The international teacher

Lately I've been reading international school teacher forums and thinking about the lives international teachers lead.  Some people do it for a few years, some do it for their whole career.  Regardless of how long you are away, I think it is a valuable experience for many reasons.

Pros:
-  Full-time teaching experience (for those who have a hard time finding a job back home, international school teaching might be the way to get this experience)
-  Schools tend to have lots of resources and good facilities
-  Paid rent/housing accommodation
-  Lower cost of living (depending on where you go)
-  Experience a different culture (learn a language, get a feel for another country, try new foods...)
-  Meet new people (as an international teacher, you meet so many people... you bond with your colleagues because you have no one else here - they are like your second family away from home)
-  Sense of adventure (living abroad, you never know what you're going to get next... it can be a very dynamic lifestyle at times)
-  Travel opportunities
-  Gaining world perspective

However, with any situation, there is always a downside...

Cons:
-  Far from family and friends back home (causes feelings of homesickness)
-  "Not in Canada anymore..." (missing all things Canadian that you can't get outside the country)
-  Can be lonely if you haven't met friends yet
-  Feeling like a "foreigner" in a country despite living there
-  Language barriers
-  Missing out on stuff back home (big events like weddings, holidays, and birthdays; pop culture, news, etc.)
-  Dependence on others (rely on people for translation, help with housing, finding health care, information, etc.)
-  Culture shock (may take some time to get used to a foreign culture)
-  Also possible to experience reverse culture shock when you return home

As an international teacher, on some days you may feel like you're living the life - things couldn't be better, but then there can be days that make you feel the opposite - homesick, feelings of contempt towards your adopted host country, etc.  As with any person, doing any job, anywhere in the world, there are good days and bad.  For the most part, my experiences abroad have been very positive.  If anyone is considering trying out international teaching, I say go for it!  I'm glad that I did... if I hadn't, then this blog would not exist.  Thanks for reading and keeping up with my adventures thus far!

Black out!

Yesterday the power randomly went out at our school near the end of the day.  There was a distant BOOM.  I didn't think too much about it, since the school sometimes loses power for short periods of time or has scheduled power outages.  However, 2 hours later and the power was still out at school.  Things got pretty sweaty - you can imagine no AC or fans in tropical temperatures!

Later, we found out that the power outage wasn't just at our school or in the school's neighbourhood.  Driving home, many lights were out.  Businesses were closed, lights off, doors open, and people standing around outside fanning themselves.  Even downtown the power was out in some places!

Luckily when we arrived home the power was just coming back on (right after we climbed all the stairs to the 6th floor since the elevator wasn't functioning).  I later found out that the power outage was widescale... it affected lots of areas in the city, as well as several of Vietnam's southern provinces!

The reason for the outage was a huge 10 metre tree falling from a crane onto a power line.  That was enough to knock out power to millions of people!  Reminded me a bit of when there was that big power outage in the summer of 2003.  Everyone remembers where they were when that happened... I was in Subway ordering sandwiches with the fam in Cornwall on route to our trip to PEI.  Crazy!!!  The blackout yesterday wasn't nearly as huge as the one in 2003, but it did still show us how much we rely on electricity.  While it did affect my life, I'm sure some people that live on the Mekong River nearby didn't even notice since many homes don't have electricity there anyway.  For us, it's "No TV?  No internet?  No aircon?" but for them it's just another day...

Computer down... video up!

Well, my laptop has suddenly died this week and I am currently using my school laptop.  Hopefully I can get it fixed soon (I think it is fixable, but who knows)!  In the mean time I've created a new music video with my class.  You can find it here.  Enjoy!

Borneo, Part 3: Sandakan and Sepilok

On the recommendation of several friends, we decided to not spend much time in the port town of Semporna after arriving back to the mainland by boat from Uncle Chang's.  Based on what I saw about Semporna, it was a bustling, grungy town with a large outdoor market and not much else to offer.  Lots of travellers stay in Semporna as a jumping off point for day trips to Sipadan, but I think it's much better to stay on Mabul at a place like Uncle Chang's for a more relaxing experience.

