Phrasal Verbs for Health

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

A Post at Long Last

If anyone still reads my blog:

I have plenty of time now because my school, who said at the end of the 12 week course I had been teaching on, there would be a new course for me. However, it transpired that all they had was a link to someone else who had a "live in" job somewhere in the provinces. Which, of course, I turned down.

So I am looking for work again, just at the wrong time of year when there are few jobs around. With Christmas and Tet holiday coming up and bills to be paid I hope something comes up soon. I have applied for a few so far, so now waiting for replies.

In Limbo

I am sitting in limbo now.

Before Tet I applied for a job, had an interview, which I passed, was asked to do a 15 minute lesson plan which the was happy with and was told I had got the job teaching the employees at a factory in District 2. I was promised an email about the hours while in Malaysia. But it never arrived and no replies to emails. So when I got back from holiday I tried emailing the school head office in Hanoi. I eventually got a reply telling me the guy who interviewed me had left the company and had not mentioned me to them.

They asked me for another interview... This was getting repetitive... I met the director of the company and was told I still had the job (at a reduced rate of pay!) and it was starting 25th Feb. So I rented a motorbike, which I would need to get to work. Then a couple of days ago they rang to say the company wanted to put off the course for one week. GGGRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr

Bear in mind I have been to Cambodia for three weeks for Christmas and New Year and then Malaysia for Tet, so have little money left. They won't pay me til a month after the start of work and I have to pay $10 a night for the hotel plus my food, etc. So I am trying to live as cheaply as possible now and hope my money lasts out.

So it really pisses me off when I get overcharged. I am still angry about dinner last night. I ate the night before in a small local place, had pork, rice and salad which was 15,000 VND. Then last night I returned, had 2 chicken legs, rice, salad and vegetables. 40,000 VND! Which is ridiculous. This happens quite often here. They see a non-local and try to get as much as they can out of you, probably thinking you are a tourist.

On a plus point I met a nice French couple: Kevin and his girlfriend who are working in a restaurant in HMC. We are all looking for a house to share around District 1, so wish us luck

Birthday Party, New Job and Tet Holiday

I have had a good few days. On Saturday I attended my friend Thuy's birthday party. She used to live in the north of Viet Nam but moved down here to work. I met her through Julian and Clio. Her second language is French but her English is pretty good too. So some of the guests were French, some Vietnamese and me the only Brit, lol. Julian who we met in Vinh was there and his English is excellent and Ben, a Frenchman who is trying to design and sell t-shirts in HCM, was happy to chat in English too. I cooked (Chau peeled the pots :-)) potatoes with scrambled egg (Thuy's favourite dish at a restaurant on Bui Vien. I had never cooked it before, and put a little too much salt in the egg, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. So it was a very enjoyable evening.

Then yesterday I had a presentation/second interview for a very well paid job. The presentation went well and I got the job. So after Tet I will be teaching (presuming everything goes well) business English at a company in District 2. They will pay me travel expenses on top of a very good hourly rate. YAY!!!!

For Tet I am going to Malaysia from 30th Jan to 14 Feb. I am meeting Julian and Fiona from Hanoi there. So I'm really looking forward to that and know we'll have a great time.

Life in Saigon

Blogspot has been down for a few days so I couldn't blog...

However, it's back up now so here is my first blog for a while.

Things are starting to look up a little bit on the job front, but not much solid yet. I have been teaching young kids last weekend, from 8 to 10am and should be again this coming weekend. It is Tet holiday early February, and schools close down for up to a month, so most are not looking for teachers now. But tomorrow I have another interview, so wish me luck.

I really want to go somewhere for Tet. Last year I went to Vang Vien in Laos and had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, with little money coming in I won't have enough to fly there and the bus takes 40 hours just to Vientiane! 20 hours to Hue, stop the night, then another 20 hours from Hue to Vientiane, I think it was 4 or 5 hours to Vang Vien. It has been suggested to go to Borneo, which would be great, but I have looked on the internet and can't find any cheap flights from HCM.

Life in HCM is ok. Today it is very hot and sunny, which is not something I would be saying if I still lived in Hanoi. I am staying in the Dong A1 hotel in the backpackers area, which is $10 a night, with wireless internet in my room. My room is a little noisy as its next to reception, which is staffed with television-watching staff 24 hours a day, but it's a big room with a big bed, wardrobe, en-suite with hot water shower, and TV with reasonable channels, including Discovery, National Geographic, 3 American movie channels, but no CNN, and the BBC picture is blocked here but I can still hear the sound, I don't know why. So I get the news from the German, Japanese and Australian channels and, of course, the internet.

So living in Saigon is certainly a challenge, especially trying to live cheaply, but I am quite enjoying it, especially the weather. I am spending some time with James and we are still trying to make www.CheapHotelsCambodia.com, which is taking up a fair bit of my time. I have met some ex-pats at the Cantina Restaurant and the one next door and I hope to make some new friends soon and get lots of work.

Do you miss anything from home?

IF you are an ex-pat reading this or are thinking about becoming one what do you miss or what do you think you will miss about your home country?

Here's what I don't miss:

British weather; getting up at 6 or 7am to struggle into work; fog; rain; hail; sleet; 40 or 50 hour weeks; overtime; cold, dank, dark evenings and mornings; speed cameras; petrol that costs the earth; beer at £2 or £3 a pint; pubs that serve food only at certain hours; boil-in-the-bag pub/restaurant food; fruit that tastes of nothing.

Here's what I do miss:

Errrrr... Still thinking about this one...

Here's what I enjoy about Hanoi:

The weather, although it is occasionally rainy and sometimes windy and cold, the climate seems generally favourable, much cooler than Ho Chi Minh or Bangkok. Although I haven't seen the wet/hot season yet, having arrived in September. I like working short hours and being paid enough to live on; I like being able to rent a motorbike for $40 a month and a great 4 bed house for $500 a month; I enjoyed living in a hotel for $9 a night inc free internet in the room; I love Bia Hoi, which is fresh rice beer from a local brewery and costs 8p or 15 cents a glass; the food, especially cheap local food is often delicious (although the more expensive restaurants are not always). It often seems the more you pay in Hanoi the worse the experience. At the top of our alleyway there is a snail soup restaurant! which we tried the first night we moved in, not knowing what it was before we sat down. It was actually surprisingly delicious. My students (well most of them!) they are hard-working and really want to learn English, which makes my job a pleasure.

Coursebook: New English File, Elementary, which has everything in it an elementary class needs, it reintroduces language over and over again, has games, exercises, all four skills are covered and it is paced exactly right for new learners (although it is a little UKcentric) like so many coursebooks. I did my dissertation/thesis on coursebooks being too Western, and pushing our culture onto the rest of the world, so it is something I care about and would love to change.

Being able to get on my motorbike without a crash helmet, ride off into some of the busiest roads on the planet without a nanny government making sure I am safe and sound. I love the unruliness of the roads here and as a foreigner I am never stopped by the police (although I see local people getting stopped every day) I can break the law with impunity, as does virtually everyone else, and never have to worry about government trying to tax me with speed cameras.