I'm Richard Cain: designer, author and photographer for the websites Global Wanderings and Ethnic Minorities of Northern Vietnam and the blog 'Casa Azul'. I've always loved travelling and photography and so the websites grew out of my desire to share my photographs with family and friends back in the UK while I was away working for the British Council in Sri Lanka, Egypt, Vietnam, Tunisia, Thailand and Jordan.

In 2001, I bought my first computer cobbled together in a back street in Hanoi. From there I picked up copies of Photoshop (photo editing software) and Dreamweaver (Web design software) and the rest is history.

I loved Vietnam, especially motorbiking up into the mountains of the far north and taking photos of the amazing minority women. I was fascinated by the traditional clothing still worn by the majority but frustrated by the lack of information about the area and the various minorities. I therefore decided to set up my own website. Spurred on by the success of the Ethnic Minorities site I uploaded further photos of my travels and collated them into the website globalwanderings. The most comprehensive coverage is that of Thailand (there are 20 separate pages) where I lived between 2005-2007 and Jordan between 2007 and 2009.

From September 2009 me and my partner Jackie embarked on a new project and a new life - We bought an abandoned farmhouse in deepest Portugal and the story is told on my latest blog: Casa Azul

In addition to wesite design, I'm also very interested in podcasting and with Jackie, who is a writer for Macmillan Education, we have created the site www.podcastsinenglish.com It's designed for teachers and learners of English as a second language but I hope most people will find something of interest or fun in it. In addition to podcasts there are videos and plenty of other bits and pieces.

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, I'd love to hear from you. I can be contacted at: richard@globalwanderings.co.uk

Enjoy the site!

Richard and Jackie