Thursday, February 26, 2009

Travel Update

I will be leaving the Island of Koh Phangan on March 3 to go to the northern city of Chiang Mai to stay with my friend for 2 weeks, he has a condo there and I was invited to stay 2 weeks.
I will be writing about my boat + train trip from the Island to Bangkok next week.
My flight leaves Bangkok to Chiang Mai the same day I arrive on the train. The train arrives at 5:30 am on March 4 and my flight leaves at 7:45 pm, so I will have some time to explore Bangkok and consume about 3 meals of incredible Thai food.
Believe me when I say that I am addicted to the food here, but I have also lost about 4 pounds and I feel great.

It is very expensive to fly from the island to Bangkok, I would say around 2700 baht which is about $80.00 one way, so i decided to travel Thai style and take the train for $12 one way.

My TEFL Certificate program begins on March 23 on the Island of Koh Samui, so I will go to Koh Samui on March 21 by Train + Flight from Chiang Mai. I will stay on Koh Samui until April 3 and after that I will go back to Chiang Mai. If anyone is interested in joining this program, please put my name, Joshua, in the referred by section. When the TEFL program finishes, I will be contacting my job recruiters to see what my options are for jobs in Chiang Mai.

The Thai school year begins at the end of May beginning of June, so I will begin work then.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Nature Catch of the Day



Amazing Dance Club on the Beach



So,the American group from China came to stay at my bungalow resort last week. They are in the Peace Corps teaching English in China.
Monday night we went to a beach party about 30 minutes down the beach by walking. This was an ultimate beach party.

Basically, it is a dance club on the beach. I have to say it was incredible. I did not bring my camera because there is a lot of stealing going on there, so i just brought 500 baht and my flip flops.
After arriving at the 'dance club on the beach' I was surprised to find out that the music was really good. They had crazy lights and a smoke machine; the energy from everyone there was really amazing. There were people from all around the world in this party, I think I will go again next time.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Nothing Going on for Now


Not much happening here on the Island. I am meeting a lot of people and making local Thai friends, they are all very kind people and eager to communicate. I am learning how to speak Thai also. The local Thai people are very receptive to help teach their language.
It feels like music to me, the more you practice your instrument, the more quickly and proficient you learn. It is also fun to practice with them, a lot of laughing and joking too; teasing is a must.
Most of these photos I have posted today are from the beach where i stay. Not very interesting really, but I am just testing my camera too. The first photo i like, it a night photo of the Squid Boats fishing overnight. This doesn't happen too often, so i thought i would get a photo of it. I like the contrasts in the photo, it looks like ufo's.
The weather here is usually 90 or higher everyday and around 75 at night. Soon it will get up to 95+ during the day, and 78 or 80 at night and all with no aircon. March and April is summer here in Thailand, then the rainy season comes beginning in May or June. There will be serious downpours soon also.
I will fly to Chiang Mai, to stay with my friend, in a week and a half. I will need to take a 3 hour boat ride to the coastal town of Chumpon, then catch a late bus to Bangkok. I will walk around Bangkok for the day, then take a taxi to the airport to catch my 7:45pm flight. I should stay in Chiang Mai for almost 2 weeks. It is much cheaper in that area too, so i will save a lot of money. I will also check out Chiang Mai to see how I feel about working there, as I do not know where I will live yet.

Night Photography


Night boats fishing for Squid.

Koh Samui Island night view from my beach.

This is the Bungalow resort cafe area at night where I stay for now.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Snapshots

Waiting for mom.

View outside my front door. $8.00 per night,
curry and rice for $1.50?!! Yeeooow!

Stinky Dirty Ears



On Saturday I woke up with a pain in my left ear and I could not hear very well. Even my right ear was very blocked. So, I decided to go to the clinic downtown in Thongsala and get it checked out before anything serious might happen.
I was lucky because there were no other patients inside.
The doctor called me into his office and asked me about my symptoms and he looked inside my ears. He said I have a lot of wax inside and he can clean both ears for me.
So the nurse took me into the exam room and told me to lay on my side. She then dropped some drops into my left ear and left me sitting there for what seemed like 20 or 30 minutes. Then the doctor came in and began rinsing my left ear with warmed bottled water only. It took him about 30 minutes or so just to get the wax out. He did this for both ears but the right ear was not so bad. I can say now that I have never heard so good in many many years.
I noticed right away that higher pitched sounds were more clear to me and I am lucky; the doctor said I did not have any damage to my eardrum in my left ear but was inflamed. Everything is fine now and I can hear as well as a dog.
This whole thing cost me 1,200 baht which is around $30.00 usd
I do not know how much it will cost in the US but I am sure a lot more.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Some Notes

Oh man, I'm not going to say anything about how awesome it is here...
I don't want to make you jealous...
1st, I have made it a point to get close to the local people here. They are really wonderful, and sensitive too. Not as much sarcasm as we are used to so I am careful with this.
There is much teasing though, and teasing is the way but without sarcasm.
Teasing while complementing being polite at the same time is the way.

