Age Range: 60-69 | Joined: August 2004
Chiangmai, Thailand
About Me: I have been living in Thailand since 1989. I have traveled extensively throughout the Kingdom and want to share my wonderful experiences of Thailand with others. If you have Skype VOIP on your computer you can contact me using my contact name "allthai"
I talked with many travelers here in Thailand and saw a need to take visitors away from the normal tourist areas filled with large tour buses and groups. The biggest complaint I heard from visitors is "there is no real Thai culture". "Everything is staged for the tourists". This is because they keep following each other around using their guide books.
I lived in a remote area of north Thailand at Wat Thaton temple in the town of Thaton on the Burmese border for more than 3 years. I taught English to Monks, novices, high school students, the Thai Army, local and tourist police. I also did hill tribe programs by taking a small number of tourists to hill tribe villages to spend the evening. All the money for the trek went to the villagers. I bought clothes for the children, medicines and blankets for the families. I paid the villagers to build a bamboo schoolhouse and paid a teacher to teach Thai at the school who could speak their language. I taught them how to dispose of waste properly, keep the children and village clean and to use spoons instead of their fingers when eating which was a big source of their health problems. I provided seeds and Logan and lychee fruit trees for planting.
This was fine until I left the temple then the school stopped and the health problems returned. I talked with the Abbot of the temple and he now has a school for the children at the temple. He has a nurse looking after the children and takes those to the clinics that have problems.
I still visit these areas regularly and comtinue to help through our tour operation All Thailand Experiences.