Saturday, November 7, 2009
Loi Krathong -- the lantern festival, similar to the festival of lights. But actually I went in expecting a solemn respectful holiday where people put candles in the lake. It was more like the NC State Fair on campus, packed with people, food, games, booths, and students trying to sell things. Some pictures can be viewed here
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
pictures for the past couple posts
Some pictures to accompany --
Train to Malaysia
Penang by Ferry
Mosque
School Bus
Tea Plantation in Malaysia, terraced farming
Koh Phangan on a boat on the way to Hat Leung
My incredible sunburn because I didn't ask Matt to rub sunscreen on my back
Waterfall (lack thereof) on Phangan
Koh Tao
During the day lots of fishing boats come and kill the corals
At a small waterfall in Khao Sok wearing "leechsocks"
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Train to Malaysia
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Penang by Ferry
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Mosque
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
School Bus
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Tea Plantation in Malaysia, terraced farming
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Koh Phangan on a boat on the way to Hat Leung
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
My incredible sunburn because I didn't ask Matt to rub sunscreen on my back
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Waterfall (lack thereof) on Phangan
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
Koh Tao
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
During the day lots of fishing boats come and kill the corals
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
At a small waterfall in Khao Sok wearing "leechsocks"
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Oct 14, 2009 |
After Koh Pangan, we headed to Koh Tao, which provided us with incredible snorkeling. Even after going to the US Virgin Islands for a week, the marine life there was indescribable with words. So, we stayed there for a couple days and then left to go to Khao Sok National Park. We took a ferry to Surat Thani and our friend Tom from JGSEE came to meet us. It happened to be some Buddhist Holiday so the normally tranquil town of Surat Thani was bustling with decorations and festive floats. Monks sprayed water for good luck and we ate some food by the river. One of our dishes was fried frog. It tasted like chicken, but a little chewier. If I wasn’t told it was frog, I wouldn’t have noticed a difference.
We went to Khao Sok, it was nice there were some waterfalls and we went on a short hike the first day. We made great friends with the bungalow owners and he took us on a tubing trip for a great discount. We ate all our meals at this restaurant outside the park entrance that was moderately priced compared to the exorbitant prices for food in the tourist area. The only catch was it took the lady about one hour to prepare our food each time, so by the second day we asked for her phone number and we called ahead and placed an order. It was pretty funny, but worth the savings. After Khao Sok we took a bus to Phuket Island, tourist capital of Thailand. The bus was good because only in Thailand can you get some fried chicken served right to you without leaving your seat. Street vendors come on the bus at random stops and sell all sorts of snacks, food, and drinks, which makes your bus ride that much more comfortable. But actually this bus took a long time and we blew a tire in the middle of the ride, which set our arrival back by two hours. I used the bathroom at this nice lady’s house and she gave me two huge pieces of papaya for free. It was delicious.
When we arrived at Phuket we were immediately accosted by all sorts of tourist agents clamoring for our hotel booking. We stayed the first night at a touristy beach, went to some bars for Tom’s birthday, and then the next day Tom and Christina left to go to Singapore. Ricker, Matt, and I went to a less touristy beach, Hat Kata and Ricker surfed while I relaxed and swam a bit. After two days there, I returned back to Bangkok with Matt and finished our travel session. Although JGSEE would pay for us to fly up north the next week.
We went to Khao Sok, it was nice there were some waterfalls and we went on a short hike the first day. We made great friends with the bungalow owners and he took us on a tubing trip for a great discount. We ate all our meals at this restaurant outside the park entrance that was moderately priced compared to the exorbitant prices for food in the tourist area. The only catch was it took the lady about one hour to prepare our food each time, so by the second day we asked for her phone number and we called ahead and placed an order. It was pretty funny, but worth the savings. After Khao Sok we took a bus to Phuket Island, tourist capital of Thailand. The bus was good because only in Thailand can you get some fried chicken served right to you without leaving your seat. Street vendors come on the bus at random stops and sell all sorts of snacks, food, and drinks, which makes your bus ride that much more comfortable. But actually this bus took a long time and we blew a tire in the middle of the ride, which set our arrival back by two hours. I used the bathroom at this nice lady’s house and she gave me two huge pieces of papaya for free. It was delicious.
When we arrived at Phuket we were immediately accosted by all sorts of tourist agents clamoring for our hotel booking. We stayed the first night at a touristy beach, went to some bars for Tom’s birthday, and then the next day Tom and Christina left to go to Singapore. Ricker, Matt, and I went to a less touristy beach, Hat Kata and Ricker surfed while I relaxed and swam a bit. After two days there, I returned back to Bangkok with Matt and finished our travel session. Although JGSEE would pay for us to fly up north the next week.
In Ipoh, the Malaysian businessmen gave us a lot of beer before our Thai-bound overnight journey. The VIP bus did not, however, contain a bathroom. Much to our dismay, the bus driver refused to stop for the first hour, whereupon our kidneys were screaming in pain like five-year-olds on a road trip. Fidgeting nonstop, it only took but a second for us to jump off the bus, semi-coherent, and relieve ourselves at the first bathroom break.
We proceeded to get swindled in Hat Yai, when buying our tickets to Koh Phangan. I left my ATM card in the machine following the ride, took a shower at the travel agency, and then we paid for an express ferry ticket that didn’t exist. Some other travel company shuttled us off to another location and put us on a four-hour long ferry that sucked the vivacity out of our tropical island destination. We were unaware of the ferry’s duration until I asked the lady selling snacks for 1000% markups. I lost about $10 for all that it was worth.
Upon arrival at “party island,” we actually managed to find a decent, cheap bungalow in under 20 minutes, record breaking time. Considering the overwhelming anxiety spewing from the mouths of fellow passengers on the ferry of getting a room, we soon realized it was all talk. Exhausted from transportation, I ate a large portion of chicken fried rice and fell asleep. The morning provided some interesting surprises.
Our bungalow, situated on Haad Rin West (Sunset Beach), lay in the heart of mini-Tel Aviv. Every single passerby was chatting away in Hebrew. This baffled me. Signs for restaurants, shops, and advertisements were written in Thai, Hebrew, then English. Eventually, some Israeli asking me a question simply mistook us for fellow countrymen. Embarrassed, he quickly realized his mistake, but I spurted back some Hebrew. This was great and we started hanging out for a little while. When he found out we were from America, he became ecstatic. And then he asked if we had ever been to North Carolina. Shocked, I struggled to explain that I was from Raleigh. He loves North Carolina, especially I-40, and he even knew some local radio stations. I don’t really like I-40 or the radio stations, but this was incredible. He worked as a driver for the Dead Sea Scrolls when they came last year, and knew the area perfectly. When I told him I went to UNC, he knew exit 273A. Small world.
We took off from the developed part of the island in the morning, arriving at Koh Ma, apparently the spot to snorkel. A bit skeptical at first simply because we wanted to go to Bottle Beach, which I had read was the best beach, we compromised on Koh Ma because it was about half the distance. Taking the advice of the cab driver turned out to be a fantastic decision. The beach was really nice, but there was good food, cheap snorkeling gear, and an incredible reef just a five-minute swim offshore. The contrast between the reefs on St. John in the US Virgin Islands and in Thailand was sharp. Spilling with life, my mind experienced a visual overload. Remarkable.
The Full Moon Party is basically this place where thousands of inebriated people dance on the beach.
After recovering from the party, we went to see the waterfalls of Koh Phangan. At the first waterfall, there was no water. We expected to find water at the larger, more prominent waterfall only to be greeted by a ranger smiling and confirming, mai mee nam, (there is no water). Using our imaginations of the steep sloped rock formations bursting at the seams with water, the waterfalls were fantastic.
Koh Phangan provided all sorts of entertainment, besides the island’s drunken stupor, only in Thailand could you wake up hearing Thai, Hebrew, get breakfast and get offered two menus: The Thai menu and Israeli menu.
We proceeded to get swindled in Hat Yai, when buying our tickets to Koh Phangan. I left my ATM card in the machine following the ride, took a shower at the travel agency, and then we paid for an express ferry ticket that didn’t exist. Some other travel company shuttled us off to another location and put us on a four-hour long ferry that sucked the vivacity out of our tropical island destination. We were unaware of the ferry’s duration until I asked the lady selling snacks for 1000% markups. I lost about $10 for all that it was worth.
Upon arrival at “party island,” we actually managed to find a decent, cheap bungalow in under 20 minutes, record breaking time. Considering the overwhelming anxiety spewing from the mouths of fellow passengers on the ferry of getting a room, we soon realized it was all talk. Exhausted from transportation, I ate a large portion of chicken fried rice and fell asleep. The morning provided some interesting surprises.
Our bungalow, situated on Haad Rin West (Sunset Beach), lay in the heart of mini-Tel Aviv. Every single passerby was chatting away in Hebrew. This baffled me. Signs for restaurants, shops, and advertisements were written in Thai, Hebrew, then English. Eventually, some Israeli asking me a question simply mistook us for fellow countrymen. Embarrassed, he quickly realized his mistake, but I spurted back some Hebrew. This was great and we started hanging out for a little while. When he found out we were from America, he became ecstatic. And then he asked if we had ever been to North Carolina. Shocked, I struggled to explain that I was from Raleigh. He loves North Carolina, especially I-40, and he even knew some local radio stations. I don’t really like I-40 or the radio stations, but this was incredible. He worked as a driver for the Dead Sea Scrolls when they came last year, and knew the area perfectly. When I told him I went to UNC, he knew exit 273A. Small world.
We took off from the developed part of the island in the morning, arriving at Koh Ma, apparently the spot to snorkel. A bit skeptical at first simply because we wanted to go to Bottle Beach, which I had read was the best beach, we compromised on Koh Ma because it was about half the distance. Taking the advice of the cab driver turned out to be a fantastic decision. The beach was really nice, but there was good food, cheap snorkeling gear, and an incredible reef just a five-minute swim offshore. The contrast between the reefs on St. John in the US Virgin Islands and in Thailand was sharp. Spilling with life, my mind experienced a visual overload. Remarkable.
The Full Moon Party is basically this place where thousands of inebriated people dance on the beach.
After recovering from the party, we went to see the waterfalls of Koh Phangan. At the first waterfall, there was no water. We expected to find water at the larger, more prominent waterfall only to be greeted by a ranger smiling and confirming, mai mee nam, (there is no water). Using our imaginations of the steep sloped rock formations bursting at the seams with water, the waterfalls were fantastic.