I have met a girl here at the Internet Cafe and she is going to help me have a house to rent later after the TEFL program.

The weather is absolutely perfect! Hot in the daytime (good for relaxing) and cool in the evenings.
Every time I go to Thongsala town, I buy new T-Shirts and jeans and soon dress shirts to buy in Chiang Mai.
I bought 2 Emporio Armani T-Shirts for $10.00
Medium size is small size there.
In Korea, I bought some awesome jeans at the local Mall for anly $20 or so. I really wish I would have bought more!

My close Thai friend in Chiang Mai invited me to come and stay for 2 weeks beginning March 3. He owns a condo there and wants me to stay there with him.
So I am looking forward to everyday here, I am trying to keep busy, running every morning and swimming until around 10:30am when the sun gets incredibly strong. Then I go back to the beach at 4:30pm for more swimming and sun.

Time Travel Last Entry

This was taken in the Bangkok airport on my way the Koh Samui Island. Two guys from the Philippines came to talk with me, the one in the photo with me is BJ. There was a lot of laughing and good fun as we stayed together for 5 hours waiting for our flights. We were going to separate places, I was going to Koh Samui and they were going to Phuket Island. I wish I could have spent more time with him, but Bj will be back soon.


Here are a few of my recent photos I have taken from the area where my bungalow is.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Time Travelling-First Entry


Many people thought I was crazy to work up until the last hour that I leave, but I felt it to be quite economical in the long run, besides, I flew on Sunday and Sunday is time and a half pay here in Massachusettes.

So long story short:

6:00pm February 8; Flight to New York in a tiny paper towel tube plane.
12:30am February 9; Flight to Korea (15 hours) in a massive city in the sky plane.
Arrived in Korea at 5:19am Korea time, stayed in free hotel provided by Asiana Airlines for 12 hours and it was an awesome hotel too; the hardwood floors were heated, as it was cold like Boston, and it had a hot tub in the bathroom.
6:30pm (Korea time) February 10; Flight to Bangkok and arrived at 10:20 pm (Bangkok time) in Bangkok.
6:00 am February 11 flight to the Island of Koh Samui. I stayed in the Bangkok airport overnight and met 2 wonderful guys from the Phillipines; we talked and laughed for about 5 hours until I had to catch my flight.
7:05am February 11; arrived at Koh Samui airport and caught a taxi to the pier.
8:15am Boat departs Koh Samui enroute to the Island of Koh Phangan and I arrive 30 minutes later.

When walking down the pier towards the main town center, a thai girl comes to me and holding a sign that reads, "Taxi" i greet her in thai and we start talking a bit about where my reservation bungalow is. She knew where it was and showed me what to do. She spoke english also.
I noticed that most of the tourists were just shrugging her and all the other taxi drivers away kind of rudely as well. She helped me a great deal, and i made a friendship at the same time. The tourists seem to have an "everyone for themseves" kind of attitude disregarding the culture that surrounds them. Of course, this does not pertain to everyone, just the majority of what I see here so far.
I have had a great time practicing to speak thai with the taxi drivers and the local islanders here.
As I walk around town the taxi drivers were always hitting me up to take me somewhere. So I began to plan out what I wanted to say from my awesome roughguides thai phrasebook, and began speaking thai with them. Now, they do not hit me up for a ride and some know my name; they just wave to say hello and ask how i am doing today.
I have made it a point to only drink my coffee and eat my food at local thai cafes, as there are many people here from europe who have bars and restauraunts catering to the tourist. I want my money to go to the local people only.
For example, I stopped by an Italian restauraunt the other day just to see how the coffee was and the price was 80 Baht and the coffe sucked bad as it was instant coffee, blahch whatever! Later i stopped by a local thai cafe, they had a sign outside that said, "Real Espresso, freshly brewed coffee". The sign was 100% correct and I orederd an ice coffe even without looking at the menu, it was only 30 baht for a delicious iced coffee. 30 baht is about 85 cents. The Adventure continues...

Warmth

Warmth
Thailand Journal