Living in Kathu, Phuket, Thailand

Kathu is a county in Phuket province. Phuket is an island. There is also a town called Phuket. We lived in 4 places while in Phuket for 2 years. Phuket is one of many provinces in Thailand. Thailand is the size of California. Phuket is 8 degrees above the equator, so it's hot except for the position as an island which gives it cool breezes. The country is subjected to monsoon weather. If you can't stand rain, don't visit during the monsoon season.

All the places we stayed in were concrete construction. That is actually good for cooling. The walls always had geckos up near the ceiling. We got used to their presence. At our pool house, we had a small pond which had loud frogs. We also experienced great drama when cats tried to get a baby bird that was in a nest next to the pond.

Most places had room air conditioners placed in the main room and a bedroom. They are built into the wall of the room, not in the window itself. I mentioned the concrete construction earlier partially because there are termites. A leg of a chair at my school was eaten up by termites.

First House

Now that I think about it there were dogs everywhere.

First place we lived. They had a clock assembled on the wall. Each part of the face was glued on the wall.

This house I found on AirBnB. During a monsoon rain the roof leaked and Karen slipped and fell. The floors were very slick. You can see how they gleem. The house was very austere but since it was the first place we lived we figured they were all that way.

I arrived in Phuket, Thailand on Saturday night and started work on Monday morning at the school. Fortunately, the AirBnB people included a motorbike for rent with the room in this house, so it helped get acclimated. Having GPS made a big difference as well.

Once I was at school I had about 15 teachers to talk to about where good restaurants were, etc. I hit the ground running.

The garage where they worked on our car near Karens school. At first we only had a motorbike, but Karen didn't fare well on a motorbike by herself, so we ended up getting an old car from a fellow expat. He helped us to navigate thru the process of registering the car.

cherry tree — There's a story behind these doggies. I found them abandoned along a country road. I was on my motorbike. I phoned a friend and she was interested in having them. So, she came to help me round them up.

bark — I had an orange Datsun like this when I lived in the US

This is the first place we stayed. They wouldn't give us the tambien ban so we couldn't stay there. I think it was an illegal AirBnB

Second House

Birds were a sport in Thailand. We'd often see people dragging them around town.

Another view of Orawans place. It had elements of jungle - there were banana, mango and coconut trees everywhere.

Third House

Third of 4 houses we stayed at in Thailand. This had a large living/dining/kitchen room. We were next to a family that had a pack of 5 dogs who had a choir rehearsal every day.

Occasionally we filled it up with people. Jaharra from Chicago, Mike from South Africa, Max from the UK and our friends from Finland - Jani and Marja.

This is the house where the neighbor had about 5 dogs who performed a chorus for us occasionally.

The neighbors with the dogs were lesbians. Thailand is a conservative country so we weren't sure how they treated gay people. Here it didn't seem to be a problem. One of the lesbian neighbors was Buddhist and Thai. She participated in some interesting rituals and we were able to learn a bit more about the culture. One bit was that they had about 20-25 statues of gods and goddesses. There is a holiday where they carry one of their statues for miles around town together.