I've made it...

9^th January 2009.  Just off the plane in Delhi.  This was it.  All my life I’d wanted to travel and now I’m standing in Delhi airport.  Walking outside the exotic smells immediately hit you.  The humidity too.  It’s January and it’s still 20 degrees. 

There are people everywhere.  So many people.  Herded on to a small bus.  Gazing through the window as we move through Delhi.  I can see poverty.  You hear about it, but to experience it leaves you with a different feeling.  The appeals on television at home are all so distant, but now you can actually see it.

A long drive to Agra.  There are dogs everywhere.  I need cigarettes but I’m scared of the dogs.  I don’t want rabies. 

Next morning and it’s off to the Taj Mahal.  I’m standing in front of one of the most iconic buildings in the world.  I am getting somewhere.

This what I had been waiting for all my life.  The exotic smells, the exotic people.  I was in the land of the Jungle book.  There is fear mixed with excitement.  I don’t know what to expect.  There are elephants and camels on the road.  I’m illiterate, I don’t know how to read the script.  I can’t communicate with people.  They can’t speak English.

Jaipur.  It’s warm.  The locals are all dressed in wooly jumpers and have ear warmers on.  We all have t shirts.  They think we’re crazy.  Summer in Jaipur can reach 50 degrees.  The roads are so busy, cars, tuk tuks, buses, cows.  Dogs lie in the middle of the roundabouts. 

Time to do some shopping.  The streets are narrow and dark but there are shops everywhere.  The owners stand outside looking at us.  They are wondering what are we doing here.  Probably also thinking these people must have money, I need to get them into my shop.  I need cigarettes but I’m scared.  I can’t speak Hindi.  The stares are unnerving me.  I approach the shop.  I make the movements of someone smoking, the shopkeeper looks at me and says “which kind do you want, sir?”.  He speaks English.  All worry over nothing.

Back on to the train.  It is full of people eating and talking.  It’s a social occasion.  It makes the long journey easier.  The gang of white people attract their attention.  Where are you from?  Are you married?  Why have you come to India?  All these questions.  I’d never ask people these kind of questions.

The train arrives and the snow capped mountains stand out.  The Himalayas.  This is the place that dreams are made of.  It’s clichéd but I don’t care, this is my dream and I am making it.  There are monkeys everywhere.  They look cute, harmless.  The guide says to leave them alone, they are a nuisance and will bite you.

The Himalayas get closer and closer.  We arrive at our house for the next 3 months.  I step out on to my balcony.  In front of my eyes are two mountains.  Both are capped with snow.  The sky is a brilliant blue.  I've made it.  I’m doing what I have always dreamed of doing.

Cambodia

I have been back to Cambodia a few times since I wrote this, but it was interesting to over my first experiences there. (Excuse the hair!)

Before crossing from Vietnam into Cambodia I had stayed in Saigon for over a week.  A guy that sold knocked off books gave me them cheap so I bought a few about Cambodia.  For me Cambodia had only conjured up bad images, I wasn't even sure that I wanted to go. Child sex tourism, poverty and mass genocide were what came to mind.  Communism has been something that I have always been interested in.  Not because I am a communist, but Marxism is a political philosophy I find fascinating.  A philosophy that was supposed to free the people is one that has caused death because of others interpretation of it.  I managed to get through three books on the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot and life in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime.  I don’t think I will ever read another book about it.  It has one of the most harrowing recent histories of any country in the world.

I had paid for a boat trip from Can Tho to Phnom Penh all the way up the Mekong River. However when I reached the border the tour operators said as there was only three of us they couldn’t provide a boat.  So some dude in a car took us from the border up to Phnom Penh.  Phnom Penh is a shady place.  Once it gets dark there are barely any streetlights and you walk down streets with a feint orange glow which seems to give it even more of an eerie feeling.  When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 they evacuated the whole city and sent everyone bar a few to the countryside.  I dread to think what the city would have been like then.  I only stuck around for two days.  I didn’t feel safe walking around at night and the seediness of it was uncomfortable.  As in most of Cambodia there are signs on hotel doors telling you that you can’t bring any children into your room.  It is obviously a problem although thankfully not something that I witnessed while I was in Cambodia.  One night walking back from a restaurant I saw a young woman sitting on the roadside smoking crystal meth.  She looked truly broken.  It is one image that had a big impact on me.  As someone that has got help for addiction, I know it is highly unlikely that she ever will, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was dead now.  It makes you grateful for the things that you have and the help that you are able to receive.  I’d like to say I can empathise but I probably can’t.  I’ve no doubt that the reasons she ended up on meth are endemic throughout the country and growing up where I did, in the country I did, I would have no way to relate. 

