My car is about 1 year old now. Some stats:

• 18,000km traveled which is about 350km per week. I've done a few larger trips: Khon Kaen (3x, 1000km round trip), Yasothon (1200+km), Kanchanaburi (400km); as well as driving to work most days (25km round trip).
• 600 Baht per week spent on fuel (normally Gasohol 91, which is 10% ethanol and 90% benzene 91 octane). Average price of 26.5 Baht/litre. When I bought the car the prices peaked at about 37B/l, but dropped down to 15B/l at one point.
• 14.7 km per litre or 6.8 litres per 100km.
• Insurance was free for the first year, but I just paid for the second year: 16000 Baht for first-class insurance through Aioi; 1600 Baht for government taxes.
• Free service for 100,000km, however I had to pay about 3000 Baht for oil/parts for my 10,000km service.

The car is running fine. Only two complaints so far: my reverse parking sensors don't work very well - they often sound constantly (meaning I am about to hit something) whenever I reverse, even when nothing is nearby. Thats something that Toyota will fix for free when I take the car in next. The other problem is the blind spot caused by the front right frame between the front windscreen and drivers side window. I notice this mainly when turning, especially U-turns, as I need to lean forward to look at the front windscreen or look out the side window. I haven't noticed such a problem in other vehicles I've driven, but mainly its because of the many U-turns that are made in Thailand (on many roads you can't turn right - you need to do a U-turn and go back and turn left). Having good visibility in this area is important especially on large U-turns (e.g. under bridges) when you may find motorcycles on the wrong side of the road coming directly at you!

But in summary, I've been very happy with the purchase. The fuel statistics are constantly updated here.

Well, the holiday is over and its back to work. We got back to Bangkok about 11pm Wednesday night.

It was a great time, not only in Adelaide, Halls Gap, and Flinders Ranges, but also spending time with the family on the farm and around Mt Gambier. And of course, eating some of delicious food, especially Mum's home cooking (I put on 4kg!).

Plenty of photos in the Gallery.

From April 10 to 13 this year was the Easter long weekend. This is a time when many people go on a holiday, often camping or in a caravan. Wan, Brenton and I went camping the Flinders Ranges, a large set of mountain ranges in central South Australia considered the start of the Australian Outback.

On Thursday Wan and I drove from Kongorong to Adelaide (about 5 hours), picked up Brenton from his work about 3pm, organised our camping gear and supplies at his house, then drove another 2 hours north of Adelaide to Clare Valley. This is a good place to stop on the way to the Flinders (which is another 3 to 4 hours drive, not because it is one of Australia's many popular wine regions, but because our friends Rob and Meg live there and we get free camping. We set up our tent at their place, enjoyed a BBQ dinner, and got on the road again by about 11am Friday. [Rob and Meg have a nice simple setup on their 100 acres, and about a week after visiting them they had their first kid, Willow. Check out their journey).

We drove via Jamestown, Orroroo, Carrieton and Craddick to Hawker and then arrived at Wilpena Pound (the heart of the Flinders Ranges) about 3pm. There are two caravan/camping parks: Wilpena Pound and Rawnsley Station. Both are pretty good - this time we stayed at Wilpena Pound for $27 per night (unpowered site, 3 people). You can also stay in the National Park, especially in places like Brachina Gorge, which is much more peaceful bush camping.

The weather was perfect for the trip. Everyday was about 28 degrees, with the occasional cloud. At night time it was not too cold, especially with the fire. What did we do there? A lot of time was spent relaxing with a beer at the camp site. On Saturday we went on an easy 3 hour trek up to Hill's Homestead and then to a lookout with a great view of Wilpena Pound. On Sunday we drove up through Bunyeroo and Brachina gorges, and then back towards Wilpena via Stokes Lookout. There are plenty of other places to go and things to do, but this weekend we all wanted to relax a bit. So after a couple of boxes of Coopers and half a dozen bottles of red we made our way home to Adelaide on Monday (and then back to Kongorong on Tuesday).

Photos are available in the Gallery, as well as at Brenton's Facebook page.

