"Living in Thailand"
page 5 (final page)
Living in
Thailand and the Future
For a home-base living in Thailand, Surat is pretty perfect. For 3 day weekends - of
which we have MANY, we can go to any of 3 islands near Ko Samui. We
can go to Nakhon Si Thammarat (coastal city). We can visit Krabi and
Railay beach (most beautiful places I've ever seen). We can go to
any of 20 waterfalls. We can go to Phuket, Patong and all the places
close with a 4 hour van ride. We could take a night train to
Bangkok, sleeping in a bed and wake up in the morning on Saturday
and spend 3 days there before taking a night train back down to
Surat. Buses go everywhere too but the buses are not the safest way
to travel.
In fact, just recently with my new school here in Surat we went by
bus with all the kids to a beach resort about 250 km away for
English camp. The trip going was uneventful, however, on the way
back home it was about 8pm and dark and the bus driver made a VERY
dangerous and aggressive move by passing the car in front of us at
the SAME time another car in the opposite direction was already
engaged in passing a car in his lane. We must have missed each other
by INCHES because I didn't see ANY space at all between the bus and
the car. I called the driver a dumb jackass and told him he didn't need to be
driving like that with a bus full of kids. I was pissed off to no
end for the next 2 hours - watching his every move. This was a bus
full of CHILDREN! This guy didn't have some deadline to meet. He
wasn't working for Nakhon Chai Air bus company. I was amazed. I
really hate to travel with buses. When buses have accidents they are
usually very horrible. Nobody lives and it's usually a head on crash
where the bus driver just couldn't wait to pass someone and veers
into oncoming traffic.
Oh - I must mention one
thing... there is a large button on the driver's dash that is a
picture of a parachute coming out the back of the bus! I am
SERIOUS! If you ever sit in the seat behind the driver you
MUST check this out. I've only seen it once - on my last bus trip,
but I've never looked before. I wish I would have taken a picture of
it. If you see that button - will you write me? If you
take a picture, even better! (thaipulse [[at]] gmail. com)
Does a parachute really come out to slow the bus down in case of
brakes malfunctioning? That'd be the coolest thing about
living in Thailand I could come up with.
Back to story...
We could fly to Bangkok in one hour and then fly to Chiang Mai, Ubon,
or any other destination in Thailand within an hour. Total cost for
2 flights - round trip for one person - about 8000 baht (200 dollars
USD) but you can often find flights MUCH cheaper.
Anyway - so that's why we're currently here in the south in Surat. I
anticipate moving sometime after this contract is over in March of
2007. If we stay until then we get a bonus of 30,000 baht, so I
might as well stay. But, seriously it's getting hard to deal with
all the farang talk in the office.
What does the future hold...? Not sure at all. I'd like to start some sort of business here and yet I have no money to start one. I
have started an aggressive savings plan here but something always
comes up to dwindle the account. I am starting another savings
attempt as this month's check comes.
I'm selling stock photos of Thailand online. There is one decent
agency I've found - Dreamstime, that markets photos and then gives
me a portion of whatever sells. The images go DIRT cheap though -
but that's the state of the stock industry - the bottom has fallen
out! Photo rights used to routinely sell for hundreds of dollars.
Not any more. There are millions of photos online at these agencies
and they're selling for less than 5 dollars for reproductive rights
to them. I've sold some through this site, but so far my total
stands at 12 dollars USD. I'm thinking it will take a year of
submitting my best photos to be able to make a few thousand baht
from it.
I'm constantly building web pages and filling them with information
about Thailand. Perhaps going to start a Thailand web portal if I
ever get that jazzed about it. I could move to Bangkok and start
working there for some rather serious money - but that'd be too much
like America. I really enjoy the peace of mind I have here in the
outskirts of Thailand. There is so little stress. Living in Thailand
everyday is
enjoyable in more than one way. I have fun teaching - at my job! I
never thought that possible before coming to Thailand. I make less
than 9000 USD per year and yet I'm very happy and have everything I
need. I have a cell phone that has everything. I have a laptop
computer with wireless internet that works at school. I can turn my
cell phone into a blue-tooth provider of internet and link it to my
laptop while at home. Speeds are slow but it gets the job done when I need it.