While in Phnom Penh I debated with myself if I should go and see the Tuol Sleng museum. Tuol Sleng was a prison used during the Khmer Rouge regime.  It used to be a school but when the government evacuated everyone from the cities in 1975 all the schools in the country were shut down.  They took over this school in Phnom Penh and it turned it into a prison.  It also had the more sinister name of S-21.  The battle I had with myself was if as a tourist I should go and see a place where there had been so much death.  I came to the decision to go because I have little understanding of that period in Cambodian history and also because the aim of the museum is to educate.  It was however set up by the Vietnamese when they invaded Cambodia in 1979 and it could have been seen as a propaganda tool.  When you first enter the gates it is eerily quiet even though there are lots of people walking about.  There are various blocks with 2 or 3 floors.  Each one would have been used as a classroom at some time.  When you enter the rooms the atmosphere is horrible and there is a smell that I cannot describe.  Death must linger.  There is still blood on the floor in some places and by the time I had walked around I was struggling not to cry. I had read about what had happened here and now I was seeing it for real.  It is really hard to describe how it feels to be there and also to describe the prison.  There is not really a lot to see there but just knowing what happened there is enough to keep you going in and out of rooms that look the same.  There was a man there who was a survivor of the prison.  He was an artist and had been asked to draw pictures of Pol Pot.  This saved his life but his wife was killed and he does know what happened to his children.  He still does not know what the reason for his arrest was.  Cambodians were forced to from morning to night and were told that it was for their own benefit.  They had very small rations and many died.

Bou Meng, Survivor of Tuol Sleng.

The estimates of how many people were killed between 1975 and 1979 are between 1.4 million and 2.2 million.  The government tried to create a self-sufficient agrarian society. These policies resulted in famine.  Schools had been shut down, money was abolished and many people associated with the old regime were executed.  People who were deemed to be educated were also executed.  Villagers were given minimal training and then expected to be doctors.  The account from Bou Meng, the survivor from Tuol Sleng, tells that once you were in Tuol Sleng you had no chance of getting out.  When arrested they were told that the government would never arrest the wrong person and people admitted to crimes that they did not commit.  While in Tuol Sleng two Cambodians asked me what I thought about the prison and what had happened in Cambodia.  My answer was that I found it difficult to articulate my thoughts on it.  The concept that a government would unleash that kind of terror on their own people is beyond my comprehension.  What I find even more difficult to understand is that many members of the Khmer Rouge ended up back in government positions after the Cambodian civil war had ended.  It was a humbling experience and one that I will never forget.  I only hope that they will some day gain some form of justice.  Many Cambodians that suffered live in the same villages as those who tormented them. 

From Phnom Penh I went down to Sihanoukville which is in the Gulf of Thailand.  Luckily I was there in off season and the weather was good apart from one day.  Sihanoukville is a dingy port and beach resort named after the former King of Cambodia.  Further down the coastline there is a beach called Otres beach which was almost deserted and much nicer than the beach near Serendipity.  I spent about four days in Sihanoukville doing not a lot but going to the beach during the day.  I went out a few times at night but the place is rammed with prostitutes and you are constantly harassed by children selling things. Reading my book on the beach a couple of kids told me they wouldn't leave me alone until I gave them 2 dollars.  They then told me I was ugly and that no woman would ever marry me.  They definitely weren't going to get 2 dollars after that.  They eventually left me alone after throwing further insults at me.  It was funny at first but then it was just annoying.  I only wanted to read my book!  I’m reluctant to buy anything from these kids because they normally work for an older sister or someone else who gets all the money.  I bought a couple some milkshakes and gave another some of my dinner.  At least that way they were getting something.  Wanting to get out I headed for Kampot.