Halls Gap is a small tourist town in the middle of the Grampians, a mountain range in western Victoria. We spent 2 nights there at the start of April, staying in the Halls Gap Caravan Park in the middle of the town.

Halls Gap is about 300km from Kongorong. There were 3 car loads that went: Peter and Allison; Brett and the family in their car; and Wan and I in Brett's Jeep with Dad's new camper trailer on the back. Its a nice setup, taking about 20 minutes to put up and includes queen mattress on the trailer, plus floor space for about two more, as well as a large annex.

The caravan park wasn't too busy, with most people staying in cabins and caravans. We had the open camping ground to ourselves. In the early morning and late afternoon there were plenty of kangaroos around the park, coming up to our camper trailer. Peter and Ally slept outside in their swags, and had kangaroos almost walk over them.

On arrival, after setting up we had a walk around the park and town then settled down to some drinks and dinner. The next day we all made the trek to the Pinnacle, a lookout above Halls Gap. Before going home on Sunday, we all drove up to Stawell (home of the famous Stawell Gift) and visited a couple of wineries in Great Western.

Halls Gap, and the Grampians in general, are a great place to visit with many opportunities for bush walks, camping and mountain climbing. Check out the Photo Gallery for more pics.

The Red Ochre restaurant in Adelaide serves modern and native Australian food to a very high standard. I've been there several occasions, including dad's 60th birthday party and most recently to celebrate Wan's 30th birthday.

The restaurant is located on the northern side of the Torrens river, with a great view of North Terrace including the Convention Centre, Casino and high rise buildings. There is not much immediately surrounding it (golf course, park lands) so it is best to get a taxi there. A taxi will cost about $10 to $15 from most places in the city. Note that the Red Ochre restaurant is upstairs - there is a cafe/cheaper restaurant downstairs operated by the same people.

The main attraction of the Red Ochre for many is the unique food: it serves Modern Australian food made with many native Australian ingredients, especially herbs, spices, fruit and vegetables, combined with Australian meat and game: beef, lamb, kangaroo, emu, crocodile, pigeon and more. On all occasions I've been there, the food has been delicious. This time, with both of us being small eaters, we ordered some bread for starters and then went straight to the mains. I had the kangaroo fillet and tail, while Wan choose the duck with riberry sauce. As with most Australian restaurants and pubs, the servings were quite large and we were both full and satisfied at the end. We didn't order extra salad or vegetables (knowing that the mains would be big enough) but in hindsight we should have just to mix things up.

Being a Thursday night in Adelaide, the restaurant was not full but there were still quite a few people in there. We had a corner table by the window overlooking the city lights. The atmosphere is hard to beat.

You can find a couple of photos of our food, as well as other food we ate in Australia, in the Photo Gallery.

Such good food and service is of course not cheap. It set us back $160, however that included two bottles of wine: a big Cab Sav and a refreshing Moscato after dinner. For a special occasion, it was worth it.

Wan and I stayed at the Country Comfort Adelaide motel at 208 South Terrace when we arrived in Adelaide. This was one of the cheapest motels I found on the Internet within Adelaide CBD and Mum and Dad had said it was ok in the past. Before flying out home we spent another two nights here. Although there is nothing special about the rooms and service, we found it a great spot for what we wanted to do in Adelaide.

First, don't get confused with the many Country Comforts around Adelaide and suburbs. This is the Country Comfort on South Terrace. It is owned and operated by the same people running the adjacent Grand Chifley Hotel and the Chifley on South Terrace. That is, there are three different places all next to each other: two hotels and a motel. You actually check-in at the reception of Grand Chifley and can make use of their facilities. We had breakfast included for one night and that was at the Grand Chifley.

On our first stay the room was $100 per night, and the second stay just $80 per night (booked on wotif.com). This is without breakfast. I booked a room with a double and single bed, since there was a possibility a Brenton would stay one night with us (it turned out he stayed 3 nights. There is supposed to be a $30 charge for the extra person, but we didn't say anything about him staying and no-one asked so that was free).

