This site first came to life way back in November 1998 in what was nothing more than a small hobby website, very much a homepage for friends of mine back home to keep up to date with what I was up to in exotic Thailand.

The site started with three main section, "Living in Bangkok", "Teaching English in Thailand" and a page about "Naughty Nightlife in Thailand".  Each page was just a small essay on each of these topics, not the full-length articles you find on the site today.

It would be a lie to deny that the latter of the three sections was the most popular in the early days.  It was the part of the site that many readers tuned in for, and it was the section that grew the fastest.  I have always been fascinated by the naughty nightlife from an anthropological point of view and remain intrigued by the way poor Thai women from the countryside with a modest education can make well-educated, worldly Western men behave so bizarrely.

In 2000 "Travel In Thailand" was added and the "Naughty Nightlife" section was removed.  I was not comfortable with a lengthy article on that subject so I removed it.  That annoyed many readers and I received a huge number of complaints, as well as requests to put it back online.  At almost 100,000 words it covered many aspects of the way Western men become infatuated by Thai women.  I didn't relent and the article is history.

The first photo gallery was added in 2000 and a number followed.  Due to bandwidth constraints and my displeasure at the quality of the photos posted, I took most of them down.  That has been an unfortunate hallmark of the site over the years, parts go up, and then later get taken down!

One of the major turning points in the site's development was the introduction of the Stickman Weekly column, which began in April of 2001.  It was created so I could include news and views that were time sensitive and perhaps only really relevant for a short period of time.  Each column was dated so it was obvious the news and views expressed were not necessarily current.  There was so much happening that I wanted to write about, but which wouldn't really fit in to the larger sections of the site.

The Stickman Weekly column became very popular, very quickly, and had a large readership in late 2006 when I finally decided, after much consideration, to take a break from it.  The effort required in putting together what was essentially a 5,000 word piece each and every week just became too much for me and many aspects of my life suffered.  I also removed the weekly archives down at that time.  (They will be put back up online in the future.)

The readers' submissions section of the site started in July 2001, quite out of the blue.  I have always received a lot of email but I got one particular email that was so powerful, that I just had to include it in the site.  Again, there was nowhere on the site where it quite fit in so I started the readers' submissions section.  This is now a very popular part of the site and anywhere from 12-18 new readers' stories are posted every week.  This section of the site is also very popular and there are some real gems amongst them.  The quality of the stories sent in has improved over time and there are a number of regular writers including Dana, who wrote in excess of 200 stories!

Other sections of the site have been added over time, including a section with interviews of Bangkok personalities which was later incorporated into the Stickman Weekly column.  In 2006 I started what has now become the most up-to-date and comprehensive listing of free wi-fi internet connections in Thailand.

In early 2007 things came to a head.  For some time I had found it extremely difficult to juggle the site and other aspects of my life.  I would often tell people that my life was the "WWW" - work, wife and website - and there was little time left for me to do the things I wanted to do.  It was at that point that I handed the site back to its owner who is appointing some new guys to continue it.

It has been a long journey for me, but I feel my work has been done.

I do hope you continue to enjoy the site and I am confident that the site's core values will be preserved.

Best wishes,

Stick