Kampot is a small town near the southern coast of Cambodia about two hours from Sihanoukville but it seems a world away.  The poverty in Kampot is less visible and there is no sense of seediness.  I was also told that drugs were not tolerated unlike elsewhere in Cambodia.  It is a good place to just relax and wander around.  It rained a lot while I was there but there were some nice cafes by the river that I sat in and studied Chinese.  I took a trip up into the mountains to a hill town called Bokor.  The French built it to escape the heat and when I went up there it was freezing cold.  There was renovation work going on too which meant there was not a lot to see.  It was still a strange place.  There is an old church standing on its own at the top of the hill that Cambodian workers are living in.  It is not somewhere that I would choose to live in but obviously needs must for them.  There is also a big hotel being built which will mean more tourists.  One thing that I disliked about Kampot was the number of dogs.  During the day they would leave you be but at night they would follow you down the road growling and showing their teeth.  Not many things frighten me but rabies does.  Especially getting rabies in Cambodia. 

I spoke to a Khmer waiter in Kampot and he said to me “All Westerners say they not rich but of course they rich for us”.  He is right.  Most people have something or someone they can fall back or somewhere they can go.  The state provides means for us to.  Whether you think it’s too little or too much is irrelevant, it is still provided.  Same with healthcare, if I get sick I don’t have to pay for it.  There are various fall backs for us.  Also how can you tell a man that has never been out of his own province that you have no money?  You’re thousands of miles away from home drinking coffee and eating a meal that costs more than he earns in a few days.  To him you are rich.  About 30% of Cambodians live below the poverty line.  I am not preaching because I know well enough that backpackers are far from rich but you have to see their point of view. 

The final part of my travels in Cambodia took me to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.  The journey up there was a nightmare as it looked like the whole of Cambodia was under water.  The Cambodians seemed to taking the flooding in their stride but it must have a massive impact on their lives.  Crops will be destroyed and the ability to move around would be restricted as the roads in Cambodia are not good.  When I arrived in Siem Reap the whole of the tourist area was under water and the tuk tuk driver wouldn't take me in there.  I know that he was getting me a commission for the hotel he took me to but it was only 8 dollars a night and I got a double bed, cable and a hot shower.  Hot showers are a rarity when you’re backpacking around Asia.

Angkor Wat was incredible.  I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones film except there were tourists everywhere.  The temples all seem to be different and you can spend hours looking at them.  Having lived in India and China I’ve seen many temples but Angkor is one I will definitely go back to.  It was one of the few places I have been to that I didn't hear anyone say was over rated.  Which is telling because you get plenty of travel experts who dispense their advice to you regardless of whether you want it or not.  I find it amazing that people tell others that they shouldn't go to such and such a place.  Just because you don’t like it doesn't mean others won’t.  These kinds of people are the most annoying you meet.  They tell you they don’t use guide books, probably because they think they are the guide book.  I use guide books for cheap hostels and maps and to see what is in a place.  Hence it being called a guide book.  Not using a guidebook doesn't make you anymore a hardcore of a traveller.  I’m sure you’re proud of yourself but maps are useful.  No doubt they have a copy of Lonely Planet in their bag.  I don’t really have much else to say about Angkor because it is hard to describe.  It has to be seen and something you need to feel for yourself.

I left Cambodia for Laos getting a 14 hour bus to Pakse.  Describing my experience of Cambodia and what I feel about CI left Cambodia for Laos getting a 14 hour bus to Pakse.  Describing my experience of Cambodia and what I feel about Cambodia is again hard to describe.  It seems to be a continuing theme for me with Cambodia.  Sadness and trying to understand something that you are unable to relate to is the closest I can come.  I liked Cambodian people.  They are very friendly but given their recent past you wonder if there is an underlying sadness behind their smiles.  The government of Cambodia is still corrupt and it feels as though people are just resigned to the fact their governments are completely self-interested.  I am in no way comparing the current government to that of the Khmer Rouge but the Cambodian people deserve much more. 

Vietnam

I wrote this in 2011 after spending 6 weeks in Vietnam.  I am hoping to go back this year.

