Fisherman's Village, Full Moon Party and My First Teaching

Dear Readers,

My apologies for the absence. I shall bring you up to speed now.

I went to the Fisherman's Village on Friday, they have a huge market on Fridays with plenty of food and clothes. I had an amazing time ! For all the travelers, I highly  recommend walking around first and seeing what you would like and how much are the asking prices. You can easily haggle the prices down to about half from the asking price. Do not be afraid to do this. Also, in this specific market (and I would imagine in general as well) many people sell the exact same products and the prices are about double or even triple by the main gate compared to the furthest shops. Definitely worth walking all the way through at first ! A word of a warning; the drinks sold at the market are very strong ! Also, the locals get quite angry when you end up now buying their product after you have haggled over it for some time.

Then we traveled to Koh Phangan for the full moon party on Saturday. Never take anything with you to a full moon party that you are not willing to loose. None of us had anything else on us but some money (you will not need a lot, but check the boat prices first). Everyone from my group put their keys into my bedroom and I was the only one taking care of a key at the party. It was very refreshing to have a night where no one has any photographic evidence from ! All things sold at the party are the cheapest right by the gate into the beach strip. Sellers tend ask ridiculous prices from drunken tourists so keep a count of your money. The party was fantastic. There was 11 of us going together and we managed to get quite a lot of attention as we created our own dance floor as soon as we got there ! During the night we had a swim (watch out for men pissing in the sea), climbed a 'mountain', I did rope jumping with a burning rope and tasted all sorts of weird local food (cannot name any of them any more). On the way back I met a sweet UK couple who paid for my speedboat journey back (thank you!). I was in the boat with another couple who were very busy with each other. The boat journey to Koh Samui takes nearly an hour and is lot of fun especially in a speed boat! I managed to hitchhike a ride with a Dutch group to my residence. I was under the impression that I had spent all my money at the party but to my amusement when I got back home I noticed that I had barely spent any !

Monday was spent preparing for my first teaching, I also went to observe a third grade lesson with my New Yorker. Thai kids are extremely cute and they love their teachers ! Teaching is a very highly valued profession in Thailand, especially foreign teachers. Tuesday morning I had my first teaching with my Irish friend. We were appointed to a class of 30 four-year-olds. So cute, so excited about everything. It is very hard work to keep the class organised and to get them to learn any English. Our first lesson was about the weather, I feel like we did a great job and the kids really enjoyed it ! We received very good feedback afterwards.

Now I am busy preparing to teach 7-year-olds tomorrow with my lady from Bristol. We are also starting to look for jobs this week. I am a little bit upset about how little the fact that non-English speakers will have a harder time to look for a job is advertised by the TEFL agencies. Before the course, I was made aware of the fact that majority of the people on m y training course would be native English speakers. I am currently the only one who is not. In my 'job interview' my employer said that my English is great and because of that I will not face any difficulties in finding a job. Today I was informed that I might be obligated to take a language test in order to get a working permit and that I might be paid less than the native English speakers. It makes me quite sad and a little bit annoyed  that I was not made fully aware of this fact before putting a lot of money into my training. I just wish all the non-natives are aware of this so that it won't put them down later. I do want to also encourage you to go after your dreams regardless as, in the end, it all comes down to your personality and skills!

I hope you all have a fantastic first week of September ! Speak to you soon.

Best wishes,


Mira