The room was normal size with a table and two chairs, space for suitcases, wardrobe, TV, mini-fridge, iron and standard bathroom (including shower in the bath). It was an old room, but everything worked and was clean. The rooms were on the eastern wing, numbers 1, 2 and 17. Mum and Dad had a room with queen bed one night (on the western wing, number 37?) - this room looked a bit newer with a renovated bathroom (shower, but no bath).

Although not in the heart of the city (around North Terrace), the location was convenient for us. It is only a 5 minute walk to King William Street where you can catch a free tram through the city. Or you can walk for another 10 minutes to get to Victoria Square and Central Market (and another 10 minutes to the shopping and entertainment area - it is only 2km from one side of the city to the other!). There are a few pubs within walking distance (Brecknock, Kings Head, Gilbert Hotel), a small grocer/convenience store on Gilbert Street and a few nearby cafes for breakfast or lunch. Of course it is a motel so there are plenty of car parks. A bonus of the location is that Brenton works on the corner of South Terrace and King William - a 5 minute walk away. We caught up with him on several occasions after work, usually starting with a pint of Guinness or Pale Ale at the Brecknock.

If you are looking for somewhere cheap to stay so you can explore Adelaide, and don't require special service or fancy rooms, then I recommend staying here.

On arrival to Australia, we had four nights in Adelaide, staying in the city at the Country Comfort Motel on South Terrace. Adelaide is a quiet city. Although the population is about 1 million, the centre of the city is small and everyone is quite laid back (to the extent that the city is almost dead on weeknights and Sundays).

Staying on South Terrace, within 5 minutes walk of King William Street is great because there is a free tram running from South Terrace to North Terrace during the day. Most shopping, cultural and entertainment venues are near North Terrace. Some of the things we did while in Adelaide included:

• Shopping (or at least window shopping) in Rundle Mall
• Visited the South Australian Museum (free entry)
• Wandered down North Terrace admiring the statues and old majestic buildings, and through Adelaide University to the River Torrens
• Lunch and shopping in the Central Market, which includes Chinatown and some good Asian grocers
• Tram to Glenelg Beach
• Coopers Pale and Sparkling Ales, as well as red wines at the Austral and Exeter on Rundle Street
• Dinner at the Red Ochre Restaurant (see me separate review), as well as at pubs and restaurants around Adelaide

On Friday we borrowed Brentons Pajero and drove up to Cleland Wildlife Park. Here is a great collection of Australian animals, most of which you can get close to and feed. We saw: kangaroos, koalas, Tasmanian devils, emus, echidnas, bandicoots, wallabies, wombats and all sorts of birds. There is also a snake farm. Well worth a visit if you are in Adelaide.

On Saturday morning Mum and Dad arrived in Adelaide and we all went up to Barossa Valley for some wine tasting. The first stop was Chateau Barossa, a new winery built by the guy who owned Chateau Yaldara. The wines were not special, but the highlight was the large rose garden outside. It was opened by the Queen Elizabeth II on here previous visit to Australia. Lunch was at a snack shop in Tanunda (Wan tried a Hamburger with the lot and was full after 1/3 of it). Then on to Jacob's Creek Winery which had some nice wines.

Back on Adelaide we had dinner at the Gilbert Hotel. It was great food and atmosphere until I noticed the last couple of mouthfuls of my chicken schnitzel was uncooked. Not sure how much of it was uncooked but luckily there were no side effects the next day.

On Sunday we made our way to Mum and Dad's home in Kongorong near Mt Gambier (about 450km south of Adelaide).

Tuesday night Wan and I are off to the land girt by sea. Its time for a well-deserved holiday and to catch up with friends and family.

On Wednesday I was at Sukhothai Hotel in Bangkok to be interviewed for the daily English talk show Morning Talk. I spoke about the IT and Computer Science activities at SIIT, including some of the interesting topics we teach (mobile Java applications, BitTorrent), the National Software Contest (NSC), and the scholarship opportunities. In the NSC this year two of our groups one prizes - one for a Thai Wikipedia question answer system, and the other for a mobile application that speaks messages sent to the phone (good for driving or for people that have trouble reading).

Before the interview I had a 10 minute chat with the host, Kipsan Beck, before we got into the recorded discussion. I was pretty nervous so don't remember much of what I said - but the hotel looked nice! You can watch the full interview online now or try to download from the Maxnet site (Episode from Monday 23 March 2009).