Vietnam was a country that I had always wanted to go to.  I love modern history and Vietnam played a large part in the Cold War.  I will admit to not knowing much about it though, other than that there was a war there 40 years ago.  Maybe that is what gave it that sense of mysticism, a country that had defeated the Americans and taken control of their own nation after years of being a French colony.  That is a very simplistic view of it and the Americans never officially went to war with North Vietnam.  Neither do I agree with the politics of the Communists that took power and the policies that were used to punish the South Vietnamese after.  After a friend suggested going to Vietnam during my holidays I thought ‘why not?’ and went three days later.

The process of getting to Vietnam was pretty painful.  I had made a last minute decision to go and I had to get from Chengdu to Nanning near the Chinese-Viet border.  I also needed a visa but that was easily obtained in Nanning.  The hardest part was getting to Nanning.  I went to buy a sleeper train ticket and they had none so in my wisdom I bought a hard seat ticket.  The girl asked me twice if I was sure I wanted a hard seat ticket.  I said “Yeah, no bother, I’ll be fine”.  It was a good thing I didn’t have too much time to think about it because I think I may well have changed my mind about sitting on a hard seat on a Chinese train for 35 hours. 

Sitting on a train for 35 hours is not something I want to do in the near future.  Although everyone was very friendly, sleeping was impossible.  Chinese people seem to be able to sleep anywhere at any time but I think I managed about four hours on the whole journey.  All I could do was smoke and laugh and nod and pretend to understand the guy who was speaking an obscure Chinese dialect.  Not that my Chinese was much good at that point.  The pain was well worth it though, after waiting a few days for my Visa in Nanning I headed off to Hanoi by bus.

At Chinese immigration I gave my passport to a Chinese girl with a scowl on her face.  She inspected my passport, stamped it and threw it back at me.  I love Chinese immigration.  I then got on a little bus thing with two Dutch girls and we went to the Vietnamese border post.  There were a lot of Chinese crossing with us and chaos ensued.  Vietnamese immigration at Pingxiang entails you throwing your passport through a window along with everyone else while the 3 immigration officers stamp them without even looking at you. 

So 7 days after leaving Chengdu I finally arrived in Hanoi.  I stayed in a dorm in the Old Quarter and as soon as I got into the dorm I thought “This is a fucking mistake”, as a crazy Texan in an Argentina football shirt tried to force Jack Daniels on me.  He said I looked like a man that liked a drink.  Good observation.  Five years ago we’d have been best friends.  When I met him a few times after though, he was a nice bloke, just a bit mental.  His plan was to travel to Myanmar, go to Munich for the beer festival and then go to Vegas to be a professional gambler.  I truly believe that is how it will go for him too.

The first morning I was in Hanoi I went with a couple of girls in my dorm to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh.  I am not sure if it is legitimately him or not.  He is supposedly sent to Russia every year to be fixed up.  I reckon the Russians have stitched them up to be honest and sent back one from Madame Tussaudes.  It was a very surreal experience; just the sense that it may indeed be him gives the room a very strange feeling.  The guards make sure you do not smile, laugh or talk while you walk around the mausoleum.  He is highly revered in Vietnam and against his own wishes he appears on all banknotes and was embalmed.  The Vietnamese see him as the man that freed them from the French, although I am not sure what he would think of Vietnam today, much the same as I often think what Mao would think of the China of today.  I spent a few days wandering around Hanoi, drinking coffee and trying to avoid being scammed by all the people that try and approach you.

When I came to Vietnam I had no plan and just decided to do whatever I felt like doing rather than being held to a set plan.  You can only really go north to south or south to north in Vietnam because it is such a narrow country.  I booked a train to Danang which I knew nothing about but would see what happened when I got there.  Danang is where the Americans first landed in 1965 and there are still remains of air force bases on the outskirts of the city.  It is also home to China beach which is where the marines had R&R.  I stayed at My Khe beach where there were no tourists except for myself.  Danang is not a tourist spot and is a good place to see a ‘real’ Vietnamese city.  The streets at night are bustling and full of open air restaurants.   If you walk along the beach in the evening you will find the locals playing football or going for a swim in the sea, and it was the only place in Vietnam that I attracted stares for being a foreigner.  The people were very friendly though.  On my second night there the hotel thought I had left and gave my room to someone else.  They sorted it out and the Vietnamese guy was put in another room.  I went back out a few minutes later and there was a hooker knocking on his door so it was lucky I arrived when I did!