In Semporna, we were told by someone that there was a bus that left around 2 pm to go to Sandakan.  We found some small bus ticket offices but were told by some sellers that there was no 2 pm bus, and that we would need to wait until the morning... ugh!  Fortunately, some nice man led us to another bus ticket office which seemed more legit.  The company was called Dyana and it was a big coach bus with air con, tv, and a toilet that left at 2pm and arrived in Sandakan 5 hours later.  They showed movies on the bus and gave us bottles of water to drink.  The tickets cost us 30 Ringgit each (around $10).

After arrival in Sandakan, we checked in to a guest house and walked down the road towards the harbour area, where a few nice restaurants and a small mall were.  There was even a big Four Points by Sheraton hotel down at the harbour with a McDonalds next door... sweet!  After 4 days of eating rice, veggies, and meat every meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Uncle Chang's, it was exciting to get something different.

Like Semporna, Sandakan wasn't too interesting.  The main reason people go there is because it's near Sepilok (around 40 Ringgit cab ride or a 5 Ringgit bus ticket away).  The ride takes around 45 minutes to an hour.

Our first stop in Sepilok was the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC) where you can do some hiking trails and canopy walkways around the park.  We had our eyes open for flying squirrels in the trees, but unfortunately we didn't see any.  In the middle of the day, we didn't see much wildlife there, but it was nice to walk around in nature on peaceful, empty trails.

Our second stop was the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.  Sick or abandoned orangutans are brought here and cared for so they can be rehabilitated and then re-released into the wild.  When we arrived, the place was closed (it appears to shut down in the middle of the day in between the feeding times of 10 am and 3 pm).  We had lunch next door and went back at 2 pm when the office re-opened.  After seeing an interesting video about the place, we went to the feeding platform.  A man came out to a platform with bananas, watermelon, and other foods.  Some orangutans came in on the ropes near the platform to get food.  It was funny to watch them... they have so much personality!  We learned that orangutans are nearly 97% genetically like humans... crazy!  There weren't as many orangutans at the feeding as I expected, but that is a good thing because that means that most of the orangutans around the jungle there have learned to find their own food source and are on their way to full rehabilitation.

On our second full day around Sandakan we visited the English Tea House, up a winding tree-lined road on a hill overlooking the city and harbour.  The garden was very nice and tropical-looking, and you could even play croquet on the lawn.  A peacock was out in a cage in the garden, near the outdoor tables.  We had lunch on the shady porch area.  John and I had some broccoli-cheese soup and shared the Royal Tea Set, which included a pot of tea (we chose "Borneo Rainforest Tea"), 3 kinds of sandwiches (cucumber, egg, and chicken salad), scones with clotted cream and jam, and a variety of small desserts.  Alex got Shepherd's Pie and cheese cake.  The Tea House was right next to Agnes Keith's House.  I never heard of her, but apparently she was an American author who wrote books about life in Borneo around the time of WW2.

After our tea, we were pressed with finding something to do in Sandakan.  Alex had previously visited Sandakan and did a jungle safari, but we were all safari-ed out so we decided to go to a movie theatre and watch Iron Man 3!  Tickets were only 10 Ringgit (around $3).

Our last evening in Borneo was spent at the hospital where we got John checked out.  He had some scrapes on his arm and leg that had some pus so we wanted to make sure there was no serious infection.  The hospital was kind of busy, but they fixed John up and sent him with extra bandages and a prescription for antibiotics.  He had to pay 50 Ringgit (around $17) as a foreigner visiting the hospital, but all the rest was free, including the medication!  I guess health care in Malaysian is free so they treated him the same!

The next morning we flew back to KL, and then back to HCMC after hanging out in the airport for the afternoon.  Borneo has a lot of outdoor nature-type experiences to offer travellers.  We didn't even explore that much of it... there are large caves, jungle safaris, huge mountain hikes, and more!  I'd recommend any adventurous outdoorsy traveller to visit this island!  Another cool trip down in the books... :)

Borneo, Part 2: Under the sea!

