Introduction to Wrong Way Home
Wrong Way Café
After a fair amount of toil and trouble, we opened Wrong Way Café on April 7, 2006, nine or so weeks after obtaining a lease. During my years here in Ubon, roughly three, I had not come across a single meeting place for
expats that was not deafening or otherwise unaccommodating, except perhaps for Swing Party House, whose talented band is somewhat calmer than most. Though foggy encounters, I had met, over these years, three other expats on nights out. Email addresses and phone numbers were exchanged, but these transient slips of paper inevitably suffered the suspicions of my wife and were unceremoniously discarded, or had mated with the little balls of lint in my pockets during a wet romp in the washing machine. I wanted a bar counter to lean on, a pool table to improve on, decent food to eat, and some friends to chat with while putting down a few beers. The Isaan section of the Thaivisa.com forum had numerous queries from those expats both living in the city and further up country about where we could get together. Western tourists, as well, walked around aimlessly looking for, it seemed to me, a place to hang out and get more information about the next leg of their journey. Ubon needed a dedicated venue that could satisfy these purposes.
I will eventually describe the odd, and often humorous experiences that transpired before and after opening day in my Tales section, including "barely" making my own wood-burning oven, but it was with great excitement and a strong sense of achievement, not to mention a modest sense of service to an isolated expat community, that I proudly, yet hesitantly, announced the then forthcoming opening of Wrong Way Café in that very same Isaan section of the Thaivisa.com forum. In their infinite wisdom, the moderators determined that any place for expats to get together in Ubon must be ill-intentioned or irrelevant, unless I paid them, so they abruptly cast my announcement into the Commercial Ads section, as if Id been announcing the opening of yet another bar in Pattaya. They were kind enough to leave a link, though, so no hard feelings.
So, feel free to check out the Wrong Way Café section of this website. In addition to information about our food and drinks, there will be information about the lodging (24 very nice rooms) we have available in back, and the ongoing events being held, such as monthly golf and Friday-night pool competitions.
The Ubon Weblog
Eventually you will be able to read The Ubon Weblog on this site, but for the moment I have to use this external link at ubonweblog.blogspot.com because of some technical difficulties I'm having.
The Ubon Weblog will be (pardon the future tense) a place where anything that is going on in Ubon Ratchathani and its surrounding provinces may be announced, discussed, debated, or ignored, depending on my personal bias. Readers are encouraged to comment on my entries and are invited to supply your own entries by emailing the webmaster using the link below. Unlike the All About Ubon Ratchathani section of this website, which is intended to be a practical guide to the area, The Ubon Weblog will have last minute, up-to-date information that may be of interest to many. So, check it out often.
All About Ubon Ratchathani
If one does a Google search for Ubon Ratchathani, one quickly discovers that information provided by the nearsighted and often colorblind Tourism Authority of Thailand is repeated on website after website, as if we exist in a pleasant but perpetually irrelevant part of Thailand. 
Were the mighty Mekong to change course ever so slightly, we would be part of Laos; we are simply that far from the thriving center of the Thai Universe. But there is so much to offer here, even if it only manifests itself in the form of the warm smiles on the faces of the locals. In Thai, there are some websites which offer a greater amount of information, but that does we expats little good (if youre looking for a good bar with sexy ladies to look at out of the corner of your eye, or directly, as the case may be, is your wife or girlfriend going to find that information for you?). Eventually, my intention is to provide information for both tourists who want to see the sights, and local expats who want to know a good place to have their shoes repaired. Its going to be an enormous undertaking, but lets take it step by step, together, if possible. Listening to my customers at Wrong Way Café , there is no limit, it seems, to sources of information. It shall be documented.
Tales
Tales are where this website began about three years ago. Tales of an American lost in Thailand. Blah, blah, blah. . . Unfortunately, a self-imposed censorship had overcome me. I shall try to fight it off. Anonymity is the key, so I hereby challenge you all to provide me with your stories; happy, sad, humorous, whatever. Names need not be provided, which means I can slip in a few anonymous tales, as well. Trust me, I will not reveal anybody's identity. Dr. John, do you remember when your pants fell down to your ankles when you were singing karaoke at Bob's? Just another tale waiting to be documented. . .
Archives
This is where the older tales continue to haunt us. There is no escape. . .