When I was fourteen I was lucky enough to do a school exchange- not your bog standard go-to-France-for-a-week exchange, but go to Thailand for half a term. I remember receiving the letter and rushing home with it, showing my parents who thought it was a great idea, and taking the signed slip in the next day, making sure mine was the first on the teacher’s desk, as there was sure to be hot competition for places. It turned out that I was only one of three girls interested in going to Thailand, and we all got to go. It was a fantastic experience, and one that I don’t doubt shaped the person I’ve become.
I knew that I always wanted to travel after leaving college, and after the Thailand exchange, I knew exactly where I’d be starting off. I was eighteen when I next went to Thailand, this time on my own, where I did a bit of work for my parents, sending jewellery back to the UK to sell in their wholesale/retail business, and after I sent off a shipment each month, I’d have a few weeks to explore. I liked Bangkok, but lived for the beaches, and once I’d discovered scuba diving it was difficult to get me off PhiPhi island to do anything else. I spent a few months living like that, until I decided to surprise my family and go home for a couple of weeks over Christmas, then go back to Thailand in the new year. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made, as three days after I left my friends on PhiPhi the tsunami hit, changing my plans and so many people’s lives forever. I didn’t go back to Thailand in the new year, and instead decided it was time to get stuck into real life in the UK. I found a lovely flatshare and got myself a very responsible job with the police and tried not to think about exotic beaches and scuba diving.
It didn’t last, and as the pressure of working with the police at such a young age started affecting my health, I booked a holiday to Egypt to get away for a week. I knew by the time I got back that I didn’t want the life I had, and booked my next trip to Thailand, and with it, a place on an English teacher training course in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.
Exactly a year after I didn’t catch my flight back to Thailand, I was going back. I first did a detour to PhiPhi, and was surprised at how well the island was doing only a year on, and bumped into old friends, as well as laying a few ghosts to rest. Then I took the train to Chiang Mai, moved straight into an apartment, got all the essentials I needed and started my course.
I really enjoyed being back at school again, the teacher was fantastic and the odd bunch of people that made up our group soon became firm friends. Six weeks later, the course had finished and it was time to find a job. I found mine in Kwong Chow Chinese school in Bangkok, so I moved my apartment 500 miles south, right in the centre of downtown Bangkok, where if i looked out of my windows I could see a skyline of skyscrapers, and Thai life going on underneath my window.
I really enjoyed working at the school, being a teacher to a wonderful class of eight kindergarten kids, shaping their minds and helping them learn essential skills like reading and writing. I feel very special to have been a part of their lives at such an important stage of their learning.
Unfortunately, a strange man that I worked with took to following me everywhere I went, and after being hit over the head with a bottle just around the corner from where I lived, I decided I was safer off back in England.
Since then, I’ve travelled to many other places all over the world, grown up, got married, but have always maintained an affinity with Thailand, as it’s been my home many times. My husband must have got sick of me always harping on about my time there, and decided to see what the fuss was all about, and we booked a holiday to Thailand for our next adventure!
A Penny For Them 