The Journey(s) of Ian

(posted on linkedin.com) Teaching in Thailand is not a rewarding experience, neither financially or career wise. There are better alternatives, including the new option of online teaching. Test these before heading to the Land of Smiles, but if you go this is what you need to know. The first hurdle is visa paperwork. Mere words do not suffice to describe the complexity—the ever changing and growing complexity. To start, you must spend a few days at your school getting all the various bits of paper together, having them photocopied, signed, and verified, next visit several different government departments, and then leave the country(!), travel to a Thai embassy, and then wait for the Thai officials to process your ‘paper’ and return a work visa. All with lots and lots of ‘stamps’—just make sure that the correct colour is used. This usually goes ok, but not always. To add insult to injury Thai schools expect you to pay for this. A week and $1,000. Having secured your coveted...

Lots of signs along the way. tourist shop opposite the museum. reproduction pots on sale. Ban Chiang is an archeological site located in the Udon Thani Province of northern Thailand. The site is of importance as it contains the archaeological remains of the only known south east Asian culture to independently develop an agrarian culture. Prior to the discovery of Ban Chiang it was genuinely assumed that agricultural knowledge was transferred into south east Asia from India and China. This was not the case. Due to this unique role the site played in the region, Ban Chiang is considered to be the most important archaeological site in the Kingdom of Thailand. In 1992, in recognition of its importance in south east Asian cultural development, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The earliest evidence shows that the area was settled by a hunter-gatherer people in the fourth millennium BCE. These people possessed the rudiments of a settled, agricultural society: do...

The major city of northern Thailand, population 170k in the central city, with maybe a million or so in the city environs, 315m or so in elevation, centred around the 'old town', which is a city founded in 1296 by King Men Rai the Great, and made somewhat hazardous by the smoke from bush fires in neighbouring Myanmar and Laos (Thailand already having burnt most of its forests). (The neighbouring province of Tak ("Tark"), which abuts Myanmar, is near to declaring a disaster, due to the smoke.) This inner city is surrounded by a wall (not in the best of condition, I doubt if it could withstand assault as it is, and a moat). ...And, the inner city is where the action is... Chang Mai bus station. Chang is a tourist city, there are lots of tourists, lots of hotels, lots of guest houses, lots of tasty restaurants, and plenty of things to do. I have heard Chang described as boring, nothing to do. To those people I say "you are so wrong!"  I found the i...

  Information plaque for the first temple. The first wat you will see. Wat Phra Si Rattana Maha That Chaliang. As described in my blog post on the Sukhothai Kingdom, this former Kingdom is survived both by the modern Kingdom of Thailand, and by three archaeological sites, which together form a UNESCO World Heritage site. These three sites are the former three, major cities of this ancient Kingdom. The first and largest, the ancient city of Sukhothai, was described previously, here I will describe the second city of the Kingdom, the city of Si Satchanalai ("C-sack-chan-a-lie"). This site is officially termed the "Si Satchanalai Historical Park". Si Satchanalai is found in the north of the province of Sukhothai. Reaching Si Satchanalai is easy enough. Buses regularly leave from the Sukhothai city bus terminal for the ~50kms, ~70min trip to the site of Si Satchanalai, this is along the route, Bangkok to Chang Rai, with the next major stop b...