to have stopped still. We were invited to take part in the alms giving ceremony by our hotel the Sofitel in Luang Prabang, who every day at dawn provides food for the monks outside their sister hotel the 3 Nagas. Having witnessed the schmozzle of badly behaved tourists at Mandalay in Myanmar last year, I was a bit nervous about the cultural appropriateness of this. This had degenerated into a weird push and