Its mid-March 2009 and 200+ final exams for Semester 2 have been marked, which basically finishes teaching for 2008. In semester 1 I taught only one course (Introduction to Data Communications) whereas this semester I was somewhat more busy teaching Security and Cryptography for 3rd year CS students, Networking Lab for about 90 3rd students and Internet Technologies and Applications for another 90 3rd and 4th year students. Anyway, finished teaching until next academic year starts in June. Time for a holiday!

This New Years I was invited to the home of May and Jum, two sisters who work with Wan. They come from Yasothon, a province in north-eastern Thailand. I had a great time there, except for the time spent driving and feeling sick. Unfortunately that was about two-thirds of the entire long weekend.

The first thing was getting there. Being a 5 day long weekend, there was going to be a lot of people on the roads. Having to work on Tuesday 30th of December, we left on Wednesday 31st (New Years Eve). There were two cars going (I was driving Wan and her friend Nee), although not driving together. We decided to leave early in the morning to avoid the heavy traffic. Unfortunately 5 million other Bangkokians had the same idea. We left Thammasat University at 5am and within 5 minutes of entering the main road (Pahonyothin, Highway Number 1) we encountered traffic jams (i.e. traffic stopped or travelling a mere 10kph). There was at least 4 lanes of traffic all the way, some times 6 lanes. It took us about 6 hours to travel the first 110 km's. The many petrol stations and food stops along the highway were full. After Saraburi (normally a 1 hour trip from Pathumthani, this time more than 5 hours) the traffic improved and we managed to get up to reasonable speeds of 80kph. We took the bypass around Khorat, staying on Highway 2 until slightly after the Phi Mai turn off, then made a right turn onto road 207. At this point the traffic lightened, although now we were on a single lane road. Traffic jams came in spurts, most often due to accidents, traffic lights or police check points.

Police check points were setup in almost every small town. You also saw police stationed at major intersections. From what I saw, the police were not stopping people (e.g. for speeding), but rather there in preparation for accidents. Some of the check points also doubled as places were you could stop for a rest. I had the feeling there major focus was on safety, rather than collecting money from traffic infringements, which I thought was good.

Including several food/toilet stops, we finally arrived in Yasothon at 6pm. A 13 hour trip. Not something that I had planned, and I probably wouldn't have done it if I knew it would be like this, but didn't have much choice once we got started. Because we were going so slow, the first 6 or 7 hours were in fact easy driving. But by the time I arrived in Yasothon, my right ankle/leg and bum was killing me.

The others left Bangkok at 3am, but still hit the traffic and it took them also about 13 hours.

Given the long day on the road, New Years Eve was not going to be big. After eating hot pot with all the family and having a few beers, I was in bed by 10pm! I was awoken at midnight by some very loud fireworks being set off nearby. I got up to see them for 5 minutes, and then hit the sack again.

The next morning the extended family were up early for a trip to the local Wat to offer food to the monks. Then after breakfast we drove to Mukdahan, a town/province about 100km's from Yasothon and on the border with Laos. There we went to Phu Pha Thoep in the Mukdahan National Park. This was some rock formations which were nice to wander around for an hour or so. For lunch I had some delicious (and spicy) Som Tam and Laap Bplaa, as well as a local delicacy, Moo Yaw. After lunch the others were shopping in Mukdahan town, while Wan, Nee and I went for a drive further north to Kaeng Ka Bao, a popular spot on the Mekong River and the Second Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge. We also stopped at a large Christian church - apparently Christianity is reasonably popular in this area, as well as the provinces north of Mukdahan. It was another long day, arriving back at Yasothon at 7pm.

That night we headed to the Yasothon nightclub for some whiskey, live music and dancing.

Early the next morning I wasn't feeling well. At first I thought it was the whiskey (although we didn't drink much, a bottle between 6 of us), but then I started firing at both ends. About 10am, Win drove me to the local hospital where I spent the day and night with a saline drip.