On our first full day at Uncle Chang's, the dive masters took us to the small island of Sipadan.  Tourists are not allowed to stay on Sipadan.  To go to the island you need to get permission by arranging a permit in advance through your dive company or guest house.  We needed to sign the log book each day we were there before snorkelling/diving around the island.

The check-in office is at that hut!

We spent 2 days snorkelling and diving around Sipadan, which equalled a total of 6 dives for John and Alex (and 6 snorkel outings for me).  John and Alex just got their open water scuba certification this past year in Vietnam, so they can go down around 20 metres (I think!) below the surface with their dive master.  There was a diver in our group that had advanced certifications and was able to go with his dive master even further (down to 30 metres).  People snorkelling around Sipadan don't have a guide.  You just jump out where the boat stops and snorkel around, and the boat stays near you.  The visibility in the water there was incredible.  You could see so clearly - tons of tropical fish, sea plants, coral, giant sea turtles, and even sharks!  Seeing the sharks made me nervous at first, but they did not come near the surface and the dive masters told us that they don't bother people.  They were mostly small-medium sized nurse sharks and reef sharks... nothing crazy like hammerheads or the giant but gentle whale sharks (but sometimes these can be seen in Sipadan - although it is very rare).

John diving with the island of Sipadan in the background

  

Scuba divers need to take a break (at least an hour) between dives.  After each dive, we would all get back on the boat and get out on the island where there were picnic tables set up.  The dive masters brought food for snacks and lunch from Uncle Chang's so we could eat on the island.

Previously, the best place I had snorkelled was the Perhentian Islands (also in Malaysia).  The Perhentians had tons of sea life and amazing colourful coral.  While Sipadan's coral wasn't too colourful, there were many more creatures we spotted under the sea!  My favourites were the giant sea turtles.  They were so big, and probably ancient, but they would just float around effortlessly in the water and occasionally come up for air at the surface.

I also loved the huge schools of fish.  A few times, we saw the giant school of jack fish.  Jack fish are a medium-sized silver fish.  There were TONS of them swimming together.  There was even the occasional huge jack fish thrown into the mix which was pretty neat.  When I was snorkelling, I felt like I was part of the school of fish.  I swam right with them, so close to them, but they never touched me.

Also very cool was the huge school of giant barracuda.  I always thought barracuda was a dangerous fish since the name sounded scary and they look like swords, but they do not actually pose a threat.  The schools of barracuda would swim in a big circle.  At one point, some snorkellers and divers were able to get in the middle of the circle and they just kept swimming around and around us!

Due to the amazing world under the sea, we rented an underwater camera for 1 day in Sipadan.  Luckily, we were able to get some cool pics.  The camera doesn't even do it justice, but here are a few photos that show some of the stuff we saw:

School of jack fish

Shark photo taken by Alex

Sea turtles!

On our third day diving/snorkelling with the Uncle Chang's crew, we took a boat only a few minutes from the guest house to the waters around Mabul.  John and Alex did 3 dives around there.  Compared to Sipadan, the visibility wasn't as great and the sea life wasn't as exciting (no sharks, not as many turtles, not as many big schools of fish).  The dive masters referred to it as "muck diving," but they said you can still see a lot of stuff.  Unfortunately, I didn't see much of anything interesting to me since I had been spoiled with Sipadan the previous 2 days.  I only did 1 snorkel outing around Mabul, but John and Alex stuck with their 3 dives and saw a lot of cool things.  They saw giant moray eels, a zebra eel, box shrimp, cuttlefish, and a smaller manta ray.  They didn't see this stuff in Sipadan, so it was worthwhile for them.  I don't think I would have seen any of those things snorkelling since they were all seen pretty deep, far from the surface.  I also thought it was a good idea to hang up the snorkel mask when a trigger fish started biting at my fins and sent me into a panic.  I spent the rest of the day reading at Uncle Chang's and snapping photos in the village, which was still enjoyable!

Uncle Chang's was a fun place to spend a few days.  I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for a great diving/snorkelling experience and relaxing stay, but to obtain the permits for Sipadan you need to book ahead (several months early if possible).