Marble Mountains, Danang, Vietnam

About 10km outside of Danang is the Marble Mountains.  The Viet Cong hid in these mountains during the war and when you go inside you can see the hospitals that they built inside.  The American Air Force bombed the mountains but from what I was told they were not very successful in flushing the Viet Cong out.  It’s strange because from the mountains you can see China Beach and can imagine the Viet Cong watching them on R&R.  The mountains also have temples inside them.  Some of which are liking walking on to a set in an Indiana Jones film.  I went through a small door and came out into a massive hall with statues of Buddha and altars.  It was one of them moments you get when you are travelling when you think ‘is this real?’  There was not much to do in Danang after seeing the mountains and a museum so I headed on to Hoi An and Hue.

Old American airbase just outside of Danang

America beach in Danang where the U.S soldiers would go on R&R

Hue is a city that saw a massive amount of fighting during the war.  There is a large citadel in the middle of the city which was a battleground and in the book ‘Dispatches’ the fighting is described very vividly.  I wandered around the citadel a few times while I was in Hue and it seemed strange that only 35 years ago it was a scene of such carnage.  From various descriptions I have read and heard from the Vietnamese the citadel was littered with bodies.  One account tells of how the Americans approaching the bridges up to the citadel find a Vietnamese kid walking down the road smiling and laughing, while others went about their everyday business.  It was something the Americans could never understand.  The Vietnamese just got on with it regardless of the absolute chaos that was going on around them.  The resilience and industriousness they have is what has got them to where they are today: A country with the aim of joining the first world by 2020.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they achieved this either.  While walking back from the citadel one day a lady at a shop I bought a drink in asked me if I could spend some time helping her with her English.  She was 55 years old and had never been out of Hue but she knows that if she can speak English she can attract more customers.  I went back a few times to see her and although I didn’t want anything for helping her she gave me a few Cokes.

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Hoi An is about 150km from Hue and very close to Danang so I ended up going south then back north again to get there.  I had heard a lot about it, but I was not very impressed with it.  It is just a tourist town that has been fixed up to make it look better.  It is also expensive compared to the rest of Vietnam.  Unless you want a suit or some other clothes there is not much reason to go there.  I did get lost there though which I don’t think is very easy to do as it is not a very large town.

From Hoi An I carried on to the city of Nha Trang.  I had been told by various people that this place was the ‘Magaluf of Vietnam’.  I didn’t think I’d be spending much time there because that is definitely not what I was in Asia for.  I ended up staying there for two weeks.  It is not anything like Magaluf and is a nice place to relax and just do not a lot.  It gave me time to think and relax.  My job in China for previous 5 months had been incredibly draining and difficult and I needed that time to chill.  I was also having doubt about returning to China.  I didn’t look for a job in Nha Trang but if I had been offered one I would have taken it.  There isn’t an awful lot to do apart from sit on the beach and then chill out in a bar in the evening.  I went across to a small island with some friends I had originally met in Nanning and then met again in Nha Trang.  We managed to find a boat to take us across and then wandered around a small village before getting chased by guard dogs.

Although I avoided the places they went to, there were a lot of people of foreigners in Nha Trang that were only there to get pissed.  I’ve had my years of madness and all I can say is ‘WHY?’.  You go all the way to Asia to get wrecked every night.  What is the point?  When the Vietnamese staff realised I didn’t drink they were much more friendly and would sit and talk with me.  Their opinion of westerners is that all we do is drink and get out of our heads every night.  Seriously, just go to Magaluf.  I am so glad I never went years ago because I would have missed out on some of the most beautiful countries in the world.

I was offered a job in a town near Dalat while I was in Nha Trang.  Dalat is high up in the mountains of southern Vietnam and is a nice escape from the heat although at night it did get quite cold.  The scenery was beautiful and Dalat reminded me of India.  I decided against taking the job because by this time I had decided that I wanted to go back to China and learn Chinese.  I’d learnt a fair bit and I thought it would be a waste to not learn it to a good standard.  After deciding against the job I headed off to the place that is synonymous with southern Vietnam: Saigon.