Koh Phangan provided all sorts of entertainment, besides the island’s drunken stupor, only in Thailand could you wake up hearing Thai, Hebrew, get breakfast and get offered two menus: The Thai menu and Israeli menu.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
a brief time in malaysia
Going to Malaysia was a mostly impromptu idea and all the better reason to go. After a marathon session of finishing a final 20 page report, Matt and I set out on the overnight sleeper train to Butterworth, the land-side destination port for Penang island. Really, we sort of just aimed south and took the train as far as possible, without much clue as to what we might do or much background knowledge. I had only heard of Penang really as a place in Malaysia, I didn't realize it was an island, nor that it housed Georgetown, the second largest city in Malaysia, or really anything. But, we had several extra days before Matt and I planned to meet up with our other UNC friends who were still working and would meet us at Ko Phangan on October 4.
The train trip lasted a little over 24 hours due to some "brake" troubles. We bought a lot of snacks in preparation and enjoyed the first 6 hours. The first step of the train process was ordering food for dinner and breakfast. That was tougher than it sounds because I had to decide what I wanted for breakfast the next day, and like many english menus in Thailand contain hardly detectable subtleties in the language. For instance, fried noodle chicken versus fried small noodle chicken versus stir fried chicken with noodle, or curry chicken. These are all, of course, different dishes in Thai, but I can't read Thai, so I have to inquire the actual names of the dishes due to poor translations. I made friends with the attendant, who knew about the university I am attending in Bangkok, and we talked for a little bit until I ran out of Thai words and it got awkward. Unfortunately, we didn't book tickets in advance (poor planning) so our first choice of the second class sleeper in the lower berth (there's a window) was already filled.
On an aside, Thai people often use the word already in english to denote the past tense. For instance when something is sold out, it's "over already."
Therefore, we had upper berth tickets so just after dinner the attendants came around and set up the beds for the evening. Around midnight and Irish couple filled the vacant seats under our berths and were pretty quirky people, they talked obnoxiously for a long time, but it didn't bother me too much seeing as I had plenty of time to sleep, even if it was disturbed. At 6 am promptly I was fast asleep only to be awaken by the attendants shouting "Bangkok wake up, wake up!" and then they gave me my breakfast. I don't understand why we had to wake up at 6 am, but while living on a train you are subjected to the wills of random odd occurences. I realized why we had to wake up so early when 45 minutes later we arrived at the border between Malaysia and Thailand and I had to cross through immigration.
Crossing into Malaysia was only a bit intimidating. There were some funny signs about strict no admittance to "those who looked like hippies" wearing "khaki sandals, messy and unkempt hair, dreadlocks, torn clothing, or tie-dye shirts." It was pretty funny, especially considering there were many backpackers on the train that probably would fall into some of those cateogries. Although, I didn't notice anyone have any trouble at the border. Once we made it to Malaysia we hopped on a ferry to Penang island. It was late afternoon by this time, we ate some food, and found a hostel. A t the sound of the call for prayer, the streets instantly cleared and it was eerily quiet except the chanting through a loudspeaker heard throughout the entire city. The hostel was very inexpensive (~$2). We walked around town and went to "Fort Cornwallis," an old British fort.
Penang balanced was one of the most contrasting places, especially for Southeast Asia. First, it reminded me of Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, before Singapore came into the British's hands, Penang was slated to become Singapore, and was the bustling trade hub of the region. But, once Singapore came around, the Brits neglected Penang and moved on to more strategic locations.
Regardless of Britain's economic intentions with Penang, the island contained a mix of England colonial architecture, Islamic influence, and Chinese everything. This was really weird. We walked through the city and if it wasn't Chinatown, then it was India town. The best part of all things in Malaysia was the food though. It wasn't Malaysian food that made it great, we had one meal of satay and it wasn't anything special. The Indian food there was outstanding and it was all really cheap for really large portions of deliciousness. We read up on some things to do for the next couple days in Malaysia before we were headed to Ko Phangan back in Thailand and decided we wanted to check out peninsular Malaysia so the next day we headed to the Cameron Highlands, a scenic agricultural area containing many large hills or mini-mountains known for among all things you would expect, tea and strawberries. This caused much confusion. We were in a tropical country, just about 5 degrees north of the equator, yet it was really cold outside and they were growing strawberries and tea. The series of small towns that comprised the Cameron Highlands were walkable and hitchhikable. We found ourselves among a surplus of Indian food options, all of which were delicious. One day we decided to go on a hike through the "jungle" which was also odd, because of the varying climate. Our map suggested the top of the "mountain" was only several kilometers, but it failed to mention the steepness of the trail. Doubtless, we were in a rainforest considering our bodies after 4 minutes were drenched in mud. The trail was steep and difficult, many times a rope was tied to a branch and a broken slippery rock face was all there was between us and the 80 degree incline. We found some British travelers along the way who were shocked about the trail and we hiked up to the top, to find it completely foggy and cloudy and we could barely see 50 feet, no less a nice view. The Brits thought the trail was hilarious and on the way back we hiked together and they made fun of an oncoming group of Indonesian tourists. The Indonesians began the hike an hour before sundown and were asking how much longer, the Brits were telling them "oh just five-ten minutes easy you'll be up at the top!" The Indonesians definitely had an hour or two left. At least they brought pots and cooking supplies.
After our hike we got in a cab back to our hostel, took a shower, did laundry and watched a movie. The next day we walked around the countryside, met some people, walked through one of the tea plantations, and saw some cool scenery at least. All the farming in the area is terraced along the hills, which was cool to see. It must be incredibly difficult to harvest though. Also, we found a tea factory, and had a free tour to see how their tea was made.
Malaysia was fun and nice, but for some reason, every meal was the best meal. It was mostly Indian food, but so good. I can't imagine what Indian food must be like in India, even though most of the Malaysians we encountered were Indian or Chinese. In transit we took an overnight VIP bus back to Thailand and we had three hours in Ipoh, Malaysia's third largest city. We went to a bar and met some friendly Malaysian businessmen, all Chinese, because I think the only people that would go to a bar in Malaysia are Chinese. They worked for Proctor and Gamble in Malaysia. They were extremely dissappointed to find out we had a bus to catch at midnight and we only spent 3 hours in their incredible town of Ipoh. I would've liked to stay longer, but we were going to meet our other UNC friends back in Thailand.
The train trip lasted a little over 24 hours due to some "brake" troubles. We bought a lot of snacks in preparation and enjoyed the first 6 hours. The first step of the train process was ordering food for dinner and breakfast. That was tougher than it sounds because I had to decide what I wanted for breakfast the next day, and like many english menus in Thailand contain hardly detectable subtleties in the language. For instance, fried noodle chicken versus fried small noodle chicken versus stir fried chicken with noodle, or curry chicken. These are all, of course, different dishes in Thai, but I can't read Thai, so I have to inquire the actual names of the dishes due to poor translations. I made friends with the attendant, who knew about the university I am attending in Bangkok, and we talked for a little bit until I ran out of Thai words and it got awkward. Unfortunately, we didn't book tickets in advance (poor planning) so our first choice of the second class sleeper in the lower berth (there's a window) was already filled.
On an aside, Thai people often use the word already in english to denote the past tense. For instance when something is sold out, it's "over already."
Therefore, we had upper berth tickets so just after dinner the attendants came around and set up the beds for the evening. Around midnight and Irish couple filled the vacant seats under our berths and were pretty quirky people, they talked obnoxiously for a long time, but it didn't bother me too much seeing as I had plenty of time to sleep, even if it was disturbed. At 6 am promptly I was fast asleep only to be awaken by the attendants shouting "Bangkok wake up, wake up!" and then they gave me my breakfast. I don't understand why we had to wake up at 6 am, but while living on a train you are subjected to the wills of random odd occurences. I realized why we had to wake up so early when 45 minutes later we arrived at the border between Malaysia and Thailand and I had to cross through immigration.
Crossing into Malaysia was only a bit intimidating. There were some funny signs about strict no admittance to "those who looked like hippies" wearing "khaki sandals, messy and unkempt hair, dreadlocks, torn clothing, or tie-dye shirts." It was pretty funny, especially considering there were many backpackers on the train that probably would fall into some of those cateogries. Although, I didn't notice anyone have any trouble at the border. Once we made it to Malaysia we hopped on a ferry to Penang island. It was late afternoon by this time, we ate some food, and found a hostel. A t the sound of the call for prayer, the streets instantly cleared and it was eerily quiet except the chanting through a loudspeaker heard throughout the entire city. The hostel was very inexpensive (~$2). We walked around town and went to "Fort Cornwallis," an old British fort.
Penang balanced was one of the most contrasting places, especially for Southeast Asia. First, it reminded me of Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, before Singapore came into the British's hands, Penang was slated to become Singapore, and was the bustling trade hub of the region. But, once Singapore came around, the Brits neglected Penang and moved on to more strategic locations.
Regardless of Britain's economic intentions with Penang, the island contained a mix of England colonial architecture, Islamic influence, and Chinese everything. This was really weird. We walked through the city and if it wasn't Chinatown, then it was India town. The best part of all things in Malaysia was the food though. It wasn't Malaysian food that made it great, we had one meal of satay and it wasn't anything special. The Indian food there was outstanding and it was all really cheap for really large portions of deliciousness. We read up on some things to do for the next couple days in Malaysia before we were headed to Ko Phangan back in Thailand and decided we wanted to check out peninsular Malaysia so the next day we headed to the Cameron Highlands, a scenic agricultural area containing many large hills or mini-mountains known for among all things you would expect, tea and strawberries. This caused much confusion. We were in a tropical country, just about 5 degrees north of the equator, yet it was really cold outside and they were growing strawberries and tea. The series of small towns that comprised the Cameron Highlands were walkable and hitchhikable. We found ourselves among a surplus of Indian food options, all of which were delicious. One day we decided to go on a hike through the "jungle" which was also odd, because of the varying climate. Our map suggested the top of the "mountain" was only several kilometers, but it failed to mention the steepness of the trail. Doubtless, we were in a rainforest considering our bodies after 4 minutes were drenched in mud. The trail was steep and difficult, many times a rope was tied to a branch and a broken slippery rock face was all there was between us and the 80 degree incline. We found some British travelers along the way who were shocked about the trail and we hiked up to the top, to find it completely foggy and cloudy and we could barely see 50 feet, no less a nice view. The Brits thought the trail was hilarious and on the way back we hiked together and they made fun of an oncoming group of Indonesian tourists. The Indonesians began the hike an hour before sundown and were asking how much longer, the Brits were telling them "oh just five-ten minutes easy you'll be up at the top!" The Indonesians definitely had an hour or two left. At least they brought pots and cooking supplies.
