This (my first ever) blog is to enable me to stay (constantly and probably annoyingly) in touch with my daughter as I take off to Southeast Asia on a working holiday and of course to keep a record of my SE Asia rambling for posterity.
What began as an "I might finally go and do some ESL teaching overseas" thought, blended with my long-held desire to "volunteer abroad" (particularly in a developing country where I felt I might make the most impact/contribution) and finally morphed (and I mean finally - this thing has been a full-time job in the planning) into a two country volunteering gig mostly teaching English. First destination, Chiang Mai in northern Thailand (not even originally within my purview) followed hotly (and almost unbelievably) by Cambodia. Yep, C-a-m-b-o-d-i-a (land of spider-eating!) (also not originally within my purview!)
Anyhoo, I have just about narrowed it down to these two - just waiting for final confirmation from the school in Cambodia. I originally planned to do a group tour of Vietnam (I wanted something I could do solo, and perhaps also meet some new people - at the ripe age of 48 one feels a little pressure to fulfil the dreams of youth while one does not need a ventilator/iron lung/prosthetic device ... you get the idea). Anyway, that morphed into let's go overseas for a longer stint ... perhaps another working holiday... ugghh! hope it's not like the one I did in England several years ago....no (this is what my brain was saying, as I recollect) it will be great - so I moved away from the idea of doing a full-blown CELTA (those things are expensive!) to doing 'paid' volunteering with cosmic X company. Eventually the yellow brick road led me to volunteering in Thailand - and Chiang Mai seemed like a better place to be than Bangkok and the opportunity that came up in Phnom Penh seems to good to pass by.
Anyway, as soon as I hear back from Cambodia, will book flights (local agent's quote more expensive than what I found online so threw hers out the window) and get required police check sent off. Stupidly or not, I'm not bothering with vaccinations - don't intend to hike into jungle and no time anyway.
Excited to be in the final stages of planning ... it's pretty scary to be heading off alone, but I'm looking at it as an opportunity to not only see some great places, but to "take a journey into myself" (paraphrasing a quote by Danny Kaye found on vagabondroots.com). Nighty-night!
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