Welcome!

What an amazing world we live in...to watch an audio slideshow introducing my website, please click here.
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I had an interesting job last week—shooting images for a company that was exhibiting and presenting technical workshops at the 2nd Asia-Pacific Water Summit in my hometown, Chiang Mai. My brief was to provide images of interested visitors at their booth as well as members of staff interacting with VIPs (mostly heads of state).
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Though my task was only to take photos, I couldn’t help forming an impression of the event as an interested bystander. Like everyone else, I’m a big fan of water, and I dread the day when our taps run dry. Unfortunately, now the summit is over, that day seems closer than ever. 
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Photographers at the Water Summit

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On blamming

Don’t you just hate the internet? I mean, the worldwide web is amazing, with more information and entertainment out there than any of us could cope with in one lifetime, but when bugs start creeping in with unwanted attachments to emails, or suddenly your cursor freezes with no warning, cyberspace can become a real drag.

One of the worst problems for email users is spam, but I see on Wikipedia that my current problem, people spamming on my blog, is now referred to as ‘blam’. I’m now being blammed on a daily basis, and although it’s rather irritating, it has its amusing moments too.
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Last week the TV news channels like BBC and CNN droned on for hours about the death of Margaret Thatcher, but this week they gave a single minute to the passing of Richie Havens—a gifted singer and songwriter who helped to forge the consciousness of the hippie generation. Since there are unlikely to be any eulogies of Richie on TV, I feel duty bound to rattle on for ten minutes about this heroic person.
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The life of a guidebook writer can be full of surprises, such as world-famous clients suddenly disappearing overnight.

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I was just about to go out for a Friday evening meal with a few friends, to enjoy a few beers and some witty conversation, then thought that before I left home I should check my email to keep my inbox clear for the weekend.

Big mistake.
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Can you trust
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When Stephen Kaufer was planning a holiday in Mexico about a decade ago, he couldn’t decide which hotel to book, and a thought occurred to him that might have occurred to any holiday-maker: “Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a website where anybody could review any hotel or restaurant and share it with the world?” Wish you’d got in there first? Kaufer’s tripadvisor.com is now the world’s most popular travel website by a country mile with around 60 million visitors a month and growing. But is it really the answer to everyone’s travel-related prayers?
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It's official. By a landslide (well, 3-0), visitors to this website have voted for the shorter version of how to say this year, so the vote is now closed, and I hope you'll all go around calling this year 'twenty thirteen' rather than 'two thousand (and) thirteen'.

To be truthful, I'm relieved about this, as it seems pretty obvious to me, but I still hear people calling it 'two thousand and thirteen' every day, particularly news announcers on the BBC and CNN, who I would think should know better. After all, we didn't run around at the end of the last millennium talking about 'one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine', did we? And can you imagine us texting each other at the end of this millennium, saying 'OK. C u at 4pm on 4 March two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine'? No way, we'll need shorter ways to communicate by then...if indeed humans are communicating at all.

So thanks for your participation - all three of you - and enjoy all the wonders that twenty thirteen has in store!
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Don't get me wrong - I'm not that hungover that I still don't know which year we're in, but I'm having a problem with how to say it, so please help me out here and let me know how you say the name of this year.
When I hear people say 2013, they seem to be split about 50-50 between these two ways, so let's see what you think is correct.
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On the afternoon of 1st January this year I got one of those emails you hope you’ll never get, with the succinct title ‘sad news’. I took a deep breath and opened it. It was from Lisa, the partner of Mo, a friend of mine, saying that they’d been partying like everyone else on New Year’s Eve, and when they got home, Mo sat down in the kitchen and asked for a drink of water. As Lisa turned to the fridge, Mo’s heart gave out and he keeled over. Gone. Departed.
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If I ever stop and wonder why I choose to live in North Thailand, I only need to get in the car or on the motorbike and go exploring the Northern hills. There's a wonderland out there that just begs to be discovered, and last week I took a couple of days out with friends to hike up Doi Mon Chong, which is located in Om Koi Wildlife Sanctuary, about 200km south of Chiang Mai. It's one of the most remote areas of Chiang Mai Province, and the only habitation around there consists of a few villages of the Lahu and Karen minority groups.

Because the area is under the protection of the National Parks Department, we had to contact the local ranger and make arrangements for a guide to drive us to the trailhead, then walk up with us to the campsite near the summit, and lead us back down the next day. We also hired a couple of local Lahu porters, dressed in wild pyjamas, who carted our heavy gear such as water, food and tents, in huge bamboo backpacks.
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The summit of Doi Mon Chong

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I sometimes despair of our modern world (as you'll see if you read my new book) when I read or hear about people's obsessions with techno-gadgets like GPS devices to help them find out where they are. However, there's one aspect of the modern world that is a wonder for me, and that's the possibility of self-publication. 


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As with many writers, I find there's always a gap between what publishers want me to write and what I'd really like to write myself, which leads to a fair amount of frustration. However, I've spent the last couple of weeks struggling with re-formatting the text and images for this new publication, Searching for Shangri-La, and now it's been released both as an ebook by Amazon Kindle and as a print-on-demand paperback from Create Space, another branch of Amazon.

Searching for Shangri-La consists of a collection of short writings culled from over a couple of decades, describing unusual places or experiences that I have come across on my travels. Since they are very personal and opinionated pieces, they are the kind of stories that are difficult to sell to magazines and websites, which prefer their travel stories crammed with hard facts.

Nevertheless, I have confidence that there are readers out there who will be intrigued by such writings, which are (I hope!) both entertaining and informative. So please consider splashing out $2.99 (for the ebook edition) or $4.99 (for the paperback edition) to read the entire collection, and if you find it a worthwhile read, please tell your friends! To see a sample, click here.

Ron's Blog

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Ron Emmons 

is a British writer and photographer based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.