Travelling and looking for a place to learn!!

[jarmy 0]

Hey everyone, I welcome myself to your forum hahahaa :-)
So I'll be travelling around umm.. mostly south east asia Thailand, Cambodia, Vietname ETC. Also all over Europe as most people do and also Canada. For the next 2 years minimum see where i end up. And was really looking for a place that would be awesome to learn to skydive and also stick around to gain my A licence and get a few extra jumps up my sleeve with a great crew.
Looking for somewhere that is not too expensive preferably cheap to learn and a place fairly cheap to live or able to work close by. I hope you can help me out and would be greatfully appreciated. Thanks :-) Talk Soon

:-) JARMY

[Gutterboy 0]

Hi Jarmy, welcome to the world of skydiving!
There's not much jumping in Asia except for Thailand where there's a couple of dropzones. Having worked at both of them I can give you some very accurate information!
Thai Sky Adventures has been open about a year and is a great dropzone, near to Pattaya and Bangkok, with an excellent plane. However it is not a good place to learn as the landing area is quite tricky and dangerous, the wind can get gusty and the instructors do not have time to commit properly to their students which is extremely important when you're learning. I have seen many students get left behind, some have even given up because they have been ignored and worst of all I've seen dozens of students get injured, some quite seriously.
The other dropzone is Bird's Paradise which is a lot quieter and remote but because of this the landing area is huge and much safer, the weather is a lot more mellow and most importantly the instructors are absolutely dedicated to their students and will literally be with you all day to help you out and answer all your questions. It is a much better and safer place to learn to skydive.
My advice to you would be to do the beginners course (at least the first 7 jumps if not the whole A licence) at Bird's Paradise to make sure you do it properly, safely and without distraction. Once you have a few jumps under your belt and are confident you can land safely then it's worth checking out some other dropzones and you'll find Thai Sky Adventures a great place to get lots of jumps in and it's also close to cities, expat communities and probably some work as well.
Check out Bird's Paradise at www.thaiskydiving.com and on facebook and I hope to meet you out here one day! Good luck with your travels and please feel free to get in touch with me if I can help any more.
Blue Skies, Graeme
gblack1@gmail.com