We arrived safely in Chiang Mai and settled into a hostel. We snapped a few last photos in Nong Chang and realized we never said much about the actual teaching and home stay experience. The english school we were volunteering at is called Brainstorm and is a private business of our hosts Fai and Pong. … More Teaching in Nong Chang
So hopefully this post will bring us up to date. We will blame our tardiness on our adjusting to our busy teaching/adventuring life balance. We’ve been shocked at how much our host’s generosity has allowed us to do. At least every other day they commit part of their day to taking the volunteers out. So … More The last of Pong adventures
Adventure 6: water park/ bird park Pong’s 10 year old son Takhee is in town for the summer which is one of the reasons I think we got to have this adventure. There’s a children’s water park in the neighboring city about an hour away. We went a little later in the day to try … More Adventuring with Pong 6
Adventure 4: the waterfall Leaving bright and early we headed out to see the local waterfall- I had seen many street signs for this waterfall so I was excited for this one. We stopped and picked up some chicken and sticky rice from a street vendor for our outing snack.There was a really nice 20-30 … More Waterfalls & Caves
Adventure 2: Hot Pot/Sushi Buffet The town we are in is called Nong Chang and is quite small. For the most part it runs along a main road with little shops and family run restaurants along it. We buy our necessities at their equivalent of the dollar store and/or 7 Eleven. Everything’s quite cheap and … More Adventuring with Pong #2&3
One the huge perks of volunteering with this couple is that in exchange for teaching the husband takes us ‘on adventures’ during the week. At first we didn’t think much of this because they very casually said ‘we will go somewhere tomorrow- so wake up at 8 o’clock.’ But we quickly caught on that these … More Adventuring with Pong #1
More to add…. Nong Chang is a small town about 3 hours north of Bangkok. It is where we are volunteering to teach English. So far Jeanette has shown a much better aptitude for teaching than I have, but so far I think the students have enjoyed all of the lessons that we have prepared. … More Photos from Nong Chang
To pick up where Jason left off- following our comfy train ride we spent 3 nights on the west side of Bangkok in an area called Thon Buri- bringing our total nights in Bangkok to 7. Despite having heard multiple times that 2 or 3 days in Bangkok was enough to tire from it, we’ve … More Thon Buri (West Side of Bangkok)
After leaving Koh Tao, we planned to spend a few more days in a different part of Bangkok before we would travel up to the school where we volunteered to teach English. Since the overnight bus was so uncomfortable to the point that neither of us got any sleep, we decided to try the overnight … More Overnight Train Back to Bangkok
Both Jeanette and I were relunctant about scuba diving, but decided that neither of us would be first to chicken out. We signed up with the Ocean Sound Diving School on the island of Koh Tao for their four day open-water certification course (Ocean Sound was the top-rated on Trip Advisor). Koh Tao is known … More Photos from Koh Tao
Life as a Local in Syros, Greece 