Life in a real Thai city

Shell and I have settled in Phang Nga which is about 90 minutes north of Patong Beach, Phuket and 90 minutes northwest of Ao Nang, Krabi.

It’s pretty quiet here but the scenery is stunning and its really great to be away from all the other tourists because we are both pretty tired of being offered tailor-made suits.

Shell was offered the job the day we arrived in Phuket and after spending the following day checking out Phang Nga city, we made the following conclusions:

• The wage – 30,000 THB/month (£550) is about 3x what the other teachers are on and it should allow us to live pretty comfortably.
• Phang Nga might be quiet, but Phuket and Krabi aren’t far away.
• The contract expires in March (Thai summer holidays) at which point the agency has implied more work will be available. If we like it, we can stay. If we hate it, we can leave.

I’m trying to get some momentum going with my web development work but if I complete two websites each month, I will earn as much as Shell will. Ideally, there will be more work available (I’d really like to save some money whilst living here cheaply) but I’ve been making as many friends as possible and have offered to volunteer for a week at a local quad-bike safari tour in the jungle.

Our TEFL teacher had worked at one time in Ecuador teaching the local tour guides English. I’m going to look into this over the next week and report back soon.

As for houses, I looked at two today…no good. We will be looking at another two tomorrow.