After our hike we got in a cab back to our hostel, took a shower, did laundry and watched a movie. The next day we walked around the countryside, met some people, walked through one of the tea plantations, and saw some cool scenery at least. All the farming in the area is terraced along the hills, which was cool to see. It must be incredibly difficult to harvest though. Also, we found a tea factory, and had a free tour to see how their tea was made.
Malaysia was fun and nice, but for some reason, every meal was the best meal. It was mostly Indian food, but so good. I can't imagine what Indian food must be like in India, even though most of the Malaysians we encountered were Indian or Chinese. In transit we took an overnight VIP bus back to Thailand and we had three hours in Ipoh, Malaysia's third largest city. We went to a bar and met some friendly Malaysian businessmen, all Chinese, because I think the only people that would go to a bar in Malaysia are Chinese. They worked for Proctor and Gamble in Malaysia. They were extremely dissappointed to find out we had a bus to catch at midnight and we only spent 3 hours in their incredible town of Ipoh. I would've liked to stay longer, but we were going to meet our other UNC friends back in Thailand.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
brief note
i will write about this later but for now this is where i have been/going since i finished my classes
just returned from 3 days in malaysia (penang and the cameron highlands), now at koh pangan, tomorrow i am going to snorkel in ko tao for several days, then we will go to surat thani.
afterward probably going to khao sok national forest, then phuket and then perhaps singapore.
just returned from 3 days in malaysia (penang and the cameron highlands), now at koh pangan, tomorrow i am going to snorkel in ko tao for several days, then we will go to surat thani.
afterward probably going to khao sok national forest, then phuket and then perhaps singapore.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I haven't updated for awhile, but I have actually been doing schoolwork, as opposed to the past couple months, haha. Starting the 26 of September I am going to be traveling around until the third week of October, so there is a final push to finish my classes and get everything in my project together.
Siam Ocean World.
One of my good friends at JGSEE works part-time at Siam Ocean World (the biggest aquarium in Southeast Asia) haha. Somehow he got all of the UNC students in for free and we got special treatment and had an exclusive tour and got to participate in some of the extra things for free (including the fish-eating-your-foot massage). It was a pretty awesome time, and incredible that he got us all in for free, we calculated all the random stuff we had to do and to bring 8 people would be about 80 dollars a person. He had been talking about bringing us for a long time, so that was really nice of him.
After actually doing some work for a week, on Friday I was asked to go to Burapha University in Chonburi province with some of the Thai students in the Student Association of JGSEE to recruit people to come to JGSEE. It was pretty hilarious, bringing a random white guy to tell a bunch of people to come to this school, considering none of the students at Burapha could speak English. JGSEE hired a van and 4 of us embarked on this quest, and I figured we would be going to some kind of career fair, but we get to the university and I am told we are just going to walk around and find random students. So we went to the engineering building, the likeliest place for people to be interested in this grad school, and started handing out fliers. Unfortunately, many of the students we kept talking to were majoring in Hotel Management or something completely unrelated to Environmental or Energy fields. It was pretty ridiculous and poorly planned considering JGSEE paid for us to go on this trip. After only about 45 minutes of approaching people, the organizing guy from the academic office was hungry, so we quit and ate lunch. Then we went to the beach for 3 hours and came back to Bangkok. I doubt anyone we talked to actually will apply to this school, but it was a fun trip. JGSEE also paid for us to ride on one of the banana boats in the ocean, which is sort of like tubing but with four people in a line. I have two exams left, and then my semester is pretty much complete.
Siam Ocean World.
One of my good friends at JGSEE works part-time at Siam Ocean World (the biggest aquarium in Southeast Asia) haha. Somehow he got all of the UNC students in for free and we got special treatment and had an exclusive tour and got to participate in some of the extra things for free (including the fish-eating-your-foot massage). It was a pretty awesome time, and incredible that he got us all in for free, we calculated all the random stuff we had to do and to bring 8 people would be about 80 dollars a person. He had been talking about bringing us for a long time, so that was really nice of him.
After actually doing some work for a week, on Friday I was asked to go to Burapha University in Chonburi province with some of the Thai students in the Student Association of JGSEE to recruit people to come to JGSEE. It was pretty hilarious, bringing a random white guy to tell a bunch of people to come to this school, considering none of the students at Burapha could speak English. JGSEE hired a van and 4 of us embarked on this quest, and I figured we would be going to some kind of career fair, but we get to the university and I am told we are just going to walk around and find random students. So we went to the engineering building, the likeliest place for people to be interested in this grad school, and started handing out fliers. Unfortunately, many of the students we kept talking to were majoring in Hotel Management or something completely unrelated to Environmental or Energy fields. It was pretty ridiculous and poorly planned considering JGSEE paid for us to go on this trip. After only about 45 minutes of approaching people, the organizing guy from the academic office was hungry, so we quit and ate lunch. Then we went to the beach for 3 hours and came back to Bangkok. I doubt anyone we talked to actually will apply to this school, but it was a fun trip. JGSEE also paid for us to ride on one of the banana boats in the ocean, which is sort of like tubing but with four people in a line. I have two exams left, and then my semester is pretty much complete.
 |
| From Sep 18, 2009 |
Saturday, September 12, 2009
kanchanaburi via photos
 |
| From Aug 28, 2009 |
We slept here on a rafthouse the first night in Kanchanaburi. The photo was taken at 5 am, because we had to wake up really early to catch the bus to Sai Yok National Park. If you've ever heard of "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," this is the River Kwai.
 |
| From Aug 28, 2009 |
hahaha. Welcome to Thailand.
 |
| From Aug 28, 2009 |
Somehow we found this really nice place to stay on the river in Sai Yok National Park for really cheap. This is probably the nicest it gets, and it was on a raft on the river (same one, just further north).
 |
| From Aug 28, 2009 |
We stumbled across a bat cave, but this one is not just an ordinary cave. The smallest mammals (smallest bats) in the world live in this cave, and here are some (maybe??). It's pretty difficult to take a picture in a cave.
 |
| From Aug 28, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 29, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 29, 2009 |
We went to the Tiger Temple. It's supposed to be a rehabilitation center for tigers, but there have been rumors of the charity's illegitimacy. I think it's more of a tourist money grabber than anything, and all the tigers are chained up. Maybe I am just not really a fan of animals in captivity, but it was fun to pet the tigers.
More to come later.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
well i forgot to update for awhile sorry
Typical days in Thailand are hard to come by, mostly because of the atypical nature of every activity. Walking out of my apartment one day you might find apartment maintenance randomly jackhammering away at the concrete ground, a 7-11 employee on their break walking a poodle with three ponytails and a cigarette hanging out, a car parked in neutral being pushed out of the way because it is blocking others. Most people in Thailand park their cars in neutral so you can block others, but then if you need to move the car you can just push it out of the way.
The past week I haven't traveled anywhere exciting in name, but I have experienced the wonderful effects of being one of eight farang at the mercy of the hundreds of Thais living near me.
I walked into Tesco/Lotus (basically Wal-Mart) several weeks ago to try to find a new pair of flip flops since mine broke. My feet (size 11.5-12 american) are like radioactively mutated compared to Thais, so I found a weird pair of flip flops that fit well enough. But only with the help of the Tesco/Lotus Manager who then asked me for my phone number and told me to call him whenever I go back to assist me with all of my personal shopping needs. It was wild. He told me he is coming to the United States and will call me when he gets to North Carolina. Of course, many of my Thai friends say this, however this was especially odd considering he was probably 40 years old and the manager of a large Wal-Mart Thai store. Weird stuff happens when you're white in Thailand.
Several times I have been approached by senior girls in the Chemical Engineering department to do a mysterious "interview" for their english class. I am quite suspicious of this class project because I have encountered nearly 4 groups of 5 girls asking me to do this and the first two times I obliged, but I doubt their legitimacy. I think they just were being typical Thai women and shy and wanted to make friends with farang and concocted some scheme. It was fun though, and now I know a lot of people my age studying Chemical Engineering, haha.
I haven't updated in awhile--I started this post about 2 weeks ago. So here are some thoughts.
Interesting new food eaten- raw shrimp covered in fish sauce.
Favorite food that's not kosher - grilled pig necks. ka muu yang from the northeast served with sticky rice.
Highlights- Trip to Kanchanaburi
We stayed on raft houses, hiked around into a couple caves, saw some bats, and went to the Tiger Temple. I walked with a couple tigers and had my picture taken, my friends liked it more than I did. Tigers are cool, but they are in captivity being rehabilitated, so...
We hitchhiked back from the road of the tiger temple with some Thai family and they ended up driving us 60 km to Kanchanaburi. Along the way, they stopped to pray at a Chinese Wat, which was really cool, there were about 18 weird looking statues of Buddhas posing in interesting ways.
Been very busy with school. I had a 20 page report due on Monday and now am in the middle of exams.
But we have celebrated several birthdays in the school, which resulted in several fun party extravaganzas.
Yesterday I went to see a Thai movie called ha pang, which means 5 junctions. This horror film actually was a series of five disconnected stories, which made no sense. The movie was absolutely ridiculous because it made no sense. But Thai people are crazy in the movie theaters, hollering and shrieking during scary parts and laughing hysterically at the "twisted" ending, where the movie suddenly turns into a comedy.
There was a lot I was going to write a long time ago and then forgot it, and now it's not coming back. Oh well.
Thailand is awesome, Badminton is intense, and I am steadily accumulating a random vocabulary of Thai slang words.
The past week I haven't traveled anywhere exciting in name, but I have experienced the wonderful effects of being one of eight farang at the mercy of the hundreds of Thais living near me.
I walked into Tesco/Lotus (basically Wal-Mart) several weeks ago to try to find a new pair of flip flops since mine broke. My feet (size 11.5-12 american) are like radioactively mutated compared to Thais, so I found a weird pair of flip flops that fit well enough. But only with the help of the Tesco/Lotus Manager who then asked me for my phone number and told me to call him whenever I go back to assist me with all of my personal shopping needs. It was wild. He told me he is coming to the United States and will call me when he gets to North Carolina. Of course, many of my Thai friends say this, however this was especially odd considering he was probably 40 years old and the manager of a large Wal-Mart Thai store. Weird stuff happens when you're white in Thailand.
Several times I have been approached by senior girls in the Chemical Engineering department to do a mysterious "interview" for their english class. I am quite suspicious of this class project because I have encountered nearly 4 groups of 5 girls asking me to do this and the first two times I obliged, but I doubt their legitimacy. I think they just were being typical Thai women and shy and wanted to make friends with farang and concocted some scheme. It was fun though, and now I know a lot of people my age studying Chemical Engineering, haha.
