Half way house

Half way through the CELTA course and it's been a hectic last couple of weeks. Weekdays have been running pretty much 8 til 6 with lesson plans in the evenings, and weekends we have assignments to do. It's certainly not dosser friendly. It's been really good though and I feel like I've learnt a lot so far. A typical day includes seminars in the morning on various aspects and techniques of teaching, and then teaching practice in the afternoons with authentic English students. It's been getting progressively harder as the days have gone on because the tutors expect you to put into practice all you've been learning. I managed to do really well in the first week but not quite so well this last week so I'll have to really put in the work to get back on top of my game next week. The other thing about the course that's tough is that its in a shopping mall, and you stay in this mall all day. This morning is pretty much the first time I've seen the sun all week!

I can't complain about being outside when it's raining which is has been doing a fair bit. The rain is something else in Bangkok and when it does rain, the streets are flooded and the traffic comes to a complete standstill - a nightmare if you need to get a taxi. On Friday night I got absolutely soaked to the skin walking from our apartment to a restaurant on the main road (a distance of about 400/500m). I felt a bit like a modern day Indiana Jones as I leapt over the various deluges flowing across the pavement whilst at the same time trying to position as much of my body as possible under the one little umbrella that two of us were sharing. My hard work was to little avail as I still turned up at the restaurant looking as if I had swam there.

Victory Monument

On a drier note, I shoud probably mention something about the apartment that Tim and I are staying in. It's near Victory Monument, down the same road I stayed in on my first ever night in Bangkok over four years ago - the infamous Soi Rang Nam. The apartment is pretty big, with a fairly large open plan living area and kitchen, a big bathroom, and a big bedroom with two beds. It also has two balconies. It's become part of our daily routine to drink a cold milo with some oreos before bed out on the balcony. There is a great view of the tallest building in Thailand off to the left, and to the right we look out over a park. The park has a running track and exercise bars which have proved very useful, and everyday at 6pm about a hundred people gather to do aerobics accompanied by loud Thai dance music. You can also spot people doing Tai Chi, martial arts, and badminton. Pretty much a stereotypical East Asian park I think. It's great!

Suan Santhiphip (Peace Park)

So there are two weeks left of CELTA and then it'll be time to get a job. It's going to be really busy but such a good feeling to complete it. I'll next update you when we're all done by which point I'll hopefully be the bearer of good news. That'll do for now though. Take care all.

From Phuket (to Bangkok) with Love

Greetings from Bangkok. Yes we have made it. But not without a few days at the beach. Having flown from KL, we arrived in Phuket to the warm welcome of P'Piew and Jay, two former students turned friends, who had organised for us to stay in a place called Sunset Mansions. It wasn't quite a mansion, but it was a great little house with everything you would need for five days beach time. It felt like utter luxary after some of the windowless boxes we stayed in in Malaysia.

Our days in Phuket were lazy days. A typical day included getting up after 10 to 12 hours sleep, moving downstairs for breakfast. Chilling for a couple of hours. Having lunch. Chilling. Going out on a motor bike or in our rented car to another beach/view point/mall. Eating. Coming home. Chilling. Going to bed.

Patong beach, where we were staying, is quite developed as a tourist resort. The beach itself is lovely and sandy and the waves are big making swimming quite enjoyable. The tsunami hit Patong back in 2004. You wouldn't have thought it apart from the signs marking out evacuation routes. Despite it being low season there were lots of people about and we couldn't really walk anywhere without being offered a taxi, massage, or drink in a bar.

It was a good few days in Phuket but I've been itching to get up to Bangkok since we arrived in SE Asia. Now we are here and I'm in my element. In just two days we've already sorted out where we're staying - within (fairly sweaty) walking distance of where we're studying - as well as visiting pretty much all of our favourite eating houses and coffee shops. It's not as easy to live it up as it used to be though due to the weak pound, but still a lot easier than in Europe.

The place we're staying in is right in the centre of the city - in between Chit Lom and Phaya Thai. It's surrounded by busy markets and big shopping malls so there's no shortage of things to do. The ECC centre is in a Big C mall next to a cinema. It seems well set up for training and teaching and we managed to get a cheeky peak at a lesson whilst we were there. Our course starts next Monday and it's safe to say I'm ready to get involved.

A week in Malaysia

We left KL on Thursday afternoon on a comfortable bus up to Butterworth in the north of the Malaysian peninsular. We foolishly slept for the whole 5 hour journey which ruined another night of sleep (we got up at 3am the next morning and, being bored, read the only magazines available in the room which happened to be the Malaysian equivalents of cosmo). From Butterworth heading to Penang island you can either get a ferry or drive over an impressive bridge. We got the ferry just as the sun was setting.

Georgetown is the main town in Penang and has an ecletic mix of cultures shown by the collection of buildings from colonial times (Penang was the first British colony in Malaya), mosques, a large Chinatown, and a Little India. We stayed in Chinatown in a windowless, but air-conditioned, room. The two main excursions we took in Penang were to Penang Hill, which is about 800m high and has historically acted as a cool retreat for those escaping the heat, and to a beach in the north of the island. From the top of the hill is a fantastic panaramic view of the island and the surrounding sea. There are lots of walks you can do around the top or down into the botanical gardens but we were far too tired for that. Instead we watched a man pull a king cobra out of a bag and have a little muck around. At one point the snake moved quickly in our direction, which sent us retreating and giggling like a couple of girls. To be fair it it was moving pretty fast. We went to the beach the next morning, before sunrise, and walked up and down looking for a place to have breakfast but it was still too early. Fortunately we stumbled across a mango which kept the tied us over for a little while.


