See Thailand – Hotels, Travel, Tourism Info

Most schools where English is taught as a foreign language now require you to hold a TESOL certificate. In recent years many teacher training schools where you can earn your TESOL certificate have started up – they range from the well-established, respected and recognized . . . to the fly-by-night boiler room operation that just barely escapes being shut down as a fraud. You need to choose your TESOL certification course carefully; make sure they don’t promise too much, or too little! It’s always a good idea to see if they belong to the Better Business Bureau, which is recognized world-wide as an arbitrator of honest business practices.

There are several different ways you can legitimately get TESOL certified quickly, easily, and for a relatively inexpensive price!

For most people anxious to take a TESOL course the best option is to enroll in a course center that is already located in the country where you would like to teach. For instance, if you’ve always dreamed of tropical sunsets, miles of pristine seashore and beaches, tantalizing and exotic food, a friendly people with a fascinating culture, and an economy that lets you stretch a dollar almost to infinity, you may want to be an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Thailand. In most cases the schools in Thailand do not hire foreign teachers without at least one face-to-face interview; that’s rather hard for you to do if you are in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and your prospective employer is in Chiang Mai, Thailand! So it would make sense for you to do your TESOL coursework in Thailand – a sort of working vacation. The same reasoning applies to other countries like Spain, France, China, or Argentina.

Generally speaking, an overseas TESOL course will last 4 weeks, and cover some basic skill sets like grammar, phonetics, classroom management, and how to write a workable lesson plan and carry it out. All reputable TESOL courses also include at least six hours of observed student teaching – that means you yourself will write a lesson plan and carry it out in front of a class of live, native students; your teaching will be observed by a professional teacher trainer, who will give you detailed feedback after each class you teach. Beware of any TESOL “crash course” that promises you certification without OST (observed student teaching). Many schools will ask you directly if you’ve done student teaching, and if you haven’t they are not very likely to hire you.

The cost of an on-site TESOL course varies, depending on the country. In Europe you would expect to pay about $2500.00 for your TESOL course, while in Southeast Asia you would pay about $1600.00. This is only for tuition, and does not include your airfare and living expenses.

For those on a restricted budget who might find even this modest tuition too steep there are Special Projects in countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and China. These Special Projects offer significant tuition discounts up to a thousand-dollars for students willing to take the course and then work for a designated period of time at a school chosen by the TESOL course administrator.

From time to time TESOL course centers will run tuition specials that include tuition discounts of a hundred or two-hundred dollars, especially during the “off” season when local schools might be on vacation for a month or more. So when you’re on a TESOL course center website make sure you read the fine print – these specials are not always prominently displayed.

A new and exciting way to become TESOL certified is to take the course online! Some of the best, most well-established TESOL certification schools now offer their complete TESOL course via computer home-learning. It’s interactive, it’s inexpensive, it’s pretty darn convenient, and you’ll receive the exact same certification as you would had you been physically present studying at a course center. And some of the most reputable TESOL teacher training schools now offer their online courses with a job guarantee – that means they will arrange a teaching job for you overseas before you get there!

So don’t worry about your TESOL certification. You can get it in a matter of weeks for a relatively inexpensive price. If you’re serious about teaching English overseas, gaining your TESOL certification is not an expense – it’s an investment!

You can usually enroll online and once you have your passport you can be on your way to adventure and a new career!

You sat next to them in your TEFL course and work beside them in your schools. And you may run into them in the evenings or weekends but, when you do, you desperately try to avoid them, ducking behind isles in the grocery store or leaving quickly from your favorite restaurant. Who are they? They are “The Leftovers”.

Its difficult to find any of the Leftovers back home. They are well hidden in their parent’s basements, playing World of Warcraft 16 hours a day surrounded by a stack of dirty dishes and smelly laundry. With little money and no friends they are the western version of the India’s Untouchables caste. Unseen, unwanted, and unloved, these are the segment of every society that has some hole in their personality, some fatal flaw, that makes them unable to succeed in normal society. And even though they exist back home we rarely see them and are almost never forced to interact with them. And yet we cannot turn around in the ESL staffroom and not run into them in droves. Why IS that?

