Category Archives: thailand

Travel Health: Bimuno Travelaid

travelhealth

This is a photograph taken with my dear friend Rungnapa on my second trip to Thailand in 2006.  We first met when my husband and I were teaching English for the summer in Bangkok.  While he could not be here for this trip, I wanted to show him the amazing Thai food he was missing back in California.  Purposely we had the photo taken after we had just finished an amazing meal at Mama’s, a place we had frequented back in 2004. It is hard to have a bad meal when traveling in Thailand with the different flavourable tastes and wide variety of vegetables and fruit from the region in south east Asia. Continue reading

Elizabeth’s Expat Life in Thailand

Welcome to another Travel Tuesday here at ACR and I look forward to reading all your posts of wanderlust and travel in our link up today.  I have a special post for you which has been written by one of my sponsors this month and someone I feel blessed to call my friend.  One of the most amazing things about blogging is finding someone who may live on the other side of the world, but who is your kindred spirit.  Elizabeth is that person to me and today is taking over my blog to whisk you all away to where she is living the expat life in Thailand.  Feel like seeing more beautiful photographs of her life there then head over to her blog The Bradleys!
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I am so thrilled to be able to write today on Bonnie’s inspirational site. You see, I am one of those fellow ‘third culture kids’ turned third culture Mums, as well as a British American. Bonnie and I have a lot in common, including the fact that we are both photo geeks and grew up in Asia and Europe. It is confusing (very) and can frequently lead to odd conversations with people ( ugh).

My family and I currently live in the Southern Thailand, on the beautiful island of Phuket. I started our family blog The Bradleys  to share our daily life as a family that values spending time together above anything else; we especially love holistic living/parenting as well as travel. Despite being a ‘third culture kid’ I had never heard of this term before I discovered Bonnie’s blog and TCK series. For 30 years I have struggled with my cultural identity, expressing who I am and where I am from to people. It sounds odd at first but when you think of how many countries across the world are filled with immigrants, in reality this is quite common. In fact here in Phuket, the local population isn’t 100 percent Thai but a mixture of Hokkian (Chinese) and Thai, which is called baba. I found this fascinating as I was ignorant on Thai heritage until I first visited Phuket Town and saw all of the Taosist temples and realized that there was a heavy Chinese cultural influence.

Our little 5 year old daughter Kaya is a fellow TCK and global citizen. When she was born, we decided we want to raise her outside of the US (living in LA for 8 years had taken a toll on us) and closer to where I grew up in France. My husband however, felt hesitant to move there and instead decided to take a job teaching ESL in Korea. The experience was interesting but my husband ended up coming home from work late in the evening, with more work to do before bed. It was exhausting. We ended up moving back and forth for several years until we came back to Phuket a few months ago. We’ve lived here for two years in total, with a 4 month stint in Scotland. Our intention was to settle down there permanently but due to changes in the spousal visa, we were forced to leave until the politics get sorted.

Phuket is a lovely place to live. Safe, excellent food, and permanent good weather ( well we do get a lot of rain too…), it’s been a lovely place to be based. This week is the vegetarian festival where the whole island adopts a vegan diet and street vendors sell vegetarian delights such as coconut icecream! The Thai culture is very respectful of foreigners and our daughter has several close friends that she plays with. She is also picking up Thai, which is fantastic. And yet, we are craving settling somewhere permanently, and we’re not sure Phuket is the right fit. With having family in the US, UK, and Canada, we’d like to be somewhere closer for them to come visit and vice versa. There aren’t many homeschooling families on the island, nor is there a close knit community for expats per se. The majority of foreigners living here year round are in their 50s and up.

Travel is an important form of education and we feel from the last 4 years of traversing the globe our family has experienced things we never would have if we had let our dreams get diminished. We had many set backs along the road to finding home, so to speak, and even though we haven’t found where we want to call home, we have picked up pieces of ourselves where ever we have visited. The world is filled with beautiful people looking to express themselves and find fullfillment. We share flaws and goals. We are more similar than different.

*images original to The Bradleys blog. Please get in contact if wanting to use anything from their site.

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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.

HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link! 😉 
3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday at 8 am GMT.

4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!

5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!

Tailoring in Bangkok, Thailand

The first time I went to Thailand was for a Summer in 2004 with my husband to do mission work. We had heard from the other American students all about getting suits made while in Bangkok.  I would have loved to get one however I was about to start my second trimester and was already showing.  A maternity suit that would not last though out  my entire pregnancy was not on my current shopping list of souvenirs from South East Asia.  In 2006 I returned to Thailand and went on to visit Cambodia with my mum to go to the Asian Mission Forum.  Before leaving to go back to California my mum surprised me with getting a suit tailored in Bangkok, Thailand.  There are many tailors to choose from and some may have their perks. But basically whichever you choose you are going to be getting a suit custom made for you for way less than it would be in the US.
I have memories of waking down the the street of designer stores with my dad as he picked out the suits he liked best to have a tailor make him.  It is what inspired me to have a seamstress make the designer bridal gown I fell in love with for my wedding.  Aside from that I did not know exactly what to expect when we first entered the shop.  Upon arrival we were sat down in the reception area, looking through books of photos to choose the design we liked best.  Once that is decided you choose your fabric.  I also was getting blouses made to wear with my suit and was excited to choose the fabric and colour for those.  I have never had a blouse fit me perfectly from a department store.  Either it is too tight on top, or fits the bust perfectly but is too lose in the midsection.  I have to say after getting my blouses back, you can never go back to off the rack.  If you do, you will want to get them tailored before wearing them.  
My three piece suit (Jacket, trousers, and a skirt) are still in my wardrobe seven years later.  I have gotten to wear it on multiple occasions despite not having an office job.  The photo pictured below of me in my suit is from the Balvenie Whiskey tasting at the infamous Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California.  While I still love my suit I would love to go back to Thailand and come home with three more suits and maybe seven blouses.  I know my husband is still a tiny bit jealous he did not get to go.
Q: Have you ever had a suit tailored for you? Where did you get yours made?  Would you go to Thailand just get clothes?