I haven't updated in awhile--I started this post about 2 weeks ago. So here are some thoughts.
Interesting new food eaten- raw shrimp covered in fish sauce.
Favorite food that's not kosher - grilled pig necks. ka muu yang from the northeast served with sticky rice.
Highlights- Trip to Kanchanaburi
We stayed on raft houses, hiked around into a couple caves, saw some bats, and went to the Tiger Temple. I walked with a couple tigers and had my picture taken, my friends liked it more than I did. Tigers are cool, but they are in captivity being rehabilitated, so...
We hitchhiked back from the road of the tiger temple with some Thai family and they ended up driving us 60 km to Kanchanaburi. Along the way, they stopped to pray at a Chinese Wat, which was really cool, there were about 18 weird looking statues of Buddhas posing in interesting ways.
Been very busy with school. I had a 20 page report due on Monday and now am in the middle of exams.
But we have celebrated several birthdays in the school, which resulted in several fun party extravaganzas.
Yesterday I went to see a Thai movie called ha pang, which means 5 junctions. This horror film actually was a series of five disconnected stories, which made no sense. The movie was absolutely ridiculous because it made no sense. But Thai people are crazy in the movie theaters, hollering and shrieking during scary parts and laughing hysterically at the "twisted" ending, where the movie suddenly turns into a comedy.
There was a lot I was going to write a long time ago and then forgot it, and now it's not coming back. Oh well.
Thailand is awesome, Badminton is intense, and I am steadily accumulating a random vocabulary of Thai slang words.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Scam-bodia
Everything in Cambodia is a scam. In order to succeed in not getting scammed in Cambodia, you must cautiously enter knowing that you will get scammed and from there whittle away each miniature scam. In other words, there are degrees of scamming, and you must play the right game to end up on the good side of the scam stick.
I knew this going into Cambodia and reading about it in various books, so I felt pretty confident and knowledgeable about what to do. On a scale of one to scam I probably was only moderate.
The first test is money, because while the official Cambodian currency is the riel, the pecking order consists of first the US Dollar, second the Thai Baht, and then third the Cambodian Riel. I made sure to check the exchange rates online before I left to find that 1 US dollar was about 4140 riel, making 1000 riel about a quarter.
We took a bus from Bangkok's northern bus station to Aranya Prathet around 5 am. The only time I have seen the streets of Bangkok empty and desolate has been the crack of dawn. We caught a bus to the border town. Unfortunately we didn't realize that the bus station is conveniently 7 km from the actual border so we had to take a tuk-tuk to the border, which meant we had to begin the scam within Thailand. The tuk-tuks which were supposed to take us to the border took us to 2 km from the border where we came to a covered building with tables and chairs and visa forms. Without many alternatives, we complied, filled out the forms paid about $5 probably too much and got our Cambodian visa hassle free. There is a way to get the visa at the actual Cambodian government visa office, but all transportation odds work against you, if you can't provide your own transportation. The tuk-tuk drivers already cut a deal with the visa people who already planned out the rest of your trip. A man from the "faux" visa station escorted us across the border where we walked a 1 km strip of no-man's land that contained three huge casinos and lots of pickpockets. Retrospectively, it may be worth it to have the "faux" service because there is a guy who is escorting you across. We passed the fever scanner and took the "free" shuttle to the bus station of Poipet (the Cambodian border town). Our lonely planet guide suggested that the buses going to Siem Reap (the main town near the temples of Angkor) stop many times and take 5-6 hours to get there so that you don't have time to go to any sights the first day and you have to stay at one of their favorite guesthouses. Since there were seven of us, we shared two taxis and it was fine except our driver was a little crazy. He nearly merged into a motorbike sighing relatively non-chalant "ohhh, no good, I can not see." We nearly hit a kid standing in the middle of the road and we were in the wrong lane facing oncoming traffic. Suddenly there was a truck there so our driver thinks it's a good idea to speed up rather than brake and then he said the same thing "oh oh oh no good no good." We only stopped twice at his convenience stores, and made it in about 2.5 hours.
Border
My first impressions of Cambodia varied, the one* paved road in all of Cambodia seemed more like an agitated body of water with different objects moving through the road at the whim some higher being. Cars floated across diagonally, bikes roamed about, people, carts, and cows dotted the side. This two lane concrete line bisected a vast expanse of flat rice fields with nothing in sight. The country fits the description of a country struggling to develop with the lingering side-effects of a genocidal regime in the 1970s. Modernity and technology moves forward within a backward infrastructure. Computers, the internet, and cell phones permeate throughout; they just exist in small straw shacks, huts, or among dusty roads. Definitely the poorest country I have been to--although I haven't been to many countries, but perhaps most noticeable isn't the poverty itself but the distinct gap between the rich and the poor. Even the cows are skinny. After a monotonous yet surreal ride through the countryside, the taxi dropped us off in the hands of some tuk-tuk drivers, who would be our drivers for the next couple days to take us to the temples, which are about 10 km away from most accommodations. We negotiated a bit with the drivers, we told them we wanted to go to a specific guesthouse that was in our Lonely Planet book, but they insisted on taking us to two guesthouses they were in cahoots with first. We saw them, they were fine, but we still wanted to see the original one we initially suggested. The drivers kept telling us we would not like the "Dead Fish (name of guesthouse)" because it was under construction, etc. We ended up staying at the Dead Fish despite our tuk-tuk's efforts for us to go elsewhere because of its proximity to the night market and center of Siem Reap, which is actually more of a small town. Ironic in name too, Siem Reap literally means Siam Destroyed (Siam is the former name of Thailand). We ate food, lok lak, a Khmer stir fried beef specialty, but not as tasty as Thai food.
A side note of unusual Khmer food that I didn't eat, but saw for sale-
tarantulas
frog (but this is in Thailand too)
turtle
whiskey with a dead cobra inside
lots of catfish, but not so unusual
Our tuk-tuk drivers suggested that we catch the sunset at one of the temples because after 4:30, the entrance fee lasts for the next day as well. We bought a 3-day temple pass and then saw some cool ruins (although it was cloudy so not a great sunset). We went to the night market and then woke up for an early day that allowed us to see many of the sights, including Phra Tom (the Tomb Raider temple), Angkor Wat and Bayon (my favorite). We saw some of the smaller ruins of Angkor Thom, bargained for lunch, and then came back in the afternoon exhausted. We took some naps and planned our next day which included some of the further temples. We ate dinner at a pretty cool but a little nicer than street food cafe/community center called Singing Tree where some of the profits benefit street children and wildlife conservation. The vegetables served in our food were grown mostly at the restaurant in the garden, they used a solar cooker, and most of the handicrafts they sold were made of plastic bags or newspapers. It also helped that the food was pretty tasty. We woke up early the next day, went on a nice 45 minute tuk-tuk ride that was really interesting to see parts of rural Cambodia and then we checked out some of the remaining temples. Not only are the ruins themselves remarkable, but the sheer size of the complex spans a large area, many square kilometers, it doesn't stop.
It's hard to describe Cambodia, because it consists of such random, odd and contrasting things. The stunning Temples of Angkor create a surreal fantasy world that shouldn't still exist. The unrivaled amount of warfare and destruction the area has seen since the 11th century should make it impossible for such structures to remain standing. For all the beauty and sights, poverty is rampant throughout the region. Upon exiting Angkor Wat, children, adults, the elderly, anyone who can sell something will sell something, and anything is for sale. Many of the older vendors who lived through the Khmer Rouge still struggle to survive on their meager daily earnings. At least many are not begging, but the second you step off of the premises of the former temple, fifty different voices screaming "Hey Sir, you buy something, you want something, maybe you thirsty when you come back." Some sell cold drinks, others trinkets or drawings or obnoxious noisemakers. Many of them speak a perfected English vocabulary suited for heckling.
Because Angkor Wat is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and considered by some to be the eighth wonder of the world, thousands of travelers flock to Cambodia daily to see the sights who frequent the large amount of luxury trip packages. Then, across from the fancy hotel exists another world, the life of a typical Cambodian, struggling to reaffirm themselves beyond their troubled past. Two hundred thousand Cambodians will fall below the poverty line this year, but really there is a lot of potential that could help create a better standard of living. Sometimes poverty doesn't necessarily equate to a difficult life, but that's not the case in Cambodia, simply because many of the middle aged civilians are living remnants of Pol Pot's bloody agrari-communist experiment...orchestras of land-mine victims played songs for donation at nearly every temple entrance.
This isn't to say we didn't have a great time, because I had a lot of fun in Cambodia, and it was neat haggling with vendors, restaurant owners, and knowing that I am helping provide a future meal for their family. The people I met were very friendly and interesting, although I did have a lengthy conversation with one of the bus boys at a restaurant/bar that I went to and probably affected my perception of Cambodia because of his experience working as a bus boy. A funny thing about Cambodia was that I knew probably three phrases in Khmer (sua s'dei for hello, suk sa bai dei for how are you, and aw kuhn for thank you) but when I said even just sua s'dei everyone looked quizzically and confused and smiled a lot and asked how I knew how to speak Khmer. I met a lot of people just by saying hello and how are you in Cambodian, and I got a lot of discounts, and then I asked them in Thai if they speaked Thai and they sometimes could, but the best part was some thought I was fluent in Khmer even though I knew three words. I don't know why they thought I would be fluent, but I think it's extremely rare for a foreigner to speak anything in Khmer so that was fun making some friends. It also helped a lot at the markets, I bought a couple souvenirs and got a lot of discounts, I got a nice quality silk shirt down from 10 dollars to 3, and most everything else for about 1/3 of the initial asking price just by speaking Khmer.
We were pretty tired the last night but we went to a bar called Angkor What?, which was fun after we ate Indian food for dinner (it was good). We went dancing and then woke up early for a 7 am bus that came at 8 am that was overbooked. To remedy the situation, the bus company literally put plastic chairs in the aisle to create more seats. It was packed, and weird. After 5 hours of a crowded bus we made it to the border, ate lunch, and shared a minivan back to Bangkok. Entering back into Thailand felt like coming home, it was nice to say sa wa dee krap instead of sua s'dei (khmer for hello).
The sights were incredible, and a great place to spend a couple days, but I don't know if I will go back any time soon.
So even if it was all a scam, it wasn't terrible.
I knew this going into Cambodia and reading about it in various books, so I felt pretty confident and knowledgeable about what to do. On a scale of one to scam I probably was only moderate.