As an ESL teacher they can have a job! And let’s face it, for the low-level jobs, if you actually show up sober and wearing a decent shirt, it’s pretty tough to get fired. The fact that a teacher has a white face goes a long way in Asia and in these low level jobs it might account for 50 percent of the job or more. Sad but true, but a boon to the Leftovers who have few other skills, technical or social. Thus, for perhaps the first time in their lives, they have a steady income.

And as a result of that income, as an ESL teacher they can get a girlfriend! Of course the most popular variety of girlfriend for The Leftovers is the rent-a-girlfriend variety, easily available in a go go bar near you. Well, after all, if you were a member of the world’s oldest profession, wouldn’t you rather sleep with one oddball instead of 20 a week? The more fortunate may find a girl who just worships Westerners or, in same cases, does not speak English well enough to realize her boyfriend is half crazy. And regardless of the circumstances this is an actual opportunity to lose their virginity before they kick the bucket.

They have a voice! Huddled in their rooms at night, hiding behind fictitious user names they dominate every ESL discussion forum created. Always angry, usually whining, constantly attacking especially those who are even a bit more successful than they are. And lets face it, that includes pretty much everyone and everything.

So what are our alternatives? Yours truly has done a considerable amount of research on the issue and it would appear that it’s illegal to simply exterminate them in many countries and even most US states—Liberal lawmakers be damned! So I would suggest the following:

Laugh at their whacky antics. Let me tell you one of my favorites. There was this leftover working in Yala, Thailand. Yala, for those of you unfamiliar, is in the predominantly-Muslim south. In fact, it’s one of the three provinces where religious differences often lead to violence. That’s probably how this particular Leftover got his job—Westerners are advised against travel in Yala so few would be dumb or desperate enough to live and work there.

So Mr. Leftover, a devout Christian (why is it that leftovers are either very pushy religious freaks or very pushy Atheists?) decided it would be a great idea to inform (in other words, berate) a young boy that wearing a Bin Ladin t-shirt was offensive and that Bin Ladin was a very bad man—a terrorist. Yes, he did this. On the street in Yala. No, I am not joking nor am I making this up. This is a real event.

A crowd gathered and Mr. Leftover began fearing for his safety and retreated into the nearest post office. Soon 250 angry Muslims of all ages were waiting for him to leave his sanctuary, a few of them at least intent on having a less-than-civil discussion with him. The press soon arrived as well. Desperate, he called his Thai boss and she told him to channel Robert De Niro and…. cry. Yes, cry his eyes out and apologize profusely. And this is how Mr. Leftover managed to survive the event—an event that managed to make the Bangkok Post. And, you may be astounded to know that this particular Mr. Leftover once owned one of the more influential ESL websites for its time. Amazing but true.

And most importantly the Leftovers make the rest of us look good. No matter how old and out of shape we become they are an example to our girlfriends of what they might have to settle for if we were not around. And no matter how hung over we are at work, no matter how flimsy is our lesson plan, how wrinkled is our shirt, we look like Super Teacher. Hey we may even get a raise out of the deal! So raise a glass to the leftovers, Maybe they have a purpose after all!

A few years ago I looked at various Nile Cruises and booked myself to go on one, it was a great way to see Egypt in all its glory, meet its people, landscapes, monuments and wildlife.

Cairo is seen as the gateway to Egypt, the sand on the streets serve as a reminder of the surrounding desert. The city full of tradition, customs and friendly people.

My view of the pyramids (Cheops, Khafre and Menkaure) was something I’ll never forget. The large and imposing Sphinx completes the mythical image of the old and former Egypt. After seeing the pyramids I would suggest a visit to the Citadel of Saladin, the home of the Alabaster Mosque and the famous Egyptian Museum.