When the North Vietnam Army ‘liberated’ Saigon they renamed it Ho Chi Minh City.  Very few people in the south call is that though and stick to the name Saigon.  It’s crazy, it’s hot, it’s full of people trying to scam you but it has a charm.  It took me a few days for me to appreciate it but it is one of my favourite cities.  The War Memorial Museum has a section devoted to the effects of napalm.  I had to walk out after a few minutes.  I wanted to cry and I couldn’t look at the pictures anymore.  I can’t comprehend why it was used against civilians.  There are still people that are being affected by its use in the war and it really is tragic.  I am aware that there was a lot of propaganda in that museum but with napalm you don’t need propaganda, the results of its use need no embellishing.  The book ‘The Girl in the Picture’ is a good read about a napalm victim.

I also went to the Palace in Saigon that has been left as it was when it was liberated in 1975.  It is like stepping back into the past with war time maps on the walls and old telephones.  There was an old American helicopter on the roof and the American tourists all wanted a picture taken with it!  On my way back I was approached by 3 people claiming to be Thai’s and they wanted to take me to a wedding the next day.  To get away I agreed to meet them the next day.  I didn’t go and meet them but it is part of a scam where they start playing cards and let you win.  Eventually they take you to the cleaners and from what I have heard a lot of people have fallen for it.  The scams in South East Asia are very clever and I often wonder if the same happens in London.

Map room in the presidential palace, Saigon

I wandered around Saigon for about a week while waiting for my visa extension.  As I didn’t know where I was going next I finally made the decision to head for Phnom Penh via the Mekong Delta.  The trip through the Delta was impressive although we kept being harassed to buy things and due to it being rainy season the rain was non-stop.  After 6 weeks I made it to the Cambodian border by boat.

Cambodia, taken from the Vietnamese side of the border

 Vietnam left a massive impression on me.  More so than other countries in Asia.  My interest in modern history is probably part of the reason but also I have said before, the resilience of the Vietnamese people.  The French said ‘The Vietnamese plant the rice, the Khmer watch it grow and the Laos listen to it grow.’   They work extremely hard and nothing illustrates that more than the floating market near Can Tho.  People go to the market at 2 in the morning to buy things to sell in markets as far away as Saigon.  They are also very friendly.  Considering their previous interactions with western countries this is pretty admirable.  Market reforms in Vietnam only took five years to come about after reunification and even before that there was a massive black market.  If there was any country not suited to Communism then it was Vietnam.  They are fiercely proud of their country but they are also very open.  One Vietnamese man openly criticised the corruption in the country.  This amazed me because having lived in China I didn’t expect it.  There is still problems in Vietnam, ethnic minorities are still considered a problem by the government.  There is still poverty, although no as obvious as in Cambodia or Laos.  There are only 2 million members of the Communist Party and there are 86 million people in Vietnam.  Perhaps political change will come at some point in the future but for the moment the Vietnamese just seem happy to have what they have.  I admire their being able to come back from a war torn country stricken with poverty to what they are today.  Many people I met didn’t like Vietnam but it is the most beautiful country I have been to with some of the friendliest people I have met.  You just need to get past their instinct to sell you something!

Teaching English abroad

This is probably the most popular way of making money while travelling.  All over the world there are people that want to learn English and other languages.  Depending on where you do it the pay can also be very good.  If you look at  www.tefl.com you will be able to see the wide variety of places that you can work in.  Most countries do require that you have a degree, the degree can usually be in any subject.  These are usually government requirements needed to process a work permit.  If you don’t have a degree don’t despair as it is still possible although it will require a lot more work on your part looking for somewhere that will take you.  Not having a degree will also leave you open to being scammed as some companies will claim they are able to process your work permit but never will.  This will leave you stuck on a tourist visa working illegally and probably doing lots of border runs to get new visas.  Immigration officials will get suspicious if you have too many tourist visas.