The first test is money, because while the official Cambodian currency is the riel, the pecking order consists of first the US Dollar, second the Thai Baht, and then third the Cambodian Riel. I made sure to check the exchange rates online before I left to find that 1 US dollar was about 4140 riel, making 1000 riel about a quarter.
We took a bus from Bangkok's northern bus station to Aranya Prathet around 5 am. The only time I have seen the streets of Bangkok empty and desolate has been the crack of dawn. We caught a bus to the border town. Unfortunately we didn't realize that the bus station is conveniently 7 km from the actual border so we had to take a tuk-tuk to the border, which meant we had to begin the scam within Thailand. The tuk-tuks which were supposed to take us to the border took us to 2 km from the border where we came to a covered building with tables and chairs and visa forms. Without many alternatives, we complied, filled out the forms paid about $5 probably too much and got our Cambodian visa hassle free. There is a way to get the visa at the actual Cambodian government visa office, but all transportation odds work against you, if you can't provide your own transportation. The tuk-tuk drivers already cut a deal with the visa people who already planned out the rest of your trip. A man from the "faux" visa station escorted us across the border where we walked a 1 km strip of no-man's land that contained three huge casinos and lots of pickpockets. Retrospectively, it may be worth it to have the "faux" service because there is a guy who is escorting you across. We passed the fever scanner and took the "free" shuttle to the bus station of Poipet (the Cambodian border town). Our lonely planet guide suggested that the buses going to Siem Reap (the main town near the temples of Angkor) stop many times and take 5-6 hours to get there so that you don't have time to go to any sights the first day and you have to stay at one of their favorite guesthouses. Since there were seven of us, we shared two taxis and it was fine except our driver was a little crazy. He nearly merged into a motorbike sighing relatively non-chalant "ohhh, no good, I can not see." We nearly hit a kid standing in the middle of the road and we were in the wrong lane facing oncoming traffic. Suddenly there was a truck there so our driver thinks it's a good idea to speed up rather than brake and then he said the same thing "oh oh oh no good no good." We only stopped twice at his convenience stores, and made it in about 2.5 hours.
Border
 |
| Aug 13, 2009 |
My first impressions of Cambodia varied, the one* paved road in all of Cambodia seemed more like an agitated body of water with different objects moving through the road at the whim some higher being. Cars floated across diagonally, bikes roamed about, people, carts, and cows dotted the side. This two lane concrete line bisected a vast expanse of flat rice fields with nothing in sight. The country fits the description of a country struggling to develop with the lingering side-effects of a genocidal regime in the 1970s. Modernity and technology moves forward within a backward infrastructure. Computers, the internet, and cell phones permeate throughout; they just exist in small straw shacks, huts, or among dusty roads. Definitely the poorest country I have been to--although I haven't been to many countries, but perhaps most noticeable isn't the poverty itself but the distinct gap between the rich and the poor. Even the cows are skinny. After a monotonous yet surreal ride through the countryside, the taxi dropped us off in the hands of some tuk-tuk drivers, who would be our drivers for the next couple days to take us to the temples, which are about 10 km away from most accommodations. We negotiated a bit with the drivers, we told them we wanted to go to a specific guesthouse that was in our Lonely Planet book, but they insisted on taking us to two guesthouses they were in cahoots with first. We saw them, they were fine, but we still wanted to see the original one we initially suggested. The drivers kept telling us we would not like the "Dead Fish (name of guesthouse)" because it was under construction, etc. We ended up staying at the Dead Fish despite our tuk-tuk's efforts for us to go elsewhere because of its proximity to the night market and center of Siem Reap, which is actually more of a small town. Ironic in name too, Siem Reap literally means Siam Destroyed (Siam is the former name of Thailand). We ate food, lok lak, a Khmer stir fried beef specialty, but not as tasty as Thai food.
A side note of unusual Khmer food that I didn't eat, but saw for sale-
tarantulas
frog (but this is in Thailand too)
turtle
whiskey with a dead cobra inside
lots of catfish, but not so unusual
Our tuk-tuk drivers suggested that we catch the sunset at one of the temples because after 4:30, the entrance fee lasts for the next day as well. We bought a 3-day temple pass and then saw some cool ruins (although it was cloudy so not a great sunset). We went to the night market and then woke up for an early day that allowed us to see many of the sights, including Phra Tom (the Tomb Raider temple), Angkor Wat and Bayon (my favorite). We saw some of the smaller ruins of Angkor Thom, bargained for lunch, and then came back in the afternoon exhausted. We took some naps and planned our next day which included some of the further temples. We ate dinner at a pretty cool but a little nicer than street food cafe/community center called Singing Tree where some of the profits benefit street children and wildlife conservation. The vegetables served in our food were grown mostly at the restaurant in the garden, they used a solar cooker, and most of the handicrafts they sold were made of plastic bags or newspapers. It also helped that the food was pretty tasty. We woke up early the next day, went on a nice 45 minute tuk-tuk ride that was really interesting to see parts of rural Cambodia and then we checked out some of the remaining temples. Not only are the ruins themselves remarkable, but the sheer size of the complex spans a large area, many square kilometers, it doesn't stop.
It's hard to describe Cambodia, because it consists of such random, odd and contrasting things. The stunning Temples of Angkor create a surreal fantasy world that shouldn't still exist. The unrivaled amount of warfare and destruction the area has seen since the 11th century should make it impossible for such structures to remain standing. For all the beauty and sights, poverty is rampant throughout the region. Upon exiting Angkor Wat, children, adults, the elderly, anyone who can sell something will sell something, and anything is for sale. Many of the older vendors who lived through the Khmer Rouge still struggle to survive on their meager daily earnings. At least many are not begging, but the second you step off of the premises of the former temple, fifty different voices screaming "Hey Sir, you buy something, you want something, maybe you thirsty when you come back." Some sell cold drinks, others trinkets or drawings or obnoxious noisemakers. Many of them speak a perfected English vocabulary suited for heckling.
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
Because Angkor Wat is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and considered by some to be the eighth wonder of the world, thousands of travelers flock to Cambodia daily to see the sights who frequent the large amount of luxury trip packages. Then, across from the fancy hotel exists another world, the life of a typical Cambodian, struggling to reaffirm themselves beyond their troubled past. Two hundred thousand Cambodians will fall below the poverty line this year, but really there is a lot of potential that could help create a better standard of living. Sometimes poverty doesn't necessarily equate to a difficult life, but that's not the case in Cambodia, simply because many of the middle aged civilians are living remnants of Pol Pot's bloody agrari-communist experiment...orchestras of land-mine victims played songs for donation at nearly every temple entrance.
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
This isn't to say we didn't have a great time, because I had a lot of fun in Cambodia, and it was neat haggling with vendors, restaurant owners, and knowing that I am helping provide a future meal for their family. The people I met were very friendly and interesting, although I did have a lengthy conversation with one of the bus boys at a restaurant/bar that I went to and probably affected my perception of Cambodia because of his experience working as a bus boy. A funny thing about Cambodia was that I knew probably three phrases in Khmer (sua s'dei for hello, suk sa bai dei for how are you, and aw kuhn for thank you) but when I said even just sua s'dei everyone looked quizzically and confused and smiled a lot and asked how I knew how to speak Khmer. I met a lot of people just by saying hello and how are you in Cambodian, and I got a lot of discounts, and then I asked them in Thai if they speaked Thai and they sometimes could, but the best part was some thought I was fluent in Khmer even though I knew three words. I don't know why they thought I would be fluent, but I think it's extremely rare for a foreigner to speak anything in Khmer so that was fun making some friends. It also helped a lot at the markets, I bought a couple souvenirs and got a lot of discounts, I got a nice quality silk shirt down from 10 dollars to 3, and most everything else for about 1/3 of the initial asking price just by speaking Khmer.
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 13, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
We were pretty tired the last night but we went to a bar called Angkor What?, which was fun after we ate Indian food for dinner (it was good). We went dancing and then woke up early for a 7 am bus that came at 8 am that was overbooked. To remedy the situation, the bus company literally put plastic chairs in the aisle to create more seats. It was packed, and weird. After 5 hours of a crowded bus we made it to the border, ate lunch, and shared a minivan back to Bangkok. Entering back into Thailand felt like coming home, it was nice to say sa wa dee krap instead of sua s'dei (khmer for hello).
The sights were incredible, and a great place to spend a couple days, but I don't know if I will go back any time soon.
So even if it was all a scam, it wasn't terrible.
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
 |
| From Aug 14, 2009 |
Monday, August 10, 2009
koh chang
Two weeks ago Ricker and I took a four day weekend to Koh Chang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. We left at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning, spent 4 hours on a bus, which I can't recall, although apparently the bus attendant had to wake me up and I jumped out of my seat when she touched me, which according to Ricker was a pretty funny sight. The bus dropped us off in Trat, which is on the mainland, where we could catch a ferry to the island. Without any specific plans, we caught the ferry, met a couple Belgians, and made it to the island by lunch time.
We took awhile to find a place to stay, because we were comparing prices.
Koh Chang means Elephant Island in Thai, and it's as big as one. We had no idea how massive the island would be, judging from our maps it seemed about the same size as Koh Samet, a nearby island that we traveled to several months ago. We decided to stay at Lonely Beach too, which was on the southern end of the island about 30 km from the ferry. After price shopping, we found a bungalow for 2 people for 200 baht a night, 100 baht per person which is about 3 dollars. The room had a big bed, mosquito net, porch, toilet, light, and even a fan. We found a less touristy/expensive place to eat most of our meals because going to a tropical island usually means higher prices.
Our first afternoon was a lot of fun, even though we didn't do too much. We ended up going to a waterfall. A short hike led to a small stream which we forded and then found a swimming hole underneath the waterfall. We arrived in the late afternoon (around 4:30) and the rangers were gone so we didn't have to pay the entrance fee (it's designated as a national park area). Not too many folks were out either, for about a half an hour we didn't see any other tourists.
We swam, I forgot my tevas in Bangkok, but it wasn't a big deal. We ate some more food and went to one of the bars and met some locals who live on the island. Such a different lifestyle, when they are pretty much just dependent on tourists like us. And they live on a tropical island.
Keep in mind that it is still the rainy season in Thailand, so despite our luck the first day, the second day poured rain non-stop. I read most of the day, there wasn't too much to do. The "resort" we stayed at played a movie at night. Our German neighbors asked us to eat dinner with them and it was neat to talk to them about Europe. We ate at a restaurant a little nicer than the only other place Ricker and I found. The food was delicious, and the vibe was cool, there were plants growing throughout the entire restaurant. Funny though, was the decor. For some reason while waiting for our food I looked up and noticed a peculiar chandelier. This candelier
consisted of wooden phalli dangling from the light fixture. Then we noticed the logs surrounding our table were phalli, and nearly every table was supported by a phallus shaped object. It was a little bizarre, but apparently it's a very lucky symbol of fertility that appears in all sorts of places throughout Thailand. (A week later, we came across a phallic garden in Bangkok--weird, but pretty normal to everyone else).
