The move to Thailand

Contemplating....

So before 2012 we (my fiance' and I) had been talking and thinking of ideas to move out of South Africa.  What could we do? Where could we go? Do we have the guts to leave?  Eventually after researching many options we came across teaching in Thailand.  I had some school friends that were here so i decided to ask them about it.  They gave me some great advice.  I sat and thought, we could do this... now i need a sign....

One day talking to my mom she announced:  "I'm moving to Thailand!"  I was like "REALLY" I couldn't believe it... there was my sign!  I was still scared as hell!  I kept thinking: "but,but,but!" So mom said "Whats holding you back?".  We did some more discussing and then it was decided...

Preparation...

We resigned from our jobs in March 2012 and worked our last month... We booked our fights for May 2012.  We had to start packing up our lives and pretty much sold everything we owned.  Packing up everything was rather daunting, but at the same time we were quite excited to experience something new and exciting!  Mom had already left for Thailand and was awesome in helping us to get sorted (I say helping but she pretty much did it all!) We were enrolled into a university to get started with the intensive TEFL course and we had an apartment waiting for us!

We finally got onto our flight to Thailand... We first had to fly 9 hours to Dubai, wait 6 hours and then catch the next flight which was another 6 hours to Thailand.  Was quite an amazing experience as the last time I flew so long was when I was 19 and that was a direct flight.

Arriving in Thailand

So here we are in a very hot and humid Bangkok... wow! It was already dark and once we went through immigration and collected our luggage we now had to find a taxi to take us to the hotel.  We were quite concerned whether the driver would understand us... Equipped with our map and name of hotel in English and Thai (thanks mom) we pushed our trolley down many escalators and passing so many places where you can buy any kind of sim card and many booths where you can exchange money...we finally found the right door to go outside and stood in line waiting for the taxi. Very glad when we realized that the man spoke some English.

We got to our hotel and literally dropped off the luggage, changed into shorts and left to go and explore the street we were staying in.  We found some food and we were quite surprised at how different things were here.  Drinking beer out of a bucket filled with ice... Really? Since when do you drink beer with ice? Well it was so hot so we did it anyway and now understand why it is done, it totally helps with the heat!
We stayed in Bangkok for a few days, (needless to say I was quite scared to leave the street we were in with all the traffic!) 

We met some lovely people in Bangkok and had quite a few laughs... now it was time to move on to our next destination...

Starting the TEFL course...

After a 12 hour bus trip, we finally arrived in the town where we had to start our course...  We arrived in the morning and that evening my Mom arrived. ( I was so relieved), My Mom who is a complete gypsy and has all the bravery in the world took us outside and showed us around the town. I finally managed to pronounce the name of the town which was Chiang Mai...

What can I say about this town? It was AWESOME! We really enjoyed our time in Chiang Mai, (although pretty much never venturing far from the street we stayed in).  I must say that I was pretty nervous in the beginning but I reckon that it was due to the fact that not many people spoke English and I was afraid that we would get lost and never find our way back (Paranoid much?).

Mom came pretty much every weekend to show us places (She had already been everywhere in Chiang Mai).  We finished our month course and proudly left with our certificates.  We met some lovely people during this time as there were about 8 of us doing the course together.

After the TEFL course it was time to move on to the next town and start looking for work...

I will pop some photos in below...


I hope you enjoyed reading...

My Fiance ready for his first day of the TEFL course

 Iced coffee which i am absolutely addicted to now... and some Thai dishes

Photos from our first few days before starting our TEFL course.

Mom had taken us sight-seeing.

So today I have some free time and decided that I would finally start my blog... I have wanted to do this for a while but never managed to find the time. Now that I have some free time i decided that there is no time like the present...

So who am I? My Name is Meggyn, I come from South Africa and I currently live in Thailand, I am 29 years old and  I live here with my fiance', daughter and my mom.  We moved here almost 4 years ago.  We decided to "make a change" in our lives and see the world.  While living in South Africa we always felt like 'we were going no where slowly"... That was due to all the politics and things happening there but, I am not going to go into that and that is not the reason i wanted to start blogging.

I decided that I would like to write about living life as a foreigner in Thailand as well as our experiences and things that we experience almost on a daily basis.  I also thought that one day when I am old and grey it would be nice to look back and reflect on what we did with our lives.

So currently, we are all teachers here in Thailand and work everyday teaching English and various other subjects (in English of course).  People always ask:"Whats it like?"  well it has its ups and downs.  It is not always easy to try and teach things to students who don't speak the same language as you.  When you finally see the "light" switch on then its totally worth it.

Another question we get asked a lot... "Can you speak Thai?" the answer is yes.  We call it "survival Thai". My daughter speaks Thai quite well (she is only 2) and she teaches us too.

We enjoy traveling and seeing new things so we are hoping to see more of South East Asia and I would like to document that too.  

I also plan to blog about food, different kinds of products and daily life as a foreigner in Thailand.

I hope that whoever reads this will enjoy it and will find things as interesting as we do. I also think that if no one reads it it will be nice to look back on as a diary of our lives,

So yesterday was Fathers Day in Thailand (they celebrate on a different day than most other countries as it is also the King's birthday. Incidentally mother's day is celebrated on the Queen's birthday in August.)  The town where we live has been rather quiet this weekend. I guess everyone has gone their own way to other towns, to go and visit their families and take advantage of the long weekend.  

I decided to cook a nice roast lamb today (imported from New Zealand) for dinner (lamb is a real treat here as it is not readily available). We are going to have it with some roast potatoes and probably broccoli and white sauce. Mmmm my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  I better get on my way to cook it, because that meat ain't cooking itself.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this and I'll be back soon! I'll pop some photos down below.

This is a photo of my fiance', daughter and myself taken on the 4/12/15. This was taken at my daughters school (yes they wear uniforms at young ages here)

Mmmm our imported New Zealand Lamb which i am busy cooking.

The finished meal! Yummy!!