Trailing Off....: A Penang in the A***: The Visa Run

Type "ESL Jobs" into Google and about 13 million hits pop up. Teaching English abroad continues to be a growing industry and finding a job is dead easy. However, as with any job, it's important to find the best “package” deal. The following are the most critical questions for me when making a decision about what job to take.

Accommodation: Is it provided for free? What is in it? Is it completely furnished or is there just a chair and an electric kettle? If accommodation isn’t provided, does the school provide a monthly housing allowance and/or help you find a place?

Airfare to and from the location: Is it provided? All or a portion? If yes, when is it paid—before, during, or at the end of the contract?

Immigrant/Resident Visa: You need this to physically be in most countries. Many countries will give you a tourist visa upon arrival that lasts 30-90 days, some don’t. This can be a lengthy, painfully complicated process, so it's very important that the school helps with this (and knows how).

Work Visa: You need this visa to legally work in a country and typically need the above to obtain one. Again, a pain.

Insurance: Is it provided? If yes, what exactly happens if I lose a limb or contract some horrible flesh-eating tropical virus?

Salary: The salary you’re willing to take all depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for. If you want to just do your time and have a big chunk of change at the end, Korea or the Middle East is better. If you want a laid back life, where you can live like a king, but not save much, SE Asia, S. America are great. If you want a cosmopolitan life and don’t mind pinching your pennies, Europe may be your bag.

The university I’m at now is a government funded establishment; meaning, it’s more limited in what it can offer in terms of salary and benefits compared to privately run language centers. But the gig isn't too bad. It's a beautiful place and the cost of living is quite cheap. I have a free, sparsely furnished apartment; insurance; and a salary that as of June 1 (when my raise goes into effect) is about average. As for the visa, the school provides the necessary paperwork, and it is my duty to go to a Thai consulate or embassy outside of Thailand. Enter the "visa run. A "visa run" is a forced overnight holiday outside of the country to process visa paperwork. The closest place for me is Penang, Malaysia. I’ve done this trek many times but it was a first for Stephen. We didn’t have any classes due to “Sports Week”, so we decided to stay an extra day and make a holiday of it.

Penang is a small island off the western coast of Malaysia and has nearly equal influence of Chinese (Sun Yatsen raised money there for his revolutionary efforts), Indian, Malay, Thai, Arab, and European culture. Penang Island has had many rulers and served many purposes, including being a prison colony. Georgetown, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is the area of the island where the Thai consulate is located and with which I'm most familiar.

Georgetown was established in 1786 by a trader for the British East India Company. Famous remnants of the British rule are Fort Cornwallis St. George's church, and the promenade along the seafront. More interesting to me is the Christian cemetery. It is apparent from the engravings that many people died young due to the extreme heat, malaria, and other tropical diseases Brits weren't used to. We got a small dose of the cruel tropics as we explored the Catholic section of the graveyard. As we walked through the overgrown pathways, ferocious huge ants began swarming up our legs. Only with frantic batting and stomping would they let go!

One aspect of this town that I love is that most of it can be done by walking. Within one hour, we enjoyed the succulent tandoori chicken and naan offered in Little India, saw the wealth and garishness of Chinatown, heard the call to prayer from several lovely mosques, and enjoyed typical Malay tea--a thick sweet, almost cinamonny concoction I've never had anywhere else.

We also had to see the pier and visit Armenian Street and Clarke Street.

A Clarke at Clarke Terrace on Clarke S

Floating Mosque

There are also several sites accessible by bus. The floating mosque sounded intriguing so we rode a city bus for about an hour as it wound its way along the coast and through many a fancy suburb. The mosque is a lovely structure and when the tide is right, does appear to be floating. We forgot, however, that all we'd really be able to do is look at it from the outside. So 5 minutes of photos and back on the bus.

Bean bag cinema!!

Other great thrills of Penang include going up a huge funicular (I love this word) to the top of Penang Hill, trekking over to the snake temple, ambling through butterfly gardens, or seeing the world's largest toy museum. Nature and culture are all fine and good, but we'd rather go to the cinema. Where we live in Thailand, there is only one cinema that plays movies with the original English soundtrack. These are usually the big blockbusters and ones I would pass on by in the US. Other English movies are dubbed into Thai. Imagine seeing "The Grey"and NOT hearing Liam Neeson speaking. The movie would lose what little dramatic believability it had! Imagine our surprise when the movie we wanted to see in Komtar Department Store cinema only had "bean bag" seating. I wasn't that excited at first but the seats were so comfy! "Haywire" was a fairly entertaining action flick. I enjoyed Michael Fassbender (as always) and Stephen enjoyed the scenes in Dublin.

Round one at Red Garden

The next morning after a night out at the Red Garden Food Court (a ton of stalls serving food from all over Asia), our passports were delivered and we headed back to Songkhla--well-fed, well-rested, entertained....and legal.