XX,
B.

The Muppet Movie and Thai in Brighton

Headed back in the cold to go to Brighton 
Maddox ready for some food!

Window candles at the Thai restaurant 

Hot Green Tea

The boys love Thai food!

Fun family time

Ryan on his phone

Ronan cleaned his plate…as did Maddox. Good boys!

Left over Valentines decorations

Pretty pink pout. 

Muppet Movie Madness!

Love Love LOVE Miss Piggy!

Manifold [Meet Bonnie Rose]

NEW: Newest article is now published online at theManifoldmag.com Click the link below to read it. http://themanifoldmag.com/post/16438804851/meet-bonnie-rose
1. WHO:
Who are you?  In 100 words or less (a hundred words usually comes out to a small paragraph). 
Who are you? The answer to that question is as easy to answer as the question, “Where are you from?”  That seemingly easy question of just four words still always gets a dramatic pause from my lips. I used to answer it simply, “No where.”  In University I was taught to embrace a more positive response of ‘everywhere’.  A bit of an exaggeration, but  provokes a smirk or chuckle from the questioner. I am a proud TCK (third culture kid…google it), a military brat, a semi-missionary kid, former military wife (still married, just not to the military), and traveler with two citizenships who holds her personal identification to 4+ countries. 

You last meal consists of two things, what is it:

Vegetables and Brown rice. I have labeled my family ‘Flexetarians’. We have been vegetarians and vegans for certain periods of our life. In the past I have been frustrated with individuals who would make fun of my vegetarian diet or question whether the way my family ate was ‘healthy’.  Or then be teased in periods when I did eat meat for not being a then strict vegan.  Labels can be annoying, especially for a girl who finds herself in the grey area of life.  To me food is more about the health benefits and my love of good tasting food. My husband and I do strive to continue to use food as fuel for our bodies and some nights may be a vegan meal, while another we may be eating fish.  The important part for us is to be flexible, and embrace new ideas and keep life enjoyable.

Two websites aside from email/facebook/twitter that you go to the most:

Pinterest.com   

I did not want to join, finally got sucked in and it is a great place to find ideas, inspiration and motivation. 

Projectfree.tv 
My only way to keep up with my favourite American shows since sites like Hulu, Pandora, and IHeartRadio do not work in the UK. 
Two favorite cities and why…

This is really hard for me to answer because I could easily put a number of two city combinations here.  I have traveled so much in just 29 years of life. I am going to side with emotional reasons for places being my ‘favourite’, and perhaps not the wonders that I saw. 

I say the closest to home I have is Napoli because we had the opportunity of living their twice for a total of just about six years.  During that time I have gotten to go to Lucca.  It has these Renaissance-era walls that surround the city and you can rent bicycles and ride on top of it. In the summer they have amazing artists come and I got to see James Taylor play (with Sting as his improntu guest for a song).  It is such a beautiful and historic location.
Austria. Salzburg. Innsbruck. To be quite honest, I love the whole country.  My favourite time to go is during the skiing season for snowboarding. I love the beautiful sights, the snow, and of course the food.  Germknödel anyone? 
3. What?

What do you do for a living?  

I am a mum first and foremost to two boys.  I also work as a hair designer at two salons here in Burgess Hill and Brighton. On top of that I am a freelance pro photographer who specializes in lifestyle portraiture and fashion and a makeup artist trained in airbrush makeup.  I love being creative.  

What was the first and last album you bought?

First album was Grave Dancers Union by Soul Asylum and the last one was  Lights is the debut studio album Lights by English recording artist Ellie Goulding.

What is your nickname, how did it come about?

‘BonBon’ is the nickname most people come up with who become close acquaintances or friends in my life.   I have a close friend who calls me Bonzai. Not sure how he came about with that one, but I like it a lot. My sister calls me ‘B’ which I may prefer over Bonnie.

What tattoos do you have if any?

After my father passed away I got his plane tattooed on my forearm, an F-111E.  Without meaning too I have added to the tattoo by burning my arm on an iron while protecting my kids from it.  Now my plane looks like it has a jet stream leaving it. I also have an outline of a black star on my right foot by the toes for my Esther, my favourite female in the bible.

4. IF.
If you could anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?

New Zealand. Closely followed by Russia and Morocco.  I chose New Zealand because it was one of the those places I wish I had gone when I went backpacking around Australia.  I am a huge avid fan of Tolkien’s books like the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Having seen the films many times over I would love to go see those beautiful landscapes in person.

If you could only pick one person to go with you on this trip who would it be?

My partner Ryan.  The last place we got to go on a real trip to was Thailand back when I was pregnant with our first child.  We were there for the summer doing mission work and helping Thais practice their English.  Since then I have gotten to go back to Thailand and go to Cambodia. My husband has gotten to go explore Japan shortly after the tsunami last year and is going to Marrakech, Morocco shortly with his classmates from University.  I look forward to getting to actually getting to go on travels and trips with him around the world together.  It is a passion of mine and something we have not gotten to do much of with his previous commitments with the military.

If your friends were to describe you what would they say?

It might depend who you ask and what country they are from to say how they would describe me.  In England, I am perceived as an American. In the USA I was perceived as not really American but a girl from Europe. Despite whatever cultural differences people may describe about me I would think they would say that I was passionate, creative, driven, and loving mother.

Where can we get a hold of you:  Here’s where you give us all your links:

http:www.bonnie-rose.co.uk