Life in the Desert

I moved to the Middle East!

It's been quite a while since my last post.  I think I was in Thailand in October of last year.  There is a reason for that.  Usually I only put up a post when I've done some traveling and the only traveling I did after October was between family members homes.  

I had the longest unpaid break between jobs of my entire life.  Usually I take a week or two off between jobs but this time it took a long time to find another job and then still longer while I jumped through hoops for visa's and to get the job.

Well, here I finally am in the UAE (United Arab Emirates).  It only took about 5 months from when my application was accepted for interview until I landed in this new(for me) country.  I'll tell you it was a bit of adventure.

A recruiter passed my application on to the Ministry of Education and they accepted at the beginning of December 2015.  I had an interview at the end of January which I think I nailed. Four days later I was offered a tentative position based on my getting a visa.  The visa process started immediately, that's not to say anything happened.  Around the beginning of March I got an official contract, though it was still dependant on my getting a visa, but I figured if I got an official contract then I had the visa.  Five weeks later the visa process was complete and I had about 36hrs to get on a plane.  They told me friday morning and my flight was Saturday afternoon.  They paid for it so I didn't have much say, but it would have been nice to get together with my family one last time.  Oh well, there would be a payoff in the near future.

I landed in Abu Dahbi and someone was waiting there to take me to the hotel and help me get a sim card for my phone.  The MoE put me up at the Dusit Thani which is a 5+ star hotel.  Man was that a nice place,wish I had some pics of the place.  Three buffets a day with amazing food at every one.  I hope to stay there again one day!

That evening I was contacted by a banker.  I was currious about how he got my number but apparently its a service the government sets up to make things a little easier.  I was nervous about signing things but it all worked out.  

The next day was being carted around doing blood tests and applications for a residence card then off to the next city which was Sharjah.  It's about 30mins from Dubai.  Had a short meeting there about nothing and then I was off to another 5 star hotel for 7 nights while I shadowed a project teacher to see what I was supposed to do. 

Pool view at the Bustan Rotani 5 Star Hotel

you can see the Burj Khalifa kinda shadowed in the background

 After three days of following him around I felt pretty decent about the daily things I would be doing.  Then off to another hotel and my placement. 

My room for the first month

 My one up boss took me to the school I would work at.  It was way out in the desert.  Takes about an hour to drive there.  Everyone there was super nice so I felt pretty good about the people I would work with.

By now I'm in my third week of work here but I hadn't really done anything except have brief meetings with my boss and then the rest of the day off.  This experience has been the easiest I've eased into a job.  And then the terrors of public schools in the UAE.  WOW, those kids are crazy.  Hopefully, when the new school year starts things will be better or its going to be a LONG two years here.  Oh ya, I taught a few lessons over the next two weeks and then, suddenly, all the students stopped coming to school.  After a week of sitting around chatting and getting to know the other teachers it was final exams. 

some of the people I work with

 Still nothing for me to do, so I sat around until finally the school years ended.  Now I'm vacation for basically 5 or 6 weeks.  (due to a stupid law I have to work one day a week for the final three weeks before the new school year starts, no biggy.  I started work one day late) 

Thats the job.  Life here?  Pretty good.  I was offered a credit card and a large personal loan by the bank so I bought a car.

getting the windows tinted cuz it's freakin' hot and freakin' sunny here

KIA Sorento.  Fully loaded.  Even the seats have airconditioning.

Since I have to drive so much I figured,get a decent vehicle that I will enjoy driving, and driving I do.  Here are some of the sights I see while going to and from work.

Camels in the desert.  They are not wild, just wandering around free

They like to walk on the road too.  I was warned about them many times when I got here.

They even stare at you as you go past.

Driving in the desert can be interesting.  Some of the scenery is really quite nice to look at.  Maybe it's because it's all new to me, but I plan on going out to take a few pictures at some point during my summer break.

I lived in the hotel for four weeks and then I found a friend to move in with.

My kitchen

It's a typical two bedroom apartment, but it's on the sixteenth floor and has a decent view.

You can kind of see a mosque mid right of the picture.  Ramadan came in June this year and that mosque has been a pain in the a**.  It turns it's loudspeakers on at two in the morning and blares music or sermons for around an hour.  I will not be living here next year during Ramadan and I really hope it stops once Ramadan is done, but my experience in Malaysia doesn't give me much hope.

Ampitheatre across from my last hotel.

There is a path all the way around this body of water.  it's really a nice area but it's just to damn hot to go outside.

46 degrees Celcius.  And thats not even as hot as it gets here.  AND there is humidity!

Middle of Dubai Mall the largest mall in the world

Well that's about it for now.  I will try and post a few more pictures in the near future, but like I said, it's just to hot to go outside here.  Can't wait for winter when the temps drop down to around 30 or so.  It's going to feel chilly!

More Thailand and a Taste of India

 Three weeks of Vacation in Thailand and India

 Sunset at Railay Bay Resort

As seen in my previous post I was in Thailand following the end of my contract in Malaysia.  I stayed in two resorts while in Krabi.  Both were very nice and had their own good and bad points.  The first place I stayed had a nice pool.

Pool at Alisea Resort

I did a lot of walking while staying here.  This area is very touristy but has some nice looking scenery. 

The food was pretty good at both resorts in Krabi and I enjoyed my time there.

  At Alisea resort the staff were great and tried to help me with any of my needs.  About the only bad thing I have to say about this resort is the TV.  There was only one english channel and it repeated the same shows all day.  I think I watched an episode of millionaire dating club around 4 times in 2 days.  

Railay bay resort was my next stop and the scenery was beautiful.

Railay Bay Resort Pool view

 The only real problem I had here was that almost all the staff couldn't speak english which surprised me a lot.  But they all tried to do what they could and if you were patient then you got what you wanted.

