Little Wandering Wren …. chats!

Ok, so I have now officially disgraced myself with the Americans… A little bit of backstory, I moved to Bangkok eighteen months ago. It was a tricky move coming from the eight times winner of the ‘World’s Most Liveable City’ Melbourne, Australia to one of the most polluted, congested and the world’s hottest capital city… I gave up a meaningful job that I loved, in the Not-for-Profit sector to become a lady of leisure.   I threw myself into life here. I enjoyed the travel and getting to know Bangkok, and we had loads of visitors, but this year everything changed when we moved into our forever place in Bangkok. Hated it, nothing worked, was miserable, so had a great summer traveling the globe visiting family and friends instead. Back in Bangkok, ready to immerse back into my Thai life, I am moving into a new apartment and ready to make some new friends, I joined a few expat organisations…   I know, I know being an Expat sounds glamorous, we have l...

We're on the move again, just call me Gypsy Wren! We took a decision when we arrived in Bangkok to take a short-term lease at Embassy Place Apartments. We couldn’t stay longer because the place will be bulldozed to make way for a new high rise development.  This week we said goodbye! But as moving is what we do, and it seemed like half a plan to take this bigger, better and cheaper apartment, even with the hassle of moving out...   In the dizzy excitement of Bangkok apartment hunting, we knew the moment we walked up the drive, that this was the one we could happily call home.  Come visit with me and see what you think... I have been blessed to have lived in some of the world's most wonderful cities; Hong Kong, Brussels, and Melbourne but I'm a country girl at heart, I can’t live feeling hemmed in.  I like the frenetic pace of life in these big cities, but I do need a retreat, a place of Zen calm.   I need to see light, ha...

Hello everyone, sorry I've been away from Blogland for a while. I disappeared into an amazing month where we had over thirty of our family and friends come from Australia, Asia, and Europe to visit us in Bangkok to help celebrate our Wedding Anniversary.  We offered a weekend of fun and festivities and ended up with a glorious month-long celebration, with friends dropping in before and after their extended holidays all over Asia. During this period Thailand was at the culmination of a year's mourning for the late King Bhumibol Abdoulaye. It was not the easiest time to organise a party weekend as basically all celebrations across the country were put on hold. Private events could continue, however, we were all concerned to ensure these were respectful given the circumstances.  I could well find that as event planning goes, our Friday night, complete with a Ladyboy finale, may well be up there as one of my all-time greatest life achievements, but I'll save t...

It is a fascinating time to be in Bangkok. We are seeing the final funeral preparations for Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej who died aged 88, on October 13th, 2016.  The world's longest-reigning monarch will have a spectacular final send-off which has been over a year in the making. His people will show their deep grief for a revered and unifying father figure of Thailand, who oversaw great stability within his 70-year reign, the odd coup aside! You can't walk far without seeing a picture of the Late King, the build-up is immense. Last week the Government added two extra official days of mourning. It feels like the whole of Thailand is preparing for the five days of ceremony, which commences with the cremation on October 26th.  There is some confusion over what impact this will have on our daily lives, but my long-term friends are heading out of town to the beach, expecting the huge numbers of visitors expected in the city to bring the city to even mo...

Imagine if you'd just arrived on Planet Earth and given tickets to a pop concert of one of your new world's biggest stars?  You knew you were going to something special, but you didn't know the artist or understand anything he was singing about...  How do you reckon you'd feel? We felt like this going to Pongsit Kamphee's concert on Saturday night. Who? I hear you say!  We tried to do our homework on Pu Pongsit, as he is known but clearly whilst he may be mega big news in Thailand, there is little written about him in English. We did discover that Pongsit is a much-loved folk rock icon who has been on the Thai music scene for 30 years. Thai people love his powerful storytelling. We could see he brings such passion to his lyrics which are on his thoughts about society, love, loss and life's struggles. We were delighted to have been offered VIP tickets to his show at Bangkok's aptly named IMPACT Arena and were pretty much the ...

Krabi, Thailand one of those awesome Thai holiday destinations, known for its beautiful backdrop of limestone cliffs, island hopping, fire dancing and ticking off the 'Live the Dream' Bucket List ideas.  Just look at this. It's not a bad backdrop backdrop for our first experience of Thai boxing is it? I'm not sure whether it is all the talk about James Bond, you can't escape the fact that the  'Man With A Golden Gun'  was filmed out in this Andaman Bay, but all of a sudden we've signed up for a private Muay Thai lesson. I don't know where  that inner Rambo came from! It's no real surprise that this area is famous amongst film buffs.   Leonardo DiCaprio's ' The Beach' is filmed out over there on the island of Koh Phi Phi and what impressed my husband most was the lobby scene from that dreadful The Hangover 2 movie was filmed in our hotel! We booked a four-night Krabi break back in  April when fresh-faced into Ba...