Time is flying by very quickly and it is now only 6 months until our flight to Sri Lanka, eek. Sassi has recently become a British citizen and will be applying for her British passport soon. We have bought a one way ticket, we will be leaving England on the 7th September with a stopover in Dubai. Nick’s parents have also bought their ticket to the Philippines for next Christmas which has made our plans become more real. Our plans look very similar to what we said 2 months ago which you can have a look at with maps included at the end of this blog. We will be leaving England for a year for sure but we will only be planning the first 6 months for now. The last 6 months of our trip will depend on our experiences, on money and on what we feel God is saying. We are going with an open mind and an empty agenda after the year, we will be open to come back to England or we might settle somewhere else.
We have become very busy with teaching English, doing full time jobs, rejoining a church house group, planning, looking into remortgaging etc… We are only going to become busier especially from June onwards and Sassi’s sibling/s might be joining us for the summer again as well. Therefore we would like to ask all of our friends, if you want to see us more and spend time with us before we leave England which we would love, you will need to make an effort to see us before June as we will have a lot less time from June onwards. We will of course have a goodbye party before we go though.
Our friendships are very important to us and we do try to keep in touch and make an effort with our friends. Real friends are very hard to find nowadays who will also prioritize and value friendships just the same. “Friendship is a two way street, not a one way road.” People’s lives are a lot more fluid nowdays with moving from one place to another and relationships change from day to day. People are very busy so don’t have time for their friends, they say. I believe one of the reasons why depression and loneliness is on the rise is that many people don’t have much time for their relationships and friendships any more and their priorities lie around work and money instead.
Jonathan’s and David’s friendship is one example to me that shows what real friendship is all about. A true friendship stands the test of trials, busyness and will be there through the bad and the good times. A true friend is a great blessing and will lay down their life for the other, will set aside jealousy, resentment, bitterness and competition. We very much appreciate our friends but we often struggle with our friends busy lives or distance that we don’t always fit into. We do hope and pray that our friends will keep in touch with us as we go travelling and that we will be able to make life long friendships on the road as well. We are looking forward to spending time with some of our lovely friends (Sam & Emily) this weekend.
Teaching English online
One of the main ways we are planning to earn money while we travel is through teaching English online.
Nick is teaching on TutorABC now as well as Sassi and he is enjoying it. I (Sassi) started teaching Juniors on TutorABC but this has been more effort and a bit less rewarding as most of them don’t leave a review so for more effort for less money. I have mentioned this to TutorABC and they are reflecting on what they can do and have taken me down as a Junior teacher for now. I have applied to teach English on Boxfish but I didn’t get through the training session as it turned out not to be a training session but they expected me to know everything and when I was preparing for it, I didn’t see lot of the app options so came across unprepared probably. I have just got accepted on another platform (ALO7) so will be working out whether it will be a good platform for me to work on as we travel. Cambly has activated my profile as an English teacher yesterday as well. I have quit DaDaABC because it wasn’t going to work for us as we travel because of the fixed hours but if we settle somewhere for longer I might apply to work for them again one day. I am checking out one more online platform but will take a break from applying for more work until more towards the end of July as I should not be doing extra work as we are very busy already,
we need to rest and need to have time and energy for God, each other, our relationships and our full time jobs as well.
- Kindness Acts for Lent
- Order Sassi’s British Passport
- Call Nationwide and ask for what our options are with letting our flat out (Nick has called them but remortgaging with them will not be an option for us as they don’t do buy to let mortgages)
- Re-mortgage
- Nick to look into other ways of earning money while travelling
- Look into travel insurance
- Focus on our health and get more fit
- Save money
- Sell some of our items (eg: books, some clothes)
Sri Lanka (9th Sept-27th Sept)
Colombo, Bentota, Galle, Mirissa, Ella, Kandy, Sigiriya, Colombo
Malaysia (27th Sept-18th Oct)
Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Langkawi (we would like to volunteer here for a week with workaway).
Thailand (18th Oct-9th Nov)
Satun, Krabi, Phuket, Khao Sok National Park, Phuket, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phitsanulok, Ayatthaya, Bangkok, Pattaya, Poipet
Cambodia (9th Nov-24th Nov)
Poipet, Siem Reap, Battambang, Siem Reap, Kratie, Phnom Penh City, Sihanoukville, Kampot, Phnom Penh City
Vietnam (24th Nov-8th Dec)
HoChi Minh, Danang, Dong Hoi, Nha Trang, HoChi Minh City
Philippines with Singapore stopover from Vietnam, Philippines (10th Dec-3rd Jan), Taiwan, China, Australia and New Zealand. We will plan our trips to Taiwan, China, Australia and New Zealand and will update you in 3 months.
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