After flying from Cairo to Luxor, we embarked on our cruise on the Nile stopping at various points including the temple of Luxor and then the grand temple of Karnak. Both of these Egyptian temples convey the feeling of size, wealth, space and the greatness of their conception. The following day we travelled further on our Nile Cruise and visited Necropolis with its more than 60 monumental tombs. The tomb is known as the Valley of the Kings.

Further on the Nile Cruise we travelled to Esna which continues on to Edfu. It is here where you learn about the close relationship between the Nile and Egypt, it marks every moment in Egypt’s history. The Nile Cruises take you to the temple Edfu, where people of all Egypt came to worship Horus, the god symbolised by the wings of a hawk. We then went on to Kom Ombo, visible itself from the Nile. This temple was dedicated to Sobek the God of crocodiles and Horus. If you get the chance to go on one of these Nile Cruises I would certainly recommend it. At the end of the Nile Cruise we flew to Cairo and back again to the UK – the views and memories I have from this Nile Cruise will stay long in my memory.

Housing is fantastically cheap in Thailand, if you know what to look for – or stumble onto something through dumb luck.

I prefer the dumb luck method, as most of my life could be considered dumb luck – or perhaps just dumb.  No comments from the Peanut Gallery, please.

I have written previously about obtaining a Thai girlfriend and how to keep them relatively good-humored and stable.  But, like all men who brag about their love life, I have finally been run down, roped, and branded, by a Thai woman who owns her own car.  That’s no big deal in the States, true enough, but here in Thailand for a woman to not only have her own wheels but to cow the bank into giving her about the best loan rate I’ve ever heard of . . . well, it boggles the most penetrating wit!  Her name is Joom, and she has ambitions.  Not just to marry me and live off my income, but to have her own independent source of income.  Again, to be as politically incorrect as possible, most Thai women are only interested in snagging a man to take care of them the rest of their lives.

So this is a woman I am attracted to on a higher level, as well as the physical low-down level.  Besides, all her kids are grown and have immigrated out of Thailand – so there’ll be no step children to deal with.

My first point of business with Joom was to get her work as a private driver, so she could make enough money to make her monthly car payments all by herself.  We’re getting close to that goal already.

Next, since I work the graveyard shift at TEFL International and have to leave Joom to her own devices early in the evening so I can get some sleep, I was anxious to find something for her to do w/her spare time – something profitable.

Thailand abounds with hollow-eyed farangs who keep predicting that a good Mexican restaurant would clean up in Thailand.  I don’t know why they believe this, but I’ve heard enough of them to believe it myself.

And so that’s what I told Joom we would be doing – or rather, she would be doing.  I would teach her to make tacos, corn tortilla chips, quesadillas, and refried beans.

But first we needed a storefront to open our little business, which, by the way, is called Joom’s Mexican Café. Her current apartment was unsuitable – little more than a room w/a bath in the back.  So we went hunting for a spot where she could both live and run the café.

Didn’t take long.  We soon found a four-story storefront just a few doors down from TEFL International.  Rent was 6-thousand baht/month.  With the dollar worth 31 baht that put the rent at . . . um, carry the six and add the four . . . $190.00 a month.  No restaurant license or liquor license needed.  (You’re supposed to apply for these things, but nobody ever does outside of Bangkok proper – and we are 169 blessed kilometers away from there.)

Next step, making salsa!

You can’t have a decent Mexican café w/o a good bowl of salsa and a plate of tortilla chips.

