Cheap Travel: Backpacking in China – Yunan Province

Published by Johnny on March 27, 2010

Bloody hell it felt good finally landing in China, we were in a port-town called Guan Li which certainly wasn’t ideal as we thought we could get a life on the cargo boat all the way to Jinghong – apparently not! Guan Li was… erm.. euh… interesting

We climbed the stairs at the port and made our way through ‘immigration’ which consisted of a confused Chinese guy and a wooden desk. After summoning his manager, calling their superiors, more confused looks at us being there and eventually a stamp in our passports we were let through, and into Guan Li town centre. Wow.

This place is certainly not in any guide book, that much is for sure! We wandered around the town for about 30 minutes. It was early in the morning and we didn’t actually have a plan, when I left Thailand the ‘plan’ only went as far as trying to get on a cargo boat so now we had achieved that we were sort of lost, in more ways that one.

We found a sort-of guesthouse type place for about 20 RMB for the 3 of us, dropped our bags off and tried desperately to find someone who could speak English… I’m sure you can guess how successful that was! We soon were getting followed everywhere around this little town by intrigued Chinese people who kept their distance but had no problems with following our every move Continue reading “Cheap Travel: Backpacking in China — Yunan Province” »

Tags: Backpacking, cheap travel, China, Yunan

Teaching English in Thailand Interview: My Experiences

Published by Johnny on March 27, 2010

So I ended up getting interviewed about my time teaching English in Thailand, I thought I would whack the questions, answers and link to the website. There are many more FAQ about teaching English on my blog

Check out the link the interview by clicking HERE

Johnny Ward, Thailand English Teacher

How long did you teach English in Thailand?

I first arrived in Thailand in February 2007 and left around May 2008 but my first month or so was taken up by studying my CELTA diploma, I was employed almost immediately after completing that so I taught for around 15 months in Thailand in total Continue reading “Teaching English in Thailand Interview: My Experiences” »

Tags: CELTA, Chiang Mai, Interview, Media, money, TEFL, Thailand

Traveling Cheap – the boat from Thailand to China contd…

Published by Johnny on March 25, 2010

It was the evening of our 2nd day on the cargo boat, day 1 had certainly been an experience and as day 2 wore on we realised China was nowhere to be seen. We did, however, seem to be coming rather close to land..

Breakfast on the cargo boat

It should be said at this point that we did have our passports with us, complete with Thai work permits and Chinese tourist visas in expectation of our arrival, what we most certainly didn’t have were any permission to enter Laos… at night… illegally… We figured it was late, dark and noone would see us. So the boat pulled up against the land, the sailors went to sleep and we nipped over to Laos for a cheeky beer on the beach. Feeling undeservedly proud of our illegal immigration status in Laos (all 90 minutes of it) we made a silent, triumphant return to our shelves and went to sleep. Little did we know that illegal immigrant status was about to get a lot more serious elsewhere!

We woke up, and as normal, had breakfast with the crew around 6 am on Day 3. Food on the whole was delicious, most of it was catfish, caught from the Mekong an hour before meal time, then served up in different ways and fed to us with rice (and lots of chilli).

Day 3 – at last we would be arriving in China and getting off this bloody boat! Or so we naively thought….

We were going up stream through the Mekong river and it was slow progress. The scenery was still jaw-dropping and the novelty of the entire ordeal still held is luster but, it the back of mind, i couldnt help but think when we’re we going to reach China?! Continue reading “Traveling Cheap — the boat from Thailand to China contd…” »

Tags: Backpacking, burma, cheap travel, China, crazy stories, laos, Thailand

Cheap travel – boat from Thailand to China (taking a cargo boat, up the Mekong river, from Thailand to China)…

Published by Johnny on March 23, 2010

Now I was settled in Chiang Mai, Christmas came around and I had some time off from teaching so my two housemates (Max and Swede) decided to do a little hardcore backpacking… my first real adventure…

I wanted to go to China all my life but on 25,000 Baht per month teaching salary I couldn’t afford to fly from BKK to Beijing so another route must be found! I looked at a map and saw that the Mekong river runs from a little town in Thailand called Chaeng Saen and then the river ‘becomes’ the border between Burma (Myanmar) and Laos as it runs north until it reaches the Yunan province in Thailand. I hatched a plan.

Thailand to China by cargo boat, following the Mekong

“Right boys, I know how we can get to China and not spend sh*t loads of money” - Me

“Awesome, hows that” – Max

“We’re gonna hitch a ride on a Chinese cargo boat from some random town in Northern Thailand and get off on the first port in China we come to” – Me again

“Oh shit….” – Swede

Continue reading “Cheap travel — boat from Thailand to China (taking a cargo boat, up the Mekong river, from Thailand to China)…” »

Tags: Backpacking, boats, burma, cheap travel, China, crazy stories, laos, Thailand

Chiang Mai – Travel Guide

Published by Johnny on March 18, 2010

This is the one place where I feel fully qualified to chat about and having spent over 18 months here I can truly say I love this city! It’s the first place outside Europe I could really consider ‘home’ and I could really see myself settle here for a while in the not-to-distant future. If you are in Thailand – I really recommend you spend at least a few days here, you can’t help but love it