Chinatown, Georgetown

A minibus took us to the Cameron Highlands from Penang in about 4 hours. The traffic was awful because of the Raya holiday (the end of Ramadan). Everyone had come up to the highlands to 'pluck' strawberries. For a couple of English lads the hullabalooza surrounding the strawberry 'plucking' is quite comical. You could buy absolutely anything in the market and it would either be strawberry flavoured, shaped like a strawberry, or have pictures of strawberries on it. A far cry from the rather quaint English experience of strawberry 'picking'.



















The highlands were surprisingly cool, such that my omissi0n in not bringing a jumper became a bit of an issue. Tanah Rata, the main town, consists of a single line of shops and restaurants that leads down to a park. The restaurants are a mix of Indian, Chinese, and Western fast food. There are also some small upstairs cafes where you can get cream teas. The cool weather meant we could do some good runs and outdoor workouts, using children's climbing frames for exercise bars. Very resourceful. We also went on a trek up to see the world's third biggest flower. The flower itself wasn't too impressive but the jungle was beautiful and the swim we took at a waterfall on the way back down provided welcome relief from the sweaty jungle. From the trek we bused it to a village where they showed us their traditional hunting blowpipes. Tim, inspired by the story of William Tell, decided to test how accurate these guys were by using himself as a target. He popped a piece of fruit on his head and stood by a tree with his eyes firmly shut. The Malay marksman lifted the long blowpipe to his lips and aimed. All twenty or so tourists watched, jaws agape, as this brave/foolish man put his face on the line all for the desperate pursuit of banter. Needless to say the marksman withdrew.


Tanah Rata


We have now returned to KL and are waiting to fly up to Phuket tonight and meet a couple of friends. Although this Malaysian excursion has been really enjoyable there has been a nagging sense of longing to cross the border into Thailand since we arrived. I'm sure this will somewhat satisfied by landing in Phuket, but probably not fully until we get up to Bangkok, our final destination.

Arriving in KL

We have arrived! In KL at least. The plane took off from Stansted at 1:25am and we arrived local time at 9:30pm. This was a bit disorientating seeming as the only thing to do on the flight was sleep and we were arriving a couple of hours before bedtime. KL airport is about 50km or so from the city so it took a bit of ringgit to get to Chinatown by taxi and we just got the first hotel we could see. By this point it was about 11pm so we went out for some munch and found a good street joint where we gorged on fried rice, beef noodles and sweet and sour chicken. Absolutely heroic as a first meal.

Slightly less heroic were our body clocks, meaning we only got 4 or so hours sleep before getting up at 5am to face the day. We asked the concierge if there was anywhere to get breakfast and he raved about the good eats in Chinatown. I suspect we have different ideas about what constitutes a good breakfast because the only place we could find was a porridge place, but not the lovely oaty goodness from home, rice porridge, with chicken or fish. At 5am?! Oh well, it will suffice until breakfast take 2 after this internet stop. I'm quite happy to see daylight for the first time in a couple of days and Tim's quite excited about buying some trainers. He's currently sporting a fetching goatee, just for bants. We'll see how it goes down with the KL ladies.

So be assured that we are safe and sound and looking forward to arranging a trip up to Penang and the Cameron highlands.

About to embark...

As promised I have created a blog so that friends, family, and followers of my various antics can keep up with the goings on in the 'Land of Smiles'. Having finished my studies (for the time being), I propose to spend at least a year in Bangkok getting further acquainted with the people, sights and sounds. 'Why this sprawling, sweaty mess of concrete and bad traffic?' you might ask. Because, as Snoop would say, 'I gotta living room full of prime time brizzles, so don't change the chizzle, turn it up a little - Robbie Yizzle's in the hizzle, smackin' down in Bangkizzle'. In short, I love it!

I still remember arriving for the first time in 2005 where I was greeted by a slightly tubby Tim and a very skinny Jordan. We got pizza for lunch and when the waitress smiled at me, revealing her shiny braces, I knew I'd like the place. Travelling around Laos and Thailand I always wanted to go back to the city, and even stayed an extra 2 weeks there to enrol in a Thai language course. Since then I've been back twice, but higher education has held a firm grip, keeping me occupied in England. Now with 4 years study under my belt its time to go again. This time with the freedom of not having to return for something and just seeing what happens.

So on the 15th September I'll be off with my partner in all Bangkok related chat, Timmy Simpson. First stop is Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) where we'll spend a week before moving on to Phuket in Southern Thailand. There will be four days of beach time and then we'll make our way up to the 'City of Angels' (not Los Angeles) to search for a place to live and catch up with friends. The only firm plan of action at this point is a CELTA course where we'll gain valuable teacher training by which we can eek out a living. That will take up pretty much all our time in October, then November will involve a desparate scramble for jobs as the savings begin to get low.

That's the plan anyway. It remains to be seen how it will unfold, but it should be an adventure worth the 4 year wait. I hope to update this blog regularly enough to keep everyone informed and, God willing, my blog writing skills should improve over time, at least enough to keep you interested. So keep checking and throwing messages our way so we know you care. We love you all.