The rain kept pouring and eventually Saturday the sun came out for awhile and we finally hung out on the beach and went swimming. It started to rain not soon after, but fortunately the island has plenty of waterfalls to check out. We came to a massive waterfall, with many tourists, regardless it was fun. This waterfall was gigantic and there is a large area to swim under a mini-water fall fed by the main one.
The next week at school wasn't too bad, I got some work finished and our good friend Pete who we met one of our first weeks was going back to the US, so we had a going away party. I received a student id so now I am "officially Thai" or at least can qualify for all the Thai prices at touristy places and won't have to pay a foreigner fee. A lot of bureaucracy at KMUTT caused the delay. To break in the identification cards we went to probably the most visited site in Bangkok, the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keow on Saturday.
But really, the exciting news is that because my Thai visa will expire in several weeks I have to leave the country to renew the visa. Thursday, I'm going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Besides all of the traveling, work at school is coming along smoothly, classes are interesting and every weekday is fun to hang out with fellow Thai students after class.
 |
| From koh chang |
We took awhile to find a place to stay, because we were comparing prices.
Koh Chang means Elephant Island in Thai, and it's as big as one. We had no idea how massive the island would be, judging from our maps it seemed about the same size as Koh Samet, a nearby island that we traveled to several months ago. We decided to stay at Lonely Beach too, which was on the southern end of the island about 30 km from the ferry. After price shopping, we found a bungalow for 2 people for 200 baht a night, 100 baht per person which is about 3 dollars. The room had a big bed, mosquito net, porch, toilet, light, and even a fan. We found a less touristy/expensive place to eat most of our meals because going to a tropical island usually means higher prices.
 |
| From koh chang |
Our first afternoon was a lot of fun, even though we didn't do too much. We ended up going to a waterfall. A short hike led to a small stream which we forded and then found a swimming hole underneath the waterfall. We arrived in the late afternoon (around 4:30) and the rangers were gone so we didn't have to pay the entrance fee (it's designated as a national park area). Not too many folks were out either, for about a half an hour we didn't see any other tourists.
 |
| From koh chang |
We swam, I forgot my tevas in Bangkok, but it wasn't a big deal. We ate some more food and went to one of the bars and met some locals who live on the island. Such a different lifestyle, when they are pretty much just dependent on tourists like us. And they live on a tropical island.
Keep in mind that it is still the rainy season in Thailand, so despite our luck the first day, the second day poured rain non-stop. I read most of the day, there wasn't too much to do. The "resort" we stayed at played a movie at night. Our German neighbors asked us to eat dinner with them and it was neat to talk to them about Europe. We ate at a restaurant a little nicer than the only other place Ricker and I found. The food was delicious, and the vibe was cool, there were plants growing throughout the entire restaurant. Funny though, was the decor. For some reason while waiting for our food I looked up and noticed a peculiar chandelier. This candelier
consisted of wooden phalli dangling from the light fixture. Then we noticed the logs surrounding our table were phalli, and nearly every table was supported by a phallus shaped object. It was a little bizarre, but apparently it's a very lucky symbol of fertility that appears in all sorts of places throughout Thailand. (A week later, we came across a phallic garden in Bangkok--weird, but pretty normal to everyone else).
The rain kept pouring and eventually Saturday the sun came out for awhile and we finally hung out on the beach and went swimming. It started to rain not soon after, but fortunately the island has plenty of waterfalls to check out. We came to a massive waterfall, with many tourists, regardless it was fun. This waterfall was gigantic and there is a large area to swim under a mini-water fall fed by the main one.
 |
| From koh chang_2 |
The next week at school wasn't too bad, I got some work finished and our good friend Pete who we met one of our first weeks was going back to the US, so we had a going away party. I received a student id so now I am "officially Thai" or at least can qualify for all the Thai prices at touristy places and won't have to pay a foreigner fee. A lot of bureaucracy at KMUTT caused the delay. To break in the identification cards we went to probably the most visited site in Bangkok, the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keow on Saturday.
 |
| From bangkok - wat phra keow and gp |
But really, the exciting news is that because my Thai visa will expire in several weeks I have to leave the country to renew the visa. Thursday, I'm going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Besides all of the traveling, work at school is coming along smoothly, classes are interesting and every weekday is fun to hang out with fellow Thai students after class.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Some Interesting Facts About Thailand
Currently there are 3,912 7-11's in Thailand, or rather jet-sip et's (which is how I prefer to call them, but I don't think Thais like it when I do that it literally means seven-eleven in Thai). They are more densely packed than Starbucks' on a corner in any big US city. There are two across the street from each other in my apartment complex. It doesn't make sense, but many things in life don't.
On a similar note, grocery stores are not common in Thailand, and most people do their everyday shopping either at 7-11 or day/night markets. The US mindset of stocking up on food for a long period of time is not considered as much in Thailand, although it seems as if times are changing as big box stores started popping up across certain areas of Bangkok.
Bangmod is the name of my neighborhood in Bangkok. Quite literally, the meaning translates to many ants. If you come to our apartment, you might understand this phenomenon.
Now that I have finished midterms, I am headed to Ko Chang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand for an extended weekend. It should be fun, I'm looking forward to the beach and apparently there are some hikes in the interior of the island to see some waterfalls. Hopefully I won't get too sunburned. We are trying to leave really early tomorrow morning and catch the first bus out of Bangkok...until then
Ciao
On a similar note, grocery stores are not common in Thailand, and most people do their everyday shopping either at 7-11 or day/night markets. The US mindset of stocking up on food for a long period of time is not considered as much in Thailand, although it seems as if times are changing as big box stores started popping up across certain areas of Bangkok.
Bangmod is the name of my neighborhood in Bangkok. Quite literally, the meaning translates to many ants. If you come to our apartment, you might understand this phenomenon.
Now that I have finished midterms, I am headed to Ko Chang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand for an extended weekend. It should be fun, I'm looking forward to the beach and apparently there are some hikes in the interior of the island to see some waterfalls. Hopefully I won't get too sunburned. We are trying to leave really early tomorrow morning and catch the first bus out of Bangkok...until then
Ciao
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
One thing you should never bet against in Thailand during the rainy season is rain. When it rains, it doesn't pour, it floods. The rainy season is upon us. And while it has been the rainy season the duration of the my stay in Thailand, the past few days felt like the entire Pacific Ocean was being poured out onto Bangkok. Yesterday, I didn't even realize how wet my shorts were from standing in the rain for a minute at most until I felt my cell phone and saw a flashing screen. It's working now though.
Speaking of things running like clockwork in Thailand, besides the rain, I forgot to mention the Bat Caves last week at Khao Yai. I can't believe I omitted it, because it was one of the most fascinating events of the entire trip. At dusk, precisely when the sun descends from the horizon, bats emerge from caves by the thousands, maybe even on the order of hundreds of thousands. I have never seen so many bats. They all fly in a single line, and they are so densely packed that it looks like somebody took a black marker across the sky. Coming from all directions the bats stay together leaving military style from the cave, and then after fifteen minutes, all the bats have left the caves and they disperse throughout the night preying on all the annoying mosquitoes. It's a pretty good deal, and I just couldn't believe how exact the rangers were in discussing the bats' release time. Against the sunset, it makes for quite a sight.
I had my chemistry exam today and it was actually pretty easy, but I did end up studying quite a bit for it. Before the exam was the longest solar eclipse of the century across Asia, unfortunately it was at 7 am, I didn't know about it until 12 pm and apparently it was cloudy and rainy. I was asleep, but that's okay.
Over the weekend, I decided to stick around Bangkok, and I did some catching up on studying for my upcoming midterms but also our research project on building-integrated solar photovoltaics. But on Saturday night a group of us had a lot of fun going out to dinner, and then we saw a Thai jazz band, and experiencing the madness of Khao San road. I had the best Indian food I've ever had in my life, I couldn't believe it. We had mutton curry and chicken tandoori and roti and it was a great meal.
I am not sure why the picture was documented after the meal rather than before, but you can see the relics of animal bones and clean plates.
Since it is exam time around KMUTT, and most of my Thai peers are taking 6-7 classes, midterms are very intense. The Thai undergraduates seem to do schoolwork all the time, without much time to do anything else. They are in school from early in the morning until 5 pm nearly every day and then have homework. So when midterms roll around, it's crazy to witness all of the coffee shops and study areas packed with students. Yes, this happens at UNC, but I think the Thai students have much more difficulties considering they are taking about double the courseload of a UNC student and don't seem to ever take breaks. I don't think I would be able to be a regular college student in Thailand. Also, everyone is an engineer basically, and they barely even have opportunities for study in the humanities.
Speaking of school, I received a weird, and kind of funny email from the UNC Students' advisor in Thailand. I don't think it's a Thai thing, I'm hoping that maybe something was messed up in the translation...
Dear Christina and all UNC students,
Thank you for your message and sorry for late reply since I got a strong diarrhea these last few days and so I'm just back to work today. I asked P'Neung to get in touch with K. Parichart (P'Nok) of the International Relations office to arrange you the ID card 2 weeks ago to get them by mid-July as previously informed. I will contact her myself today again and will try to get them for all of you by* this Thursday** or at most next Thursday*, since normally they make the ID card every Thursday at the IT office. I'll keep you inform asap.
Thank you again for your kind assistance in keeping me update on the UNC students status. Please also provide me by e-mail the progress on your respective capstone, as I mentioned several times, the weekly progress report of the capstone should be quite short since it aims at providing information to Ajarn Rich and I.
With best regards,
Ajarn Savitri
Last night I watched Thailand play Liverpool in soccer to a draw, which was cool. It was pretty good for Thailand, perhaps somewhat embarrassing for Liverpool. But, the ridiculous part ended up being that on TV it looked like all the fans were wearing Liverpool jerseys (the game was played in Bangkok). They cheered when Thailand scored, but I guess Thais expend their national pride elsewhere.
