We sent out a request for travel stories from our True Travellers’ community and they were quick to oblige! Here is a story from Cheri about her and her fiance’s adventures in Thailand:
“My fiance and I wanted a change from our everyday life, so we decided to quite our jobs and move to Thailand to be ESL Teachers. We went over with an Agency promising us a job after we do a one month volunteer program in Surin,Thailand. So we signed up for it, and two weeks before our flight, they informed us that we where given the wrong information and they will no longer be able to assist us after the volunteer program. But since we already quite our jobs we decided to still go and make it work, we went for several interviews during the month in Surin, sometimes traveling by bus to Bangkok for 7 hours, just to return again after the interview. Nothing promising came up and our month a volunteering was almost over. We only had a few Rand left so we decided to stay and find work until we have tried everything. So we went from hotel to hotel for another month trying to find jobs in the North East of Thailand, nothing came up though, so we decided it’s time to go home.
That day I saw an add placed by a recruiter in Southern Thailand and we immediately got in contact with him, he gave both of us a job and all we had to do was be there by Monday. We did not have enough money for a plane ticket so we had to go by bus, we traveled back to Bangkok for 6 hours and after almost being ripped off by sneaky taxi drivers we managed to get to the other bus station where we took another bus for the 19 hour trip to Hat Yai, Thailand. We where exhausted when we arrived but also relieved that things where starting to look up for us. We went for our interviews and all went well, unfortunately it was still School Holiday and the Schools where still gonna be closed for almost two months. We only had R2000 left, (140 US Dollar) and we knew that we weren’t going to be able to stay in a Hotel and eat for that little money. So we met this other South African lady at our employers office and she offered us a place to stay until School starts. What a ride that was :-) it just reminded me again of how strange some people can be, lets just say we Prayed for the Schools to start ASAP.
In the end it all worked out fine, we are both employed and happy in the small town we ended up in. It’s been a crazy 10 months trying to find our feet and surviving on almost no money and being terrified of public transport lol, but we made it work and are happy to have a good story to tell our kids one day.”
Some things to think about….
First, thanks Cheri for submitting the story. There are so many things about this story that resonated with me. It is not uncommon when travelling to think you have everything planned out and then have it all fall apart. Ahhhh a beautiful 25 hour bus trips only to be broken up by a taxi ride where someone tried to rip you off. Those experiences are always painful at the time but make good stories after the fact. Getting down to the last dollar and the stretching it until you can find another. For some reason, if you have the right attitude and can adapt, things usually do work out fine. Glad to hear you guys soldiered on and have made it work. Thanks again for sharing and glad to hear you enjoyed Thailand!
If you have a meaningful travel or volunteer travel story to share with the True Travellers’ community, please submit it here.
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