So I sat down with Joom, a peck of fresh ripe tomatoes, several green peppers, 2 large onions, and a large bunch of cilantro.  No garlic, thank you.  I’ll tell you why in a moment.   It cost exactly 2 dollars to buy all the produce.  Joom quickly grew bored of the infinitely tedious job of dicing up the tomatoes, so she got on her cell phone and invited a gaggle of her friends over to help – I was delegated to go buy several quarts of cold Leo beer for the mob.  The job was done, in the famous words of Oliver Hardy, “in two shakes of a dead lamb’s tail.”  I instructed Joom to add some salt, a dash of vinegar, and . . . my secret ingredient.  It’s something that Alex Janney, proprietor of Que Pasa Restaurant in Nonthaburi, told me about.  And I’m not about to tell you what it is, amigo!  Suffice it to say that it is a very common & inexpensive bottled sauce the Thais put on everything from chicken to ice cream.  Oh, and a generous dose of MSG.  As a flavor enhancer, of course, but more importantly, as a preservative.  In a hot tropical climate like Thailand, MSG keeps foods from spoiling much longer than anything else.

We filled the crockpot with homemade chili, fried up the tortilla chips and were ready for business!  We grated cheddar cheese (ruinously expensive – by far the biggest cost factor in making Mexican food in Thailand) and sliced up black olives.  We firmly believed that “if you cook it they will come.”

Well . . . they didn’t.  We haven’t had one blessed customer yet.  Rather than throw all that food out, we’ve been eating it until it comes out our ears and inviting friends over to scarf it down (and I’ve about worn out a pair of flip-flops trudging to the store for more Leo beer – apparently in Thailand not even your own mother will come visit you if there’s no hootch in the house.)

But I’m still hopeful, still one of those hollow-eyed farangs that believes there are millions of baht to be made selling refried beans and enchiladas in Ban Phe, Thailand.  Tomorrow we’re making gazpacho!

The recent unpleasantness in Bangkok has left many outsiders puzzled.  Isn’t Thailand the Land of Ten Thousand Smiles?  A haven for those weary with the crass materialism and shoving effrontery of the shallow West?  A kingdom dedicated to peace and light, where the teachings of Buddha reign supreme?  How came this Donnybrook, this tumult, this imbroglio?

I will explain the situation so even a Republican can understand it.

You see, many years ago in Thailand the people did not wear shirts.  Not the children.  Not the men.  And not the women.  If you wanted to impress someone with your beauty or handsomeness, or wanted to get dressed up for a village shindig or religious ceremony, you simply got a tattoo.  That was considered a classy thing to do.  Since no one could hide anything from the waist up, a kind of rough democracy prevailed – if you had a gut the size of a small boulder everyone could see it; if you had warts covering you like pebbles on the beach everyone knew that; if your husband beat you, the welts and bruises were right there for all the world to see and disapprove of.  It was hard to hide anything, either good or bad, when everyone could see your chest and backside.  And so the Thai people developed a tranquil attitude towards life and towards one another.

Then came the day when a Portuguese man-o-war sailed up the river to Bangkok.  The sailors poured out of the ship, curious to see this land of myth and shadow.  Of course they were all wearing coarse linen shirts.  These shirts set the populace of Bangkok agog.  They had never seen such a thing before, and couldn’t imagine how those poor Portuguese managed to wear such wicked-looking things without perspiring to death.  But human nature being what it is, a few of the more adventurous Thais traded ivory and rubies for a filthy, foul-smelling sailor shirt – which they immediately donned to great consternation.  Consternation at first, and then growing admiration and envy.  Before the unfortunate Portuguese knew what was happening they were slaughtered to a man and their ship was sunk in the harbor, but not before every single shirt on board had been confiscated.

Now the first class system was born in Thailand.  Those who had shirts lorded it over those who did not.  The Shirts were given the best seats in the temple and were served first at every holiday feast.  Their children were excused from climbing palm trees to fight the monkeys for precious coconuts.  The Shirtless had to kowtow to their shirted masters.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, as soon as the Thais learned to make their own shirts everyone decided that they would be a Shirt – and soon there were no more Shirtless people in Thailand.  But that meant that there was no one to climb the palm trees to fight the monkeys for the precious coconuts and no one to take out the trash each evening and no one to row the barges up and down the river.  Commerce and civilization came to a stand-still.