Speaking of things running like clockwork in Thailand, besides the rain, I forgot to mention the Bat Caves last week at Khao Yai. I can't believe I omitted it, because it was one of the most fascinating events of the entire trip. At dusk, precisely when the sun descends from the horizon, bats emerge from caves by the thousands, maybe even on the order of hundreds of thousands. I have never seen so many bats. They all fly in a single line, and they are so densely packed that it looks like somebody took a black marker across the sky. Coming from all directions the bats stay together leaving military style from the cave, and then after fifteen minutes, all the bats have left the caves and they disperse throughout the night preying on all the annoying mosquitoes. It's a pretty good deal, and I just couldn't believe how exact the rangers were in discussing the bats' release time. Against the sunset, it makes for quite a sight.
I had my chemistry exam today and it was actually pretty easy, but I did end up studying quite a bit for it. Before the exam was the longest solar eclipse of the century across Asia, unfortunately it was at 7 am, I didn't know about it until 12 pm and apparently it was cloudy and rainy. I was asleep, but that's okay.
Over the weekend, I decided to stick around Bangkok, and I did some catching up on studying for my upcoming midterms but also our research project on building-integrated solar photovoltaics. But on Saturday night a group of us had a lot of fun going out to dinner, and then we saw a Thai jazz band, and experiencing the madness of Khao San road. I had the best Indian food I've ever had in my life, I couldn't believe it. We had mutton curry and chicken tandoori and roti and it was a great meal.
I am not sure why the picture was documented after the meal rather than before, but you can see the relics of animal bones and clean plates.
Since it is exam time around KMUTT, and most of my Thai peers are taking 6-7 classes, midterms are very intense. The Thai undergraduates seem to do schoolwork all the time, without much time to do anything else. They are in school from early in the morning until 5 pm nearly every day and then have homework. So when midterms roll around, it's crazy to witness all of the coffee shops and study areas packed with students. Yes, this happens at UNC, but I think the Thai students have much more difficulties considering they are taking about double the courseload of a UNC student and don't seem to ever take breaks. I don't think I would be able to be a regular college student in Thailand. Also, everyone is an engineer basically, and they barely even have opportunities for study in the humanities.
Speaking of school, I received a weird, and kind of funny email from the UNC Students' advisor in Thailand. I don't think it's a Thai thing, I'm hoping that maybe something was messed up in the translation...
Dear Christina and all UNC students,
Thank you for your message and sorry for late reply since I got a strong diarrhea these last few days and so I'm just back to work today. I asked P'Neung to get in touch with K. Parichart (P'Nok) of the International Relations office to arrange you the ID card 2 weeks ago to get them by mid-July as previously informed. I will contact her myself today again and will try to get them for all of you by* this Thursday** or at most next Thursday*, since normally they make the ID card every Thursday at the IT office. I'll keep you inform asap.
Thank you again for your kind assistance in keeping me update on the UNC students status. Please also provide me by e-mail the progress on your respective capstone, as I mentioned several times, the weekly progress report of the capstone should be quite short since it aims at providing information to Ajarn Rich and I.
With best regards,
Ajarn Savitri
Last night I watched Thailand play Liverpool in soccer to a draw, which was cool. It was pretty good for Thailand, perhaps somewhat embarrassing for Liverpool. But, the ridiculous part ended up being that on TV it looked like all the fans were wearing Liverpool jerseys (the game was played in Bangkok). They cheered when Thailand scored, but I guess Thais expend their national pride elsewhere.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Khao Yai
Friday, July 10 I thought we had a class at 1:30. However, the class was rescheduled (as is often the case in Thailand, which can be good or bad) for this Tuesday. Without class or plans, Ricker, Christina, and I decided that we would finally fulfill our goal of going to Khao Yai National Park this weekend. Ever since we arrived in Bangkok, Khao Yai was one of the first places we all wanted to go, however, something kept preventing us from going. Once it was our friend Wit, who called the night before inviting us to come with him around Bangkok, once our teacher suggested we go to Ko Samet instead, once I got sick...
So anyway we already knew how to get there and had most of the plans already contrived. We found our way to Mo Chit Bus Station and took a bus to Pak Chong, the closest resemblance to an urban area near Khao Yai National Park. Judging from the map, Khao Yai is about 3 hours from Bangkok. We arrived at sunset in Pak Chong, ate some dinner (I had some really weird food actually it was soup with the consistency of a runny nose--it may have been Chinese and some resemblance to egg drop soup), and hired a taxi to take us to a guesthouse/hostel that was closer to the park, but an unwalkable distance. Unfortunately for us, the guesthouse had been booked up, which was a possibility nobody considered because currently in Thailand it is the "rainy season" when few people travel. The irony was that we could have called and reserved a room ahead of time, but we didn't realize that the owners would speak perfect English. Retrospectively, their non-vacancy helped us out a lot, because instead of merely saying we're full, the owners talked to us for about 10 minutes giving us some valuable advice about the park. The taxi driver drove us back to the bus station where we originated, so we chartered a joy ride around the area.
At night in the hotel I watched television for the second time over the trip, and there were some notable channels. Of them, the best included Australian Rugby, Michael Jackson tributes (in Thai), and the Thai Extreme Sports Competition (this consisted of really bad skaters falling every ten seconds.
We woke up fairly early, bought some snacks for the day, and then rode a songthaew to the park entrance. The rangers convinced us, and as we learned from our last experience at a national park, having transportation is pretty essential. We hired a guide between all of us, while Matt and Megan joined also by getting to the park around 11 am. The guide drove us to various areas of the park and we had a really good day checking out some of the waterfalls, doing a bit of hiking (although there aren't too many trails--or at least long ones), and meeting some random travelers from around the world. Among them include an Israeli woman traveling, some Thais who spoke nit noi (little) English, and some other folks. We ended up making pretty good friends with some of the rangers too, because one of them for some reason had five beers at 9 am, when we arrived and Ricker made a comment in Thai that they found particularly funny. He called him drunk or something to that effect and then they gave us some thai dessert, basically eggs and coconut paste and some sugar (I'm not sure). It was great though, because we kept running into the rangers and they were really nice and helpful and generous.
The next day we got up early for the sunrise actually, because there was nothing to do at night so we just all fell asleep at 9:30. The day was full of surprises, but mostly leeches. Leeches are common in the rainy season, while they aren't harmful, they can become a nuisance. I would describe leeches as a slushier, lingering type of mosquito, but unlike mosquitos you can't always feel them. We were warned ahead of time by many signs about leeches, but for some reason we didn't encounter any the first day. The next day we started walking and then looked down on our shoes and these leeches are extremely quick, you wouldn't think so, but they move with purpose. Our socks and shoes were covered in leeches and we left the trail and re-assessed the leech situation, bought some "leech guards" for about $1 at the visitor's center and resumed the day. Matt had one he didn't realize stuck in his shoe for quite awhile and it looked like someone tried to drill a hole in his toe. There was a lot of bloodshed, but not much pain or severity to his injury. The bites are like mosquito bites. After practicing flicking for awhile, we completed a longer trail in the afternoon, ate lunch, and headed back to Bangkok. The bus ride was fairly normal and not too eventful. Although we took a bus from the bus station back to our apartment that for some reason the attendant didn't make us pay, which was a nice oversight.
We came back and ate dinner, and it was already around 10 pm. I had a short assignment due for one of my classes at 9 am, so I spent a couple hours working on it. Yesterday, not too much happened, but I did realize that next week I have a chemistry test sometime, so I will need to do some studying over the next couple of days.
 |
| From Khao Yai |
So anyway we already knew how to get there and had most of the plans already contrived. We found our way to Mo Chit Bus Station and took a bus to Pak Chong, the closest resemblance to an urban area near Khao Yai National Park. Judging from the map, Khao Yai is about 3 hours from Bangkok. We arrived at sunset in Pak Chong, ate some dinner (I had some really weird food actually it was soup with the consistency of a runny nose--it may have been Chinese and some resemblance to egg drop soup), and hired a taxi to take us to a guesthouse/hostel that was closer to the park, but an unwalkable distance. Unfortunately for us, the guesthouse had been booked up, which was a possibility nobody considered because currently in Thailand it is the "rainy season" when few people travel. The irony was that we could have called and reserved a room ahead of time, but we didn't realize that the owners would speak perfect English. Retrospectively, their non-vacancy helped us out a lot, because instead of merely saying we're full, the owners talked to us for about 10 minutes giving us some valuable advice about the park. The taxi driver drove us back to the bus station where we originated, so we chartered a joy ride around the area.
At night in the hotel I watched television for the second time over the trip, and there were some notable channels. Of them, the best included Australian Rugby, Michael Jackson tributes (in Thai), and the Thai Extreme Sports Competition (this consisted of really bad skaters falling every ten seconds.
We woke up fairly early, bought some snacks for the day, and then rode a songthaew to the park entrance. The rangers convinced us, and as we learned from our last experience at a national park, having transportation is pretty essential. We hired a guide between all of us, while Matt and Megan joined also by getting to the park around 11 am. The guide drove us to various areas of the park and we had a really good day checking out some of the waterfalls, doing a bit of hiking (although there aren't too many trails--or at least long ones), and meeting some random travelers from around the world. Among them include an Israeli woman traveling, some Thais who spoke nit noi (little) English, and some other folks. We ended up making pretty good friends with some of the rangers too, because one of them for some reason had five beers at 9 am, when we arrived and Ricker made a comment in Thai that they found particularly funny. He called him drunk or something to that effect and then they gave us some thai dessert, basically eggs and coconut paste and some sugar (I'm not sure). It was great though, because we kept running into the rangers and they were really nice and helpful and generous.
 |
| From Khao Yai |
The next day we got up early for the sunrise actually, because there was nothing to do at night so we just all fell asleep at 9:30. The day was full of surprises, but mostly leeches. Leeches are common in the rainy season, while they aren't harmful, they can become a nuisance. I would describe leeches as a slushier, lingering type of mosquito, but unlike mosquitos you can't always feel them. We were warned ahead of time by many signs about leeches, but for some reason we didn't encounter any the first day. The next day we started walking and then looked down on our shoes and these leeches are extremely quick, you wouldn't think so, but they move with purpose. Our socks and shoes were covered in leeches and we left the trail and re-assessed the leech situation, bought some "leech guards" for about $1 at the visitor's center and resumed the day. Matt had one he didn't realize stuck in his shoe for quite awhile and it looked like someone tried to drill a hole in his toe. There was a lot of bloodshed, but not much pain or severity to his injury. The bites are like mosquito bites. After practicing flicking for awhile, we completed a longer trail in the afternoon, ate lunch, and headed back to Bangkok. The bus ride was fairly normal and not too eventful. Although we took a bus from the bus station back to our apartment that for some reason the attendant didn't make us pay, which was a nice oversight.
 |
| From Khao Yai 2 |
We came back and ate dinner, and it was already around 10 pm. I had a short assignment due for one of my classes at 9 am, so I spent a couple hours working on it. Yesterday, not too much happened, but I did realize that next week I have a chemistry test sometime, so I will need to do some studying over the next couple of days.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
FOOD Poisoning AhHhH
My first encounter with Thai medicine happened to fall on a Buddhist holiday of all days, when nearly all doctor's offices, schools, and government buildings were closed. The Thai government decided to stimulate the economy by encouraging tourism, so the usually minor holiday this year turned into an all out bonanza. Well, for most people.