I’m going to imagine you are going to Chiang Mai for a few days and you want to know the coolest things to see and do whilst keeping it as cheap as possible (sound about right? )

THINGS TO SEE AND DO

TEMPLES – You can’t be in a Thai city without visiting some temples (or ‘Wat’ in Thai). There are literally hundreds but I would say there are 2 that you shouldn’t miss… Continue reading “Chiang Mai — Travel Guide” »

Tags: Backpacking, Chiang Mai, City Guide, Thailand, travel guide

My Time Teaching English In Chiang Mai, Thailand

Published by Johnny on March 15, 2010

I was trying to think of the best way to run through my time in Thailand on my blog, I was in and around Chiang Mai for the best part of 18 months and it truly was one of the best times of my life; I think I’m going to talk about the lifestyle I led, the way the teaching worked, and generally discuss the ups and downs as my life as an English Teacher in Thailand, and then deal with all the extra trips, funny stories and crazy shenanigans later…

Teaching English in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Afterwards, I talk about Chiang Mai as a backpacking destination because that’s a blog in itself :S and what an amazing place it has proven to be to live, I miss it every single day!

Ok, so I finished my CELTA qualification and had became very good friends with the only other ‘young’ person on the course, Max. I actually had a provisional contract with English First (good organisation btw) for a job in China but I reneged on the contract to try to carve out a living in Chiang Mai after falling in love with the place so Max and I decided to try to get a job together in a decent school, find an apartment and live the dream.. Continue reading “My Time Teaching English In Chiang Mai, Thailand” »

Tags: Chiang Mai, teaching english, TEFL, Thailand

CELTA – Chiang Mai, Thailand

Published by Johnny on March 05, 2010

I left the UK once and for all early February 2007, although at this stage I still had intentions to return to the UK and begin my life in the corporate cage (that sentiment has long since gone). Landed in Chiang Mai airport, first time in Asia and no idea what was going on. I managed to get a cab to my ‘campus’ where I would be undertaking my CELTA qualification - it was beautiful, seriously serene and picturesque – called Nugent Waterside (check it out – i have discovered how to do links now!) This is where I would be spending the next month of my life:

CELTA accommodation, Hang Dong, Chiang Mai province

So as you can see, the set-up was sweet! As it turned out, this was hugely necessary as the bloody course was infinitely harder than I had envisaged so a solid base was a necessity lol. Also, when I arrived I was assuming there would be lots of people my age, we would party, study a little bit, get the qualification and crack on from there. Not so. I met an awesome guy, Max, who was 22 and I had just turned 23 – other than us everyone was around 40+, so much for the partying eh!

Let me explain how the whole thing worked:

We had two English tutors who I am still in contact with to this day, you wake up early – around 7am, have breakfast (delicious) then start studying with the tutors around 8.30am, all the way through to 5pm :S then you do coursework until around 9 or 10pm, go to bed (or have a couple of cheeky changs and then go to bed) and wake up at 7am and do it all again! This is the schedule from Monday to Friday – on the weekend, you catch up on your coursework because your due-date is fast approaching! I want to stress that doing your CELTA is by no means a formality, it is eminently passable but if you don’t do the work you will definitely fail (as people on my course did) and after spending $1800 on the course and maybe $1000 on the flight, studying hard-core for a month and all the rest you don’t want to be failing – so make sure you study!

Basically, on day 2 they throw you in at the deep end and get you teaching (on day 2 – wtf!!!!) Very scary for anyone with no experience (by anyone i mean me, and i was terrified). But it comes and goes and definitely helps in the long run, then you keep studying and working and teaching and stressing. You have 4 pieces of coursework to do over the 4 weeks in addition to everything else (there goes your 4 weekends!) and you have to teach 10 classes of 40 minutes i think, so you don’t have too much time to relax.

Ok, so a month goes past in a heartbeat, you have learned things about English grammar that, ashamedly, you didn’t know before even as a native speaker :S definitions of adverbs, adjectives, nouns, verbs! you learn all this during the course so if you don’t know when you register, it’s cool, neither did I! You learn a lot of advanced grammar too and to be honest that’s all really cool and will set you up for life when it comes to learning another language (which I discovered as I learned Thai). We finished up and leaving, as always, is a sad day

Honestly, I can say this was probably the best $1800 AUD I have ever spent – I truly mean that. It opened up a whole new world to me, widened my horizons in a way that I could never have dreamed of and ultimately changed the whole course of my life, I couldn’t recommend this course highly enough and the second you are CELTA qualified you are automatically top of the English teaching food chain – employers love this stuff

Check out my Teaching English Qualifications in the Travel Tips section for a thorough break down of the different types of English teaching qualification you can get, the basic hierarchy of those qualifications, value for money, difficulty etc and you will be fully prepared to choose that course and set off on an unbelievable journey and, crazily, a certificate that allows you to work ANYWHERE in the whole world for the rest of your life – amazing.

Also, check out my FAQ on teaching English overseas