Let's dive straight into some teaching blogs and begin with something by a young lady named Katie from her Planet Roamers site. Katie did a teaching internship at a small village school in Ayuthaya and with the help of some nice photos, has put together a good account of her adventures - which included a few late nights on the sauce with her Thai teaching colleagues.  

We always enjoy a detailed visa run blog on these pages and in June of this year, Lauren Melnick made the trip to Savannakhet in Laos to get a non-immigrant B visa. From how to get to the border to what documentation you'll need and the time-frames involved between submitting and collecting your passport, Lauren has got it all covered.

Something for those studying the Thai language. Hugh Leong loves explaining things. And during his 40 plus years of trying to learn Thai and its culture, he learned to love the cross-cultural aspect of living in a foreign country and speaking its language. His series, Thai Language Thai Culture, covers various aspects of learning Thai, and how the Thai culture influences how we say things. Here's Hugh's latest blog on the ten essentials of Thai conversation.

As I'm compiling this list of interesting links, the thunder and lightning is crashing around the house and I've just been looking at some photographs of an extremely flooded Sukhumwit Road in Bangkok. So many thanks to the What's On Sukhumwit website for their 'Guide to the Monsoon Season'. How will the rainy season affect you?

"When I chose to travel, I chose Thailand, where the trousers are strictly printed and baggy, the drinks are drank from buckets and the curries are as hot as the climate. Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Krabi, with a quick stopover in Quatar - the biggest adventure of my life so far. I had never seen this side of the world" - so says Floraidh Clement, a travel blogger who looks a lot of fun. Definitely one of the better Thailand travel blogs I've read.

Something for the hopeless romantics now. Check out this blog if you're thinking of taking someone on a date in Thailand. Perhaps it's a luxury date you're looking for or to drink under the stars or share a taster menu. What's this? A Japanese bath! On a first date?

"Although street food has long been synonymous with Bangkok, the city is steadily sweeping the sidewalks clean of its vendors" This was the introduction to a good read on the BBC travel website about yet another aspect of Bangkok culture that is sadly disappearing in the name of progress. 

Still on the topic of Thai culture, let's turn to Thai nicknames. If you've lived here any length of time you will at some stage or another, met a Poo, a Porn or a Pee. Well according to this article in the New Zealand Herald, Thai overseas students are being asked to ditch their nicknames to avoid the ridicule of their student peers. 

Thailand has some of the strictest on-line defamation laws in the world so this was an interesting story that caught me eye from the Coconuts website. The story of a 29-year-old woman who is making sure a cyber bully pays for their actions after she found a photo of herself on social media with a caption making fun of her body.

I remember when I first moved to Thailand over 20 years ago and one of my relatives asked me if I would be able to buy soap here and if they had showers. I genuinely think my auntie thought we all just jumped into the nearest canal in order to keep clean. You've been there too I guess, in which case you'll thoroughly enjoy reading '6 Things I Wish My Family & Friends Understood About Thailand' 

Happy reading!