The night in hospital and 4000 Baht for private room and medicine was well worth it. The next morning (Saturday) I felt fine, and in an attempt to avoid the traffic going back to Bangkok on Sunday, we left Yasothon about 11am. Another 13 hours drive though - this time the traffic was mostly between Yasothon and Khorat (from Khorat onwards it wasn't too bad).

So overall, the things that I managed to do - Phu Pha Thoep, Kaeng Ka Bao, Friendship Bridge, disco - were good fun. Unfortunately too much time was spent in the car and hospital!

Photo Gallery

SIIT held its Annual Seminar (end of year trip) in Cha Am town (in Cha Am province). Most of the staff and faculty from SIIT went down to Cha Am on a bus on Saturday morning.

After speeches and lunch, Saturday afternoon we went to a Royal Project for planting trees, where everyone got to plant a single tree.
This was a little disappointing for me, mainly because I was expecting that we would be planting lots of trees (i.e. doing some hard work). Instead we spent a good 45 minutes waiting for the previous group to finish, then listened to a talk and movie for 45 minutes then spend 30 minutes planting a tree each. The holes where already dug for us - we just had to unwrap the tree, put some dirt around it and splash it with water.

A couple of us had a swim Saturday afternoon, but the water was freezing for Thailand's standards. Dinner and shows were held on Saturday night, as were some drinking sessions on the beach.

We stayed at Long Beach Hotel, Cha Am. This was a large tourist hotel with standard rooms, and all the facilities you could need. It is in a great location, about 50 metres from the beach.

Photo Gallery

On Constitution Day (10 December), I drove Ahe, Ann, Maew and Philippe to Safari World in the outskirts of Bangkok. We spent the entire day there, most of which was walking around the zoo and viewing the shows held throughout the day. Towards the end we drove around the open-air zoo. I had been to Safari World before, but only had time to do the open-air zoo then.

Although its a long day, I really enjoyed Safari World and recommend others take a visit. Being a public holiday, it was quite busy, but you only really noticed that when the shows were on. The shows we saw were: Sea lions, Dolphins and Beluga Whales, Cowboys, and the Bird Show. There were a couple that we missed as well. All the shows were entertaining and appeared very professional. In between the shows we wandered around looking at the large selection of animals.

Entry was a bit steep (420 Baht) but given the selection of shows, animals and the whole place was well-run, it was ok for a day of entertainment.

Photo Gallery

No, I don't mean the Test match in Adelaide. At about this time I should be arriving in Dunedin in New Zealand to attend a conference (PDCAT'08). It was to be my first trip to New Zealand. Although I had four days of conference to attend, I was looking forward to the visit - enjoying some good food, some famous white wines, Speight's Brewery and catching up with colleagues.

Unfortunately, here I am still in Bangkok. Both Bangkok airports (Suvarnabhumi and the old Don Muang) have been shut down for about 5 days due to the protests by the PAD Thai's. No, not the delicious dish, pad thai, but the People's Alliance for Democracy.

From what I can gather, there are two main political sides in Thailand: the Democrats (and PAD) that have the support of the middle/high class based mainly around Bangkok; and the PPP that have the support of the poorer, rural folks mainly from the north (Chiang Mai) and north-east, i.e. Isaan. I'm not sure how the south of Thailand fits into this - of course, there are other significant problems there (1000's of people killed from fighting between Buddhist and Muslims). The PPP have the numbers (i.e. win elections), whereas the Democrats/PAD have the power (money/army). Throw in a guy who made billions from satellite communications (IPStar), and probably millions from dodgy deals as a prime minister, his brother-in-law (the current PM) and Samak (the previous PM sacked because he enjoyed cooking), and you have a recipe for confrontations between the two sides. It hasn't been too violent yet (handfuls dead from small scale grenade attacks), but there is a lot of tension that things could turn ugly soon. The only saviour may be the King, who has his birthday this Friday.

This is of course an over-generalisation of some very complex issues within Thailand. In practice, apart from a missed conference, it hasn't affected my life here much. I don't have any additional concerns for my safety, and life is proceeding as normal. The only thing is that I might start carrying my camera with me more often, in case I come home from work and find the streets lined with tanks again.