A Place to Call Home

It's the one in the middle.  It's a two-story, two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse with a gated garage area and A/C!  Yay A/C!  My rent is 5,000 Baht a month, which is the equivalent of about $162 USD.  Not bad.

The program I teach with comes under the name Learning Space.  Learning Space has it's own building but can also deliver the program in other locations.  Several months ago, a school about 40 minutes out of Bangkok wanted to implement the program.  The school is called Samchaiwataedsuksa (trying saying that 5 times fast), or Sam-chai for short.  The school is located in a city and province of Thailand called Samut Sakhon.

It was decided about 7 weeks ago that I would teach the Learning Space program at Sam-chai with the other Teacher Tyler.  He is called Teacher Tyler 1 and I am Teacher Tyler 2.  It's only fair; he was here first.  We each have our own classrooms and teach from 8:00am to 4:30pm.  It's more than a lot of work and requires it's own blog to explain everything.

Inside the the little gated community I live in.

I moved here about 4 weeks ago.  Because of it's distance there are not a lot of major amenities like a gym, full shopping mall, movie theater that plays films in English, etc.  What Samut Sakhon does have however is real Thai culture.

There's a large floating market in the province.  There's a big night market a short scooter ride away.  There's elephants that walk the streets at night.  There's wild monkeys just 5 minutes from my house.  There's large, open farmland with authentic Thai agriculture: rice, fish, etc.  There's even a hip dance club right around the corner.

Here are some shots of a beautiful river that runs through the town.  They have benches that line the river where you can sit and breath the open air.  It's very tranquil and relaxing.

Here are some videos of the young elephant ("Chaang" in Thai) that came walking through the night market last week.  Some friends and I were just sitting down eating our pad thai and he and his owner came walking through.  It was fantastic!

Check it out!  He started spitting on me!

After school today I went down the street to buy some bananas and eggs.  Right along the road next to the railroad tracks is a group of wild monkeys.  The people around here go there and give them fruit.

It's great to watch.  They're almost always there doing their thing.  This is something you simply cannot get in America, not to mention 5 minutes from your house!!

What's really cool is that there are practically NO OTHER falangs (white foreigners) in this town.  In fact, I went 5 days out here before I saw another white person.  The locals are absolutely fascinated when they see me.  I go to the night market and constantly find people looking at me.

It takes some getting used to.  And if I start speaking Thai with them, which I have found myself very quickly learning, they go crazy.  I'll start talking to one person in Thai and 5 others (not joking) will stand around the conversation and join in.  They smile, laugh, ask me all these questions in Thai.  It's great.

There is definitely much more to blog about in regards this town.  I have just scratched the surface with the activities and things to see around here.

My next blog is already cooking so be ready!!