We have been considering moving into a storefront type place and
holding English classes for small kids after school for an hour each
day. We'll probably do that to increase income and save a little
more each month. A car here would be useful for long trips and for
the rainy season. Motorbikes in the rain are pretty dangerous as you
can imagine. We'd spend 6000 on a store with an upstairs and
downstairs per month. We'd make about 10,000 per month extra from
kids enrolled. We are paying 3500 per month for this one-room
studio. So, we'd come out 7500 baht better off per month. That's
just about the extra amount we'd need to enable us to save 20,000
baht per month comfortably until next March. Would be nice to have a
couple hundred thousand baht next March... hmmmm I also think about a house. I'd love to build my own house. A simple
house, concrete floor and walls on the bottom story and maybe wooden
on the 2nd story. Maybe a large porch area that catches the wind
where we could eat dinner everyday. I'm 40 years old now and still
in decent enough shape that I could put together most of a house. I
get the urge a couple times a month to do something crazy like that
someday. If I continue living in Thailand - I'll have to do it at
some point.
We'd have to decide on a location where we'd live for the next 10
years or forever though. A place where we'd maybe raise a family.
Isaan comes to mind first and yet I'm not sure I could be that far
away from things to do - things to see - such as the ocean and
mountains, waterfalls... Isaan isn't close to much. That's the one
problem. And that's the magic of the whole area too.
Ubon Ratchathani is where we met and we have some great memories
there... a nice quiet place to live and with all the major shopping
places we could need. There is some business taking place there -
and quite a few people - 100,000 ? 200k? Not sure and the census is
never any help. Many avoid the census and many have moved since it
was done. There's been a huge migration towards the big cities over
the years.
Living in
Mukdahan or Mahasarakam provinces in Thailand might be nice... a little more out of the
way... Mukdahan borders the Mekong river and Laos across the river.
Beer Laos would be quite close when I got the urge...
Mostly I think the key is just to find a school I enjoy working at
and stay there for many years. I think finding one without other
farangs - or at least without many, is key. I am looking for the
Thai experience right now. Maybe that will change in the future. In
Ubon it was mostly the Thai experience that made me fall in love
with the place. There were things to get over- negatives, but they
were dealt with. I need to find a place similar to Ubon - the people, the food, the
fairly big city and yet closer to the beaches and mountains and fun
places to go. I'd say it was Surat if it weren't for the people. The
people aren't bad really, but there is a marked difference between
Thais of Isaan and those I've met here. In Isaan the farang is seen
as a lucky charm. I can't tell you how many old Thai men and women
I've had grab my hand just to touch me... some say for good luck...
but I think that it's also so they relive a little bit what it was
like 40 years ago when there were Americans all over Thailand on
rest and recovery from the Vietnam war.
Many Thais had good experiences with Americans and they remember
fondly. Many Americans too apparently because I've met many that
have told me they were in the Vietnam war and came back to live
because they remembered how great the people of Thailand were. I think I will get married to my girlfriend. She will lose face with
her family and her family will lose face because she isn't married
to me and yet we're living together. I really do want to make her
the happiest girl that I possibly can. I've screwed up many
relationships in my past life... and this girl is so sweet, so
innocent that I can do nothing else but give her 200% of my effort
to making her life better. I find there is no desire to find another
girl, a different girl, or even look at other girls anymore. She is
everything I need.
How could I ever find someone else like this?
So, I'm doing this right... finally I've found the love of my
life...
You might too if you come to live in Thailand... or you might find a bar
girl that becomes the love of your life for a short time...
Find an
Isaan girl and treat her right!
Blogs we have:
ThaiPulse Blog,
Joy's Thai Food Blog, Aim for
Awesome!, Farked Life!,
Thai Ladyboys & Katoeys!
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"Living in Thailand", a free e-book by Vern
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