Pay can be very good depending on where you work.  Asia has a big TEFL market (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and it is not that difficult to get a job.  In Vietnam you can earn £1,500 a month.  Given the cheap living costs you would be able to save a lot of this money.  Thailand is also a popular destination for people teaching English but you definitely need a degree to teach in Thailand.  If you would like to work fewer hours China is also an option with most contracts only requiring you to work 15 – 20 hours a week.   Your pay in China will depend on lots of factors: where you work, what your qualifications are and also who you work for. 

Teaching can be very rewarding but it can also be very tiring.  My advice would be that unless you really want to teach, think about it very carefully.  If your heart is not in teaching it is a difficult job and you will become disheartened very quickly.  Teaching contracts also restrict your travel for a period of time.  Most schools will want you to sign a contract that runs for at least a year so make sure you are fully up to the challenge of finishing the contract.  A year in the mountains of Tajikistan might sound brilliant but it could get very boring, very quickly.  I have lived and taught in small cities and 6 months is the most I could manage. 

By teaching you will immerse yourself in the culture of the country you are living in as you have to interact with natives.  Teaching is definitely a great way to see the world and experience other cultures however as I have said before it is an option that you need to think about carefully as it is not always as easy as is made out and often suits more outgoing personalities.  If you are serious about it I would also suggest you take a TEFL course and obtain a certificate.  Contrary to popular belief you can’t just walk in to a classroom and pull off amazing lessons, you need to have learnt some things first.  TEFL courses will at least give you some idea of what it will be like and will also allow you to have some preparation.  If you find that you really enjoy the teaching you can also gain higher level certificates such as CELTA and DELTA and your pay will go up massively.

You will also have to consider who you want to teach.  Teaching in kindergartens is a completely different experience from teaching adults who want to go to English speaking countries to work.  Teaching middle school children in Asia also usually means you have classes over 50 kids.  Obviously this can be hard work but if you manage to come up with a lesson that they enjoy it can do wonders for your confidence.

Personally I never enjoyed teaching English, but I wouldn’t dissuade people from doing it either.  I decided to teach after doing it voluntarily in India where I loved it.  However the experience in India was much more laid back and there was far less pressure.  In China, I found that they wanted the teacher to be very outgoing and you were there for entertainment value more than to actually improve English.  I must stress that not every school is like this, you just have to be careful when looking at places to work.  It was also naivety on my part, teachers usually do need to be relatively outgoing and on occasions extrovert.  If you are going to take the plunge it may be wise to look into doing it voluntarily for a few months and seeing if you like it.  This way you are not signing a long contract for a job that you are not sure you will like.

I’ve tried to be as honest as I can in this post, many people go abroad and teach English and find that it’s not for them and it can ruin their experience.  The links that I have posted below are the sites that I have used before.  There are thousands of websites offering jobs so my advice is to just be careful and thoroughly research the place that you want to go to, and also research the company that you want to get in contact with.  I’m not the Yoda of the TEFL world and I am speaking from my own experiences so any other suggestions please let me know!  In a few days I will post the experiences of people that have taught English abroad and what their experience was like.

Below are some links that will help you in your job search:

www.tefl.com (There was recently a job in North Korea on this site, if you are adventurous enough…!)

http://teflsearch.com/knowledgebase/what-tefl#acronyms Useful guide to all the acronyms floating around in the English teaching world.

http://jobs.goabroad.com/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/

Rattling

You've only slept for 4 hours.  It's not a deep sleep, you are not even sure when you fell asleep.  There's is no feeling of being refreshed, of the tiredness having been taken away.  It is a necessity, sometimes your body just gives up.  If you could stay awake forever you would do it.  Sleep means you're not drinking.  You have no idea what time it is, it is dark outside but it could be early evening or early morning, you don't really care but if it is the middle of the night the shop won't be open, you know you won't sleep again so a long night could be in store. 

You grasp for the empty bottle next to the sofa to see if there's anything left, nothing.  You look at the clock, it says 2am.  Five hours until you can go to the shop, why the fuck did you move out to this village.  If you were still in London it wouldn't be a problem.  How are you going to pass these five hours?  You don't feel too bad yet, but you know within in the next hour you will be ill, by seven will you be able to even make it to the shop?  You will, you always do. 