After 4 nights at Uncle Chang's, we took the speed boat back to Semporna where we began the second portion of our Borneo adventure...

Borneo, Part 1: It's not the destination, but the journey

Just got back from a week-long break in Malaysian Borneo - a tropical island filled with plenty of wildlife and adventure!  When it comes to trip planning, I'm usually the one who arranges things, but this time John and I left the planning to our friend Alex.

The trip began with a short flight (around 1 hour 40 minutes) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, aka "KL."  KL is the hub for the hugely popular airline Air Asia, so we had to connect through there before heading to Borneo.  Unfortunately for us, Air Asia decided to change our flight times (several times!) during the weeks leading up to the trip.  It was fairly annoying, but with a "no frills" type airline you can't really complain.  We ended up having a flight later than we originally booked, so that did not allow us any time to go into the city overnight.  We tried to stay at the nearby airport hotel but it was fully booked, so we saved our money instead and spent the night at the airport.  Hundreds of other people had the same idea.  The place was packed with travellers, sleeping on benches, chairs in the cafes, on the floor, etc and even making some crazy fort-like nests with luggage carts.  I used my backpack as a pillow and had my silk "sleep sheet" I bought in Vietnam (a silk sleeping bag) which was way more comfortable than I expected.  I slept through the night  because the place was so quiet despite all the travellers spending the night there, but woke up early when they started making flight announcements - oh well!  It's been a while since we spent a night sleeping in an airport.  There is even a whole website devoted to maintaining "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports!"  The airport we stayed at was actually rated Asia's 9th worst airport to sleep in last year, but it wasn't nearly as bad as you would think.

Anyway, the next morning we flew to a city called Tawau, on the island of Borneo (less than 3 hours away).  A guy from our guesthouse picked us up in a cab and drove us about an hour to the port city of Semporna where we caught a boat to a small island off the coast of Borneo (Mabul).  The speed boat ride was approximately 40 minutes, which took us to Uncle Chang's (our guesthouse for the next 4 nights).  Uncle Chang's is a cluster of "chalets" built in the water on stilts, connected by a boardwalk to the restaurant area and leading to the village on Mabul.

Uncle Chang's is a popular place that offers basic accommodation with the extra perk of air con.  Showers were luke warm (not bad!) but the power is often out for a good portion of the morning/afternoon.  All people staying at Uncle Chang's have meals included since Mabul is not home to anything resembling a restaurant, as far as I could see.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are at scheduled times every day, and are served buffet-style in the "restaurant" area, just down the boardwalk from our chalet.  Meals were pretty basic - rice (always!), some kind of vegetable, meat such as chicken or beef, and fruit like watermelon or banana.  There is a water jug there, and a station where you can get hot water to make tea or coffee.  Throughout the day, if you're hungry they leave out the tea/coffee station and put bread, butter, and jam out.  You can also buy some extra soft drinks or beer if you want, or walk on the boardwalks down to the village to buy a snack in one of the little stores.

Besides small shops and homes, the island is home to a cute little school.  As we passed through the village, people waved and yelled "hello!" and agreed to pose for some photos.  Some girls from a house on stilts even called out to me yelling "photo!" and then said thank you after I took it.

The boardwalk to the village!

The water around Uncle Chang's was a beautiful colour of greenish-blue.  During low tide, the water did not come very far up the stilts.  During high tide, it came up a few metres, but we could always see the sand at the bottom - the water was so clear!  There were a lot of "chocolate chip" starfish down in the water below.  Unfortunately, when we took the boardwalk to the village, we could see see random pieces of garbage that people had thrown into the water down below... very sad!  Inside the village, I was also very surprised to see how much garbage was just tossed on the sandy paths.  Hopefully they can clean this stuff up soon and figure out a better way to dispose of waste.





The main reason why we visited Borneo was to check out the island of Sipadan (not too far from Mabul, where Uncle Chang's was).  For 3 days, the Uncle Chang's diving crew brought us in their boat out diving/snorkelling.  That's where we had our real adventures...