I guess there are a number of reasons. Some people can't hack it is one and that applies to other jobs, not just teaching. I know one lad who was on a bender when the Thai economy went tits up in 97, spent the days before and during supping himself senseless. Thing is he was a trader at one of the international banks so he had multi-national clients belling him trying to find out why the baht was in a nose dive while he was sitting in Bobby s Arms with a stoopid grin on his face. Some people I guess just see Thailand as one stop on a journey, one chapter in their life if you like then move on to something else. And maybe those who are real EFL teachers spend a couple of years dealing with pot plants who go shopping and find there aren't enough brick walls to bang their heads against.

7.30 in the morning I was usually saluting the barmaid in the old Country Road on Soi Cowboy or having my head stuck in a porcelain dunny...

You'll probably delete this but ******** Fuckin incestuous bunch of sausage jockeys and sex tourists...it was then I decided to get out of Thailand.

Yeah but I still ain't got one. Some threads on the site recently were interesting, things about pensions etc. I m looking at those at the moment. I was running round thinking I was gonna be 22 for ever but one day I woke up and found out I was 40 with a baby business and a girlfriend. Time to check out the FT once in a while. I've always mocked the saddos who bleat from a bar stool about how the world owes them, buggered if I'm gonna be one.

The first year I was at EF for sins gained in my earlier life. I was DoS but it soon transpired they didn't want a DoS in the way I saw the job, rather they wanted a messenger boy. I suggested they should have hired Fed Ex, among other things...Surabaya where I am now ain't gonna win any awards for it's aesthetic beauty. OK it's a shit hole but it is a more Asian place than Jakarta or Bangkok. We still have fast food, mall culture etc but the expat scene is so spread out you could go days without seeing one. The school is probably the most teacher friendly place I've been at and by the way they re looking for teachers starting in October so if you fancy a part time job 5 days a week, 7 weeks holiday a year check out the jobs page of www.jakartaguru.com or PM me!

Red tape everywhere mate. They got all these bodies on life jobs that need paper to push. But are foreigners welcome? OK try these points being discussed at the moment. Teachers must be over 26 and have 3 years experience. All expats must study and pass an examination in Indonesian language so they can speak it like a native! Just imagine the CEO of Unocal, fresh from dealing with corrupt ministers and inefficiency everywhere coming home and picking up the Indonesian version of Side by Side for a couple of hours.

All expats have an expat tax levied on them of 100 usd a month regardless of salary! The company has to pay that but it's another expense. Want to leave Indonesia? Apply for a re entry permit. I think my last one, a multiple entry valid for 6 months, cost about 70 usd! Then at the airport you gotta pay a fiscal tax of about 120 usd each time you leave!!! I go to Singapore quite often, the flight is the same as the fucking tax! Air Asia fly KL to JKT cheap as chips. You can do it for maybe 60/70 usd return...plus the fiskal!!! The Indonesians have to pay it as well, so when you met me and the girlfriend in Chequers earlier we d contributed 240 usd to the Indonesian government!!! On top of the cost of the tickets...

It's like anywhere, don t go acting the twat in dodgy areas and you should be ok. People do fall down pot holes once in a while.

I guess about 40 000 thb a month is average. You usually get free accommodation with that or they give you a housing allowance

Heaps. Jakarta has some quality bars, a great nightlife and some great Indian restaurants. If hiring totty is your thing then Blok M is a sleazy pick up street of bars. There's an island called Bali which you may of heard of. Lombok is beautiful with diving and mountain climbing. Well that's what someone told me. I got a girlfriend in Jakarta so going there takes a wedge as does research in Singapore for the website...but you can save if you wanna. Well, that s what someone told me...

Inspired by the runaway success of ajarn.com I decided imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. www.jakartaguru.com has been up and running less than 2 months so it's still a baby. There's little real info about Indonesia out there, most of it revolves around CYA travel advisories which paint a grim picture. We're trying to reverse that so as well as the teaching side we re covering some travel tips beyond the normal Bali bit.

I m doing it with a mate and he's doing the teaching stuff. He s quite enthusiastic still about it and the last thing I want is a site run by a guy who's pretty jaded with the present simple and passive students. He brings a freshness and he is also perhaps more in tune with younger people who are interested in trying out teaching for a while.

Building awareness. Despite the crap you hear, most people still don't use the internet beyond e mail or possibly specific searches so without a mega bucks budget you rely on word of mouth so when Shaz in Tooting Bec sends an email to Trace in Chipping Sodbury with a link, Trace will click on the link then forget about it without saving it in favourites. The trick is to get into some hard media and let them advertise you.

None! Students are usually reluctant to talk about themselves and what they do outside the classroom and I'm the same. I tell em nothing about myself. They come to learn English not listen to me spout shite. Plenty of teachers do but not me.

Part of building awareness is networking. I've met a few key people in the drinks industry here but only once or twice. I should be out in the bars every night meeting people but that s not possible and you can t rely on other people who have their own business to run. So what I'm doing is creating an awareness of Soppy and the site by branching out into related fields. I m going to be appearing in Jakarta listings magazines soon, for which I'll be paid and that will reach a whole new audience. Because I m not able to be out every night, I still need to keep the name or profile out there so that it starts to gel in people s minds. So the short answer is no but yes from related fields!

Bangkok had hundreds but I guess the best double act since Morecambe and Wise has to be those 2 numpties at ELS when we was there. The Ron and Don show featuring Stumpy. Fuck they were useless incompetents. Sorry, that's not true. They wrote the book on incompetence. If it was on TV it would've been hilarious. Hoppy was the biggest insult to the industry and the students. He was an embarrassment.

Yeah and goin 1 0 up and playing for a draw. I done my time following the arse, I deserve to wallow in the glow of glory. I m so used to the crap we used to produce week in week out I still sometimes look at a picture of Dennis Bergkamp and marvel that s he s been there 10 years. To hear commentators gush over Henry...we had Graham Rix who was a left sided midfielder who played behind our left back Kenny Sansom. I still have dreams where I go into a shop that s selling a complete set of Arsenal home programmes...The girlfriend is a big football fan, she watched every game in Euro 2004 and sent me an sms after a Dutch game saying 'fuckin horse head!' It would be good to take her to a meaningless away game at some tin pot northern town like Luton or Boro but those days are gone