There's a faint feeling of hunger, perhaps you should eat now before you're too ill to even think about food.  You might even be able to keep it down.  If you eat though you have to cook and the dizziness and sense of dread is slowly starting to descend on you.  Can you even make something?  If you stand up for too long you might collapse.  You look back at the clock and realise that only 5 minutes have passed.  5 minutes and you're already feeling this sick.    

You pick up the empty bottle of cheap vodka and try and drink the last drop.  Not the drop that most people think about, they mean a drink, you want the literal last drop, it won't do anything but there's a comfort in having the taste in your mouth.   

Turning the TV on to see if there's anything that can keep your mind occupied for five hours.  There won't be, there never is but you have to try.  Every sound from the TV is amplified, it goes right through your skull, making you flinch.  The colours are distorted, anyone moving too quickly makes you dizzy and nauseous, if you keep it on this channel it’s going to kill you.  In your mind it will kill you, you are about to die because you can't get what you need and these people on the TV are trying to kill you too.   

You are starting to feel the coldness on your back, small shivers down your spine.  Taking the blanket to get warm.  After two minutes with the blanket you're too hot. It needs to go.  Something moves behind you.  You turn quickly too the remains of a shadow move across the wall.  Panic descends, is there someone else here?  A car starts up outside and panic turns into dread.  The noise of the car piercing your soul.  How can you possibly survive another four and a half hours of this? 

A sudden thirst makes you want to get up to get some water, but you consider that dangerous, there's no way you have the energy to do that.  You haven't drank water for days, you're skin looks tanned.  Yesterday you were admiring it, now it dawns on you that it's because you're blood pressure is sky high.  You have to drink something, more than anything though you need sugar.  In your intermittent sleeps you dream about being in a sweet shop and eating hundreds and hundreds of cola bottles.   

A glass of sugary water, it is all you can come up with.  It is becoming difficult to pick up the glass, your hands won't stop shaking and you're coordination is gone.  Try the television again, maybe there is something on this time.  You flick through the channels.  Nothing holds your attention, you can't concentrate, it is too difficult.  There's movement again behind you.  You jump, shivers going through your whole body, your scalp feeling as though there is electricity going through it.   

Now the sickness begins to take hold.  You can feel the pain in your stomach becoming worse, you know you will vomit but want to hold it off as long as possible.  Once it starts you won't be able to stop it.  The thing that is making you sick is what will stop you getting sick.  Only another few hours.  The birds are starting to sing.   

Why have you done this to yourself?  Perhaps this time you won't go to the shop, you'll ride it out, it only takes 5 days and the worst will be over in 2.  Then you can get help, sort yourself out, start living like a normal person does.  It isn’t that bad this time either, you're sick but not that sick.   

Then it hits you full force, dread, fear, you're terrified, if you don't go to the shop you'll die.  Your body won't make it.  The sickness has started.  Retching even though there is nothing to throw up.  There's someone or something watching you.  You feel light touches on your skin but can't see anything or anybody.  You move away from the bowl you used for your sick and crawl into a corner.  Curled up, you just want them to leave you alone.  You stay there scared, you don't want to move.  It slowly gets bright and you dare to get back up and stagger over to the sofa.   

If you leave at 6.40 you'll get there for 7.  Will you be able to make it you ask yourself again?  What other choice do you have but to try.  It's a cold morning as you step outside but you are starting to burn up.  The jacket you have on is too warm.  You take it off, people looking at you, wearing a t-shirt in the middle of winter.  Walking is difficult, you're motor skills are shot to pieces, it feels as though you're body is being pulled in all different directions. 

The shop is open, you head straight for the cheap stuff, it'll sort you out quickly.  The lady at the counter looks at you with pity as you count out the small change you have.  She wonders how does anyone get to that stage?  You don't care, the sickness will soon be gone.  She will be irrelevant until tomorrow.  There is more of a spring in your step as you head back.  You have what you need, you're not going to die.  This bottle will save your life. 

Placing the bottle on the small coffee table you sit back.  Leave it for another half an hour, I can take the sickness for another little while.  It just makes the first one so much better.