Until someone thought up the idea of dying the shirts.  The first dye they used was green.  The Green Shirts proclaimed their superiority to every other color on earth, and demanded that whenever a Green Shirt passed by everyone else must snuffle in the dirt and wiggle their keysters high in the air.

Then someone else got the smart idea of dying their shirt blue – so now there were the Green Shirts and the Blue Shirts.  And the Blue Shirts claimed that the Green Shirts were terrible people because they liked to eat sticky rice instead of plain white rice.  To which the Green Shirts replied that only an uneducated baboon would even consider soiling their fingers eating plain white rice.

Then things got complicated.  Some radical dyed his shirt both blue and green, in stripes.  No one knew what to make of this, so they took the blue and green stripped shirt and hung him up by the toes until he begged for mercy.  Then they fed him to the crocodiles.  Everyone felt this was an excellent solution, and there was peace in the land for many years.

But it goes against the grain to leave well enough alone.  So along came a trouble-maker who began wearing a polka-dot shirt.  Then came someone in a plaid shirt.  There were riots everywhere and the country would have plunged into civil war had not a wise old monk  invented the checkered shirt, with French cuffs, which soon swept the country like fried Twinkies.  Everyone wore a checkered shirt, and the land settled down into a drowsy tropical languor that lasted up until just a few months ago – when some wisenheimers decided to go back to solid colored shirts again.  And some people wore their shirts inside out, to indicate . . . well, I dunno just exactly what they wanted to indicate.  But it incensed part of the Thai population, and that part marched and quarreled with shirts of all sizes and shapes until the only color a shirt could safely be was white, or black.

And then another wise old monk came along and told everyone to take off their shirts and go bare-chested again like in the Good Old Days.  This monk was sent to Disneyland in California, and has never been heard from since.

And that is how this whole quandary came to pass.

I’m happy to report that things are now settling down in Bangkok and the surrounding countryside.  That is, until some trouble-maker over in Khorat or up in Chiang Mai decides to take his pants off . . .

Brown’s Wharf Inn:

The Brown’s Wharf Inn is a quaint little hotel with restaurant located in Boothbay Harbor Maine. When it comes to Boothbay Harbor hotels, this hotel has to be one of the best I have seen in Boothbay Harbor.

They have very friendly customer service, clean rooms, excellent food, and even have their own marina! It is interesting to note that the Brown’s Wharf Inn, is one of the only hotels in Boothbay Harbor Main to offer parking for boats.

The Brown’s Wharf Inn in Boothbay Harbor is comprised of 70 Water View Rooms, Suites, Captain Brown’s Cottage, and Captain Lunt’s Cottage.

With private balconies, perfect for watching breathtaking sunsets, or just sit and watch the hustle and bustle of Boothbay Harbor Maine, all the rooms at the Brown’s Wharf Inn are perfect for any occasion. Whether you want a romantic getaway for two, or a family vacation spot, this Boothbay Harbor hotel, you will find what you need and more!

They offer some of the most affordable deals when compared to other Bothbay Harbor hotels. Room rates start at just $70 per night, so you get good quality, which doesn’t break the bank.

When it comes to your choices for Boothbay Harbor dining, you won’t need to go far as the Brown’s Wharf Inn has to have the finest seafood amongst all of the Boothbay Harbor restaurants.

The Brown Wharf Inn is your perfect choice for a relaxing place to stay when in Boothbay Harbor Maine. You surely won’t be disappointed.

It is an axiom as old as my grandfather’s beard – which he inherited from U.S. Grant during the Great Seltzer Water Scandal of 1877, which historians now say was caused by bad plumbing and a stick of chewing gum – that before you can eat rambutan you have to buy them.  This is such an elemental truth in tropical places like Thailand that I’m surprised it hasn’t been made into a TV reality show.  But then again, maybe it has; I’ve been living in Thailand for over a year now, without any cable access, and I’ve almost forgotten what Homer Simpson sounds like.

