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In 2016 my husband and I decided to quite our jobs and move to Thailand to become ESL teachers, little did we know how this move would change our lives forever. We first arrived in Bangkok, whilst being overwhelmed and trying to find a local store to buy a new sim-card to let our loved once know we are OK, we felt really anxious about our decision to come here. We booked a month orientation trip with a group of other ESL enthusiast to help us emerge in this new culture, so driving from the airport to our "hotel" in Khao San road we couldn't wait for a shower some good food and friendly faces. This would be the worst day of our Thailand journey, long story short, we had to wait 5 hours for our room to be ready, dirty sheets with a random black footprint on and bathrooms that smelled like old rotten food , overworked rude staff and no food in sight. The next day we went on a long-tail boat ride on a very windy day, so windy that we had to put our life jackets on and our boat almost blew over, not taking in any of my new surroundings, just focusing on staying on this boat and begging the guide to take us back to shore. (Which of-course didn't happen until 4 hours later). Finally our Bangkok stay was over and we headed for Surin by bus. Still hungry as we weren't so keen on eating street food just yet, we stared with hungry eyes at all the McDonald's we past by, luckily we stopped at one just as we gave up all hope on getting that big mac. On our way to Surin, we imagined the white beaches, blue waters and sipping cocktails on our off days from being the new substitute teachers in town. As our bus journey headed closer to our new town, all we could see was brown trees, brown patches of sand and building upon building, my hart sank and I just stared at my husband in disbelief. Here we got to share a house with fifteen people we barley know and that makes way more noise than what we were told growing up, "respect people around you and be polite". Our mattresses were hard as stone and I was a six course meal for all the mosquito's in town. We were welcomed by Jang and Nam from Surin and they showed us to the nearest store we could buy supplies and of-course, food. On our first night we were taught how to make the best Thai green curry, straight from the local's cookbook and every night thereafter we learned more and more of Thai cuisine. We went on the back of a bakkie to our new teaching location, where we were welcomed by the most joyous group of children, here we learned the privilege of having a toilet to sit on and even having toilet paper, we did indeed leave with better aiming abilities that's for sure. This was just the tip of the iceberg for us, as we started our new life in Thailand. From being scammed out of teaching positions we were promised, to not having any money to go back home when we thought that we weren't going to make it in Thailand. Getting dropped of in the middle of no where when our bus driver from Cambodia diced he drove far enough for the day (worst Visa run of our lives), to being in a speeding taxi for 9 hours to get back to Thailand... But with all that said, we emerged ourselves in the beauty of their culture, we got lost in the kindness and humility of the Thai people, the amazing food, the hospitality and the beauty of what we realized real humanity looked like. Our journey took us all over Thailand, from the north to the south, east to west, we rode on motorcycles without helmets we ate bugs we walked alone in the streets of Bangkok at 3:00am in the morning we laughed we cried and most of all we learned how to be content with the life we were given.