My Expat Life in Jomtien, Pattaya

My Expat Life in Jomtien, Pattaya Well... It has been 9 years since my last post! When I last blogged I was leading the single life and living in Brighton in the UK doing my Masters in English Language Teaching (ELT) https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/english-language-teaching-ma After that I moved to Thailand and worked for Silpakorn University for a couple of years. I was able to travel to Koh Lanta, Krabi and Koh Tao. Now I am married and living in Jomtien in Thailand and pre-lockdown used to travel to Bangkok every weekend and teach for a language school in Asok. Now, I am teaching mostly online, but I mostly teach Japanese businesspeople and because of Covid many are still in Japan or not taking lessons. So, recently I’ve been teaching English on Cafetalk, https://bit.ly/3v6prTC a Japanese website. I also have a private Japanese student who I met in Bangkok but is now back in Tokyo.

After getting a language school job I settled into my Thai life and forgot all about this blog and lost access to it, but recently managed to get back in. So that’s enough of the excuses. I hope to start updating it again on a regular basis. So what's been happening in my life as an expat recently? Thailand has recently been suffering from a third wave of Covid 19. We are in Chonburi area which is a Red Zone under government regulations. This means that all restaurants are closed except for takeaways or delivery with no eat in at all. Even the beaches are closed, so we have had to find other things to do. Shopping centres are open, but who wants to go there when the Kent variant of Covid is raging through the population? (The variant is known by several names. Outside the UK it is usually referred to as the UK variant, British variant or English variant. Within the UK, it is generally referred to as the Kent variant after the county of Kent, where the variant was found).

On Jomtien beach before the latest lockdown Until recently We were at home all the time but my wife has just started helping a lady who has had a stroke. She cooks for her, exercises her, washes her, 6 mornings a week. I drive her to work. But I am at home a lot sitting online waiting for someone to choose one of my lessons. Sometimes, I try to do DIY like fixing cracks in our wall, gardening, and looking after our 5 dogs or feeding the chickens. I am also able to watch UK TV on demand. We live in a 3-bedroom detached house with a swimming pool, but we emptied the pool to replace the tile grout and never filled it back up. Once Covid has gone I will refill it. A couple of years ago my wife and I replaced 80 metres of black floor tiles with 60cm x 60cm white tiles. Many of the tiles in the 4 bathrooms are black so I would like to change them all to white or grey. One day…

Once a week we go shopping. We go to the local market and Makro (like a cash and carry) The market has good value (maybe organic) fruit and vegetables and Makro has good meat, bread and dogfood. We always wear one or two masks and try to avoid being breathed on or breathing on others. In Thailand if you are caught without a mask you can be fined 20,000 Baht/£450/$640 so everyone wears them. I am 60 now and get hay fever. I have never had good lungs. I had asthma as a child and still get it a little bit. So, I really don’t want Covid!

The vaccine programme in Thailand is due to start in Thailand in June. The government has said that it will include foreigners but there is now an app to register which is only in Thai and only accepts 13-digit Thai ID card numbers, which foreigners cannot get. It doesn’t accept passport or driving licence numbers. Also, I am registered as living at my room in Bangkok for work permit purposes, but am actually living in our house in Pattaya, and we are forbidden to travel to other provinces. Therefore, getting the vaccine is going to be very difficult for me. Will have to wait and see. Have you had your vaccine yet? This is a link to my page on cafetalk https://cafetalk.com/i/9T307768ad67f073984508bef12b92be1aed6aef/en