Thailand May 2010

Sorry for the delay in posting new news however my computer decided it didn't want to talk to the blog; thinks are corrected now so all good.
Just returned from 3 weeks in Thailand, 18 days in Koh Samui and 2 nights in Bangkok. Mandy & I had a week in Samui by ourselves just relaxing, heat wave when we arrived, 41 that day and 43 in the north of Thailand, if fact it was the hottest we have ever had it, so stayed in the shade a lot and only saw sun when we were swimming, which was a lot of the time but only quick swims.After the first week Darren arrived from Phuket where he had 3 nights and we had a great time with him. 4 days later Seb (the tall one) & Courtenay arrived so the last week was spent with the 5 of us there. We upgraded to the private suites so we had our own village around our private pool, which was awesome.I had Thai lessons everyday with Oi, who is a great old friend of ours, she used to work at Chaba but has taken a year off to learn German in the north west at Chang Mai, she's in a picture with Mandy below. So now I'm thinking that I might have to take a night course to continue on and blow them out when we next go back.Did a day cruise on a 33 foot catamaran across to Koh Phanyang (sorry for the spelling) and had a number of swims at various locations and lunch at a great restaurant on top of huge rocks, same place we went last year.The 3 juniors had a number of nights out while Mandy & I entertained the bar staff, after the bar was shut, until the wee hours.
We met up with Janet and Kara for our last night in Samui which was great fun, Seb and Darren hit the supermarket and bought a ton of fireworks and in between downpours let them off, which was an awesome sight, people were coming into the bar from everywhere, bloody funny!!!!!Then we all flew off to Bangkok to see the aftermath of the Red Shirt protest, some seriously burnt out cinemas and shopping centres.
Then the flight home which we managed to sleep the entire trip, which was great.
I had 2 days work this week and on Monday I commence a 3-6 month contract as Operations Manager of a relatively new venue called Carriageworks, which is an old railways yard building in Everleigh Railway Yards refurbished into an Arts venue, so looking forward to that.
That's about it to date, so take care and stay safe.
Lots of love,
Weiry & Mandy

Middle East Trip

Well I suppose it's time I updated you all with some photos of my whirlwind trip to Qatar for the World Indoor Athletics Championships. I got an email then a call from my dear friend Ian Hamilton who wanted to know if I was interested in getting over there quickly for a couple of weeks work as the Construction Manager for the Opening Ceremony. 24hrs later I was on a plane to Dubai then on to Doha, Qatar. We had 2 weeks to build a number of pieces for the Ceremony including the ramp pictured, it's 24m long and 4m high and the flag bearers for all the countries walked down in onto the arena floor. It was a bit of a nightmare to get it built but in the end it was all good.From Doha I caught a plane to Amman, Jordan via Bahrain where I hooked up with my driver and drove 3-4 hours south to end up in Petra, which is one of the places to see on my list. Unfortunately it was a very quick trip, stayed overnight when we arrived then went into it the next morning at 7am. It was bloody freezing, I had a T-shirt and 2 long sleeved shirts on and was still cold. Amazing place carved into the rock faces from 400BC. Only had 4 & 1/2 hours there and back to Amman overnight then 5 flights home. Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney. Didn't do my sickness any good and it took 3 weeks after I got back to get rid of it.
Today we fly out to Bangkok where we will overnight at the airport hotel then on to Samui tomorrow. Back on the 29th, will try to post some updates while we are away.
Take care!!