After Krabi I was in Bangkok for a couple of days to meet my friend so we could go off to India.  Most people seem to love India, so I figured it should be a nice vacation and I could say I've been to India, which a lot of people can't say.

We took a bus, a shuttle and a taxi to get to our first resort in Anjuna Beach.  As you can see from the picture below, they had a nice pool.  It was very refreshing after a long day of sweating in the Indian heat and humidity.  That's about all I have to say about this place.  

 We walked along the beach in Anjuna and got completely harassed by the locals trying to sell their trinkets.  It was so bad that we decided to find a road to walk back to the resort.  I think if it had been high tourist season it might not have been so bad, as we were the only white people around so they all came to us.

We also, tried to do a sunrise at the fort near Anjuna but it didn't open until 9am.  We did 3 nights in Anjuna and then moved on to Calangute beach.

The hotel here was way nicer except the pool had a film on the surface because they didn't have the filter running.  I couldn't bring myself to go in even though I was boiling hot.  At least the air-con worked well.  The staff were really nice and helpful here, so that was good.

We hired a taxi to take us to Old Goa town church.  I can't remember the name of this church but it was nice.

inside the old Goa town church

nice trees outside the church

After the church we could see a ruined tower in the distance, so we asked our driver to take us there.

 

This place was pretty cool.  I really like walking around ruins.  This was St. Augustine's Church and Monastery.  I think there was a convent here too or maybe just a church and convent.  Can't remember.

After the churches we moved on to a spice plantation where we had a guided tour of a small part of the plantation.  There were some interesting trees to see.  I was a little surprised by how many spices grow on trees and not on smaller plants.

Looked like worms growing out of the tree

This is a vanila plant that grows on trees.  Made me think of a bug of some sort.

You could get spit on by an Elephant if you wanted.  The girl in front didn't want to, but her dad made her

Road to Calangute Beach

The waves were to big for me to go in the water

We rented a scooter and drove to this fort.  I think it was called Aguada Fort.  Nice view.  Wish there had been a little more to see.

St Anthony's Church in the middle of the road

A neat house along the road

After a couple of days in Calangute we decided to spend our final night in a five star hotel at Bogmalo Beach.  This was the view from our sixth floor balcony, not bad.

The view was amazing and so was the sunset (below) but as nice as this resort looked, it wasn't much better than the one and two star places we had stayed in earlier.  While my friend was showering the water turned brown and dirty, then I think the neighbors flushed the toilet and all we could smell was sewer for the next hour.  Thankfully the smell went away

watching the sun set and relaxing at Bogmalo Beach Resort

All in all I think India was worth doing, but I won't be going back.  Due to the off season my friend couldn't find a yoga class to take, they were all closed until November.  As I'm sure you know, cow's are sacred in India and they get to roam everywhere.  Cow pie's galore make for a very countryside smell, even in the cities.  

Something I really liked about India is that they don't cut down all the trees to build a house.  The greenery is everywhere and it was probably my favorite part of India.

I think I was expecting something very different from India than what I got.  There is a small part of me that can understand why people like it, but at the end of the day it wasn't really for me.  

I don't want to discourage people from going because it is a beautiful country, if you can see past the poorness of it all.  I never felt crowded while there despite there being over a billion people living in the country and I didn't get sick like almost everyone else I have ever heard about going to India.  Just stay away from the tap water.

Now I will stay in Canada and visit my family for couple of months. 

Bye bye.

First Day at Railay Bay Resort and Spa

 Railay Bay and Hong Island

I made the transition from one resort to another and boy what a difference.  At the first resort the area was very touristy, with many shops to buy all the junk a tourist could ever want, lots of english speakers around to communicate with and lots of room for taking long walks.

Railay Bay?  Almost the complete opposite!  Not a lot of English to be had here, but the staff are still super nice and try really hard to understand what you are asking for.  Shops?  Not many and they are all on the east side of the peninsula.

Low tide.  Not the prettiest thing to look at.

One of the shops on the east side.

I really like the scenery around this area and its super quiet here so far.  Lots of younger European people here, but I'm not seeing any partying going on so far.  Not much for tourists here, just quiet, calm and relaxing atmosphere.  As an anti-social person maybe not the best location.  I don't think I've spoken socially to another person, excepting resort staff, for over a week now.

In order to try and break the silence I decided when I got to this resort that  I would book a day trip and do some snorkeling.  The islands around here are very picturesque.  

Longtail boat

Hong lagoon.  One way in, one way out.

Very nice looking water

The symbol of Hong Islands.  Not sure what it's trying to say. 

The next stop was small sand bar that we stopped at for a quick swim.  I had bought a cheap knock-off Gopro, so I decided to give it a try here.  Not much to see with it but I did get this fairly nice picture with my phone (in a waterproof pouch).  Indonesian smoke haze was fairly low today so that was good.

 The next stop was the snorkeling location and I used the fake Gopro properly.

There is a crab in the bottom right quarter of this picture.  Hope you can see it, it's orange.

 As you can see the water is a little cloudy.  I don't think it's the best time of year for snorkeling here.  It's definitely not as nice as Tioman in Malaysia was.  My cheap little camera did a decent job of it though.

I was told that there was a Barracuda in the area, but I didn't see it while I was swimming.  As I watched the video I realized that I got it, if only for a couple of seconds, but it's so cool that I got it.  Here's to having good luck.

All in all, this day was pretty good.  I got to talk to a few people, see some fishes and relax.

Just taking a little break in the water.

I will leave you with a couple more pictures of the area.

Sitting in the front of the speed boat looking back

Railay East

Railay West

One of the speed boats at the Hong lagoon

The rest of my time here will be spent writing.  I have managed 4300 words so far.  Hoping for 10,000 before I go to Bangkok.