To buy rambutan you have to go to the market.  To go to the market you have to have transportation, unless you are one of the lucky few who live within walking distance of a market, and in Thailand “walking distance” is considered to be about ten feet only.  After that, the Thais want wheels; either a bicycle or a bus or a motorcycle or a car or perhaps a water buffalo if one happens to amble by.  The Thais are too smart to spend any amount of time out in the broiling midday sun, cooking their heads to a mush in the heat.  They leave that kind of foolishness to the farang backpackers who keep showing up and walking around like zombies until they keel over from sunstroke or too many Chang beers.

As I was saying, first you have to get to the market.  Once there, you have to find the rambutan.  Unlike some fruits of Thailand, like pineapple and papaya, rambutan does have a season; when the season is past you can still buy them but the price is so outrageous that it causes most Thais to throw themselves under a charging elephant (and since most elephants in Thailand still do not own a credit card this can be awfully time-consuming.)  I have no idea what the rambutan season is.  Nor do I care.  The only reason I’m writing this article is that I lost a bar bet.

The best way to find rambutan at the market is to ask for something else; that way your Thai informant will be tricked into saying something like: “To get to the coconut milk just turn right by that pile of rambutan over there.”  Thais are notorious for giving wrong directions; they feel it is their duty to misdirect every person they meet, much like Houdini during a stage show, and send them blundering off into a pit of quicksand instead of the airport.  That is why traffic in Bangkok is perpetually at a stand-still; everyone is going the wrong way, they know it, and so they’re in no hurry to get there.

You have to bargain for rambutan, as you do for most things at the market.  The best bargaining strategy is to foam at the mouth when you hear the price and rip one of your ears off.  This allows the vendor to save face and offer you the rambutan for only twice its cost, instead of three-times its cost.  Your rambutan will be placed in a flimsy plastic bag – along with your ear – and you can then calmly march home.  Chances are good that the flimsy plastic bag is going to break on your way back home and scatter rambutan to the four winds, at which point you should perhaps do a little bit more foaming and bite off the ear of a passing stranger.  This explains why there are so many one-eared Thais running around nowadays.  (The Bangkok Post says it’s a fashion statement; but what do they know?)

Okay.  So you’ve got the rambutan home; now what do you do with the ugly little red buggers?  If memory serves, I believe there is a picture of rambutan accompanying this scholarly article; take a good look and try not to tell me these things don’t originally come from Mars!

But, by the Great Horn Spoon, they sure taste sweet & crisp!  There’s really only one way to open a rambutan successfully so you don’t smash it and get bits of the pit mixed up with the translucent fruit pulp.

But why should I tell you how to do it?  Chances are you’re never going to be in Thailand, and if you do go to Thailand you’ll probably stay at one of those fancy-schmansy downtown hotels where the maids will open your rambutan for you – you old moneybags, you–I hope you choke on it!  And that’s how you eat rambutan.

I am very concerned with how the real estate industry is going.  I know of many people that have to put their house up for a short sale because they are unable to make the payment.  I really hope it turns around and hopefully it will happen soon.  We will have to see if the government can do what they promised. From the last 6 months I really can’t see the light so it is either going down or we have a major issue about the hit the American public.  People please stop borrowing more than you can afford.  Make sure not to count on the government to bail you out.

TEFL International’s Academic Headquarters in Ban Phe, Thailand is proud to be the Thailand representative of Design For Change.

Design for Change is an international contest that encourages students between the ages of 8 and 14 to develop projects that improve their local communities. The contest, created in India by Kian Bir Sethi, has already spread to over 3,000 schools in that country alone and is now attracting international attention.

According to TEFL CEO, Bruce Veldhuisen, “Our plan is to introduce the entire kingdom of Thailand to this amazing contest and then seek to do the same in every country where we operate. This is a project that deserves our, and everyone’s, support.”

For more information please see the Design for Change website at www.designforchangecontest.com and TEFL International at www.tefllife.com