As for me, I enjoyed a nice breakfast of duck soup (guay dtieow pet) with Pai, Neung, and Ricker. I went to this place once before and I don't think duck soup is commonplace on the Thai breakfast scene, but it should be. This is basically chicken noodle soup with a different bird. After eating, we stopped at a convenience store and I picked up a glass of chocolate milk. It was pretty rainy, so there wasn't much to do outside that day, also nobody felt like venturing much outside the apartment complex. Ricker and I headed over to Pai and Neung's to hang out, but then after an hour or so I felt queasy. I went back to my apartment and saw Matt, my other roommate, and then immidiately vomited. It wasn't pretty and then it lasted for awhile, I ended up having a mild case of food poisoning. The eruption ceased and so I asked Neung to take me to the doctor. He took me after the rain died down a bit. We got in a cab, but I didn't feel so well, so I had to make a pit stop at the university which we happened to be passing on the road to go to the bathroom. The university turned off all the water and electricity for the holiday so I broke through the chained gates and somehow accessed some door that never locks. I made it in time. I got back in the cab and then we somehow found the one doctor's office open on the holiday. That was relieving. Although I wouldn't have probably gone to the doctor in the US, I wanted to be sure of my health in Thailand and get some medicine. He spoke really good english and gave me some medicine, told me I would probably be better after a day or so. I ate some plain steamed rice and fell asleep for 15 hours. Since I woke up, I have felt pretty much back to normal.
The next days were pretty rainy too, so we didn't make it to the national park, mostly because I got sick and I don't think anyone else wanted to orchestrate such a trip. I read a lot since I was sick. Actually over the whole trip I have already read 5 of the 7 books I brought. Fortunately, all the UNC students brought several books so we can trade amongst ourselves.
I had class today about photovoltaic technology, which is interesting, but pretty crazy. The process to create pure silicon creates a byproduct of toxic carbon monoxide, but I think in my LCA class I will try to determine the net carbon monoxide emitted into the ambient air from solar cells and how much perhaps is saved by extracting pure silicon than running a coal-fired power plant.
School so far hasn't been very hard, but we have a midterm coming up in Environmental Chemistry in 10 days. Hopefully the test won't be too difficult although much of the material we had to learn on our own.
Farewell
Noah
As for me, I enjoyed a nice breakfast of duck soup (guay dtieow pet) with Pai, Neung, and Ricker. I went to this place once before and I don't think duck soup is commonplace on the Thai breakfast scene, but it should be. This is basically chicken noodle soup with a different bird. After eating, we stopped at a convenience store and I picked up a glass of chocolate milk. It was pretty rainy, so there wasn't much to do outside that day, also nobody felt like venturing much outside the apartment complex. Ricker and I headed over to Pai and Neung's to hang out, but then after an hour or so I felt queasy. I went back to my apartment and saw Matt, my other roommate, and then immidiately vomited. It wasn't pretty and then it lasted for awhile, I ended up having a mild case of food poisoning. The eruption ceased and so I asked Neung to take me to the doctor. He took me after the rain died down a bit. We got in a cab, but I didn't feel so well, so I had to make a pit stop at the university which we happened to be passing on the road to go to the bathroom. The university turned off all the water and electricity for the holiday so I broke through the chained gates and somehow accessed some door that never locks. I made it in time. I got back in the cab and then we somehow found the one doctor's office open on the holiday. That was relieving. Although I wouldn't have probably gone to the doctor in the US, I wanted to be sure of my health in Thailand and get some medicine. He spoke really good english and gave me some medicine, told me I would probably be better after a day or so. I ate some plain steamed rice and fell asleep for 15 hours. Since I woke up, I have felt pretty much back to normal.
The next days were pretty rainy too, so we didn't make it to the national park, mostly because I got sick and I don't think anyone else wanted to orchestrate such a trip. I read a lot since I was sick. Actually over the whole trip I have already read 5 of the 7 books I brought. Fortunately, all the UNC students brought several books so we can trade amongst ourselves.
I had class today about photovoltaic technology, which is interesting, but pretty crazy. The process to create pure silicon creates a byproduct of toxic carbon monoxide, but I think in my LCA class I will try to determine the net carbon monoxide emitted into the ambient air from solar cells and how much perhaps is saved by extracting pure silicon than running a coal-fired power plant.
School so far hasn't been very hard, but we have a midterm coming up in Environmental Chemistry in 10 days. Hopefully the test won't be too difficult although much of the material we had to learn on our own.
Farewell
Noah
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
July 4
This post spans the past week since I went to Khao Sam Roi Yot.
Class resumed as usual, with my LCA class on Monday. Our first assignment will be due in two weeks, but it will probably require a significant amount of time to complete.
Actually my other two classes this week were postponed until after the Buddhist holiday. So, I was left with only Thai language class this past week, several games of frisbee, and leisure time to read and hang out with friends.
On Wednesday on campus during lunch, there was an H1N1 rally? It was really odd and pretty funny, many college students were banging on drums holding up signs and chanting. The only words on the signs I could understand were H1N1, so it must have just been about awareness. I understand the severity of this pandemic, but seriously if we spend this much effort on some flu strain that has killed a relatively small number of people worldwide, why can't we spend more efforts on simpler problems like AIDS. So many more people suffer from AIDS and many cases could easily be prevented. This doesn't make sense to me.
My friend Raley, who I will room with in the Spring at UNC, is in some international organization at school that hosts conferences where you meet a lot of other students from around the world. Two years ago, he met Ning from Thailand. Then he went to Thailand last summer through UNC's SEAS program and met up with her in Thailand, while she showed him around Bangkok. The other week I received an email from her, because Raley told her I was in Bangkok, and she wanted to meet up and so we exchanged a few emails. We planned to meet at Sirikit Station on Thursday, and Ricker and I both were down in central Bangkok anyway, just wandering around, so then we met. It was really fun and it's really hard to imagine that you might randomly have a friend or know somebody on the opposite side of the world. That's crazy. We ate dinner together and then rented bikes in an urban park. Ning goes to Chugalongkorn University in Bangkok, which is the oldest University in Thailand and well-known internationally. She is studying English Literature and it's incredible how well she speaks English, but I mean what would you expect for an English Literature major. She is a bachelor's student as I am, which was also cool since everyone at JGSEE is older because I am taking Master's classes.
All of the UNC students had high hopes for the Fourth of July, only to be dissappointed by going to a ridiculously over-the-top America festival. After about 30 minutes at some 4th of July party at the "American School" in Bangkok, we had enough of the hamburgers, hot dogs, barbeque, and other American things. The whole place was just really expensive and hot and pretty similar to America. If only we had our own grills, I think it would have been a better party. We could have stuck around our apartments and kept it low-key, but I will admit it was interesting to observe how July 4 is celebrated in a foreign country. Basically the festival was some sort of corporate fair where a lot of American companies gave away promotions and then food was really expensive. We were told there may be a party at the US Embassy in Bangkok, but when we walked to the Embassy after the fair, it was very quiet and there were only Thai guards who spoke little English and effectively said the embassy was closed from July 3-6. Without a fourth of July party, we were all pretty tired anyway and just went back to Ban Suan Thon (our apartment complex) and played cards and then went to sleep.
We had to get up early on the 5th, becuase JGSEE was sponsoring a cultural tour for us to travel to Ayutthaya. This trip fulfilled our lack of Fourth of July fun because Ayutthaya was awesome. Our school rented out two vans and eighteen people went to Ayutthaya. Eight UNC students, several Indonesian students, a Nepalese student, and then three Thai students went to Ayutthaya. We went to a former palace of the king, ruins, and some Royal Project.
Christina and I in front of one of the former palace's many sculpted elephant shrubs. We were standing at the wrong end, haha.
<--The JGSEE group (The school bought a poster to prove that they paid for this trip, so the joke was when were we going to take the stupid picture in front of the sign)
Ayutthaya, visually, presented one of the most unique places I've been. However, it is hard to imagine that all of the ruins are born from destruction. It was sacked by the Burmese in 1767, being the former capital of Thailand, and then it was a bustling regional center. Many Thais kept their home and businesses in this city once according to some scholars as large as Paris. Now it pales in comparison to Bangkok, the city which effectively replaced Ayutthaya and hides among the greater reaches of the Chao Phraya river.
There is a Buddhist Holiday this week that the Thai government mandated for many people to close schools and take off work in order to create a mini vacation. Usually the holiday is not significant, but the government wants to boost tourism and stimulate the economy by giving people a chance to travel. I have class on Thursday. Some of the UNC students and I may try to go to a national park close by tomorrow, or just hang out around our apartment.
Cheers
Noah
Class resumed as usual, with my LCA class on Monday. Our first assignment will be due in two weeks, but it will probably require a significant amount of time to complete.
Actually my other two classes this week were postponed until after the Buddhist holiday. So, I was left with only Thai language class this past week, several games of frisbee, and leisure time to read and hang out with friends.
On Wednesday on campus during lunch, there was an H1N1 rally? It was really odd and pretty funny, many college students were banging on drums holding up signs and chanting. The only words on the signs I could understand were H1N1, so it must have just been about awareness. I understand the severity of this pandemic, but seriously if we spend this much effort on some flu strain that has killed a relatively small number of people worldwide, why can't we spend more efforts on simpler problems like AIDS. So many more people suffer from AIDS and many cases could easily be prevented. This doesn't make sense to me.
My friend Raley, who I will room with in the Spring at UNC, is in some international organization at school that hosts conferences where you meet a lot of other students from around the world. Two years ago, he met Ning from Thailand. Then he went to Thailand last summer through UNC's SEAS program and met up with her in Thailand, while she showed him around Bangkok. The other week I received an email from her, because Raley told her I was in Bangkok, and she wanted to meet up and so we exchanged a few emails. We planned to meet at Sirikit Station on Thursday, and Ricker and I both were down in central Bangkok anyway, just wandering around, so then we met. It was really fun and it's really hard to imagine that you might randomly have a friend or know somebody on the opposite side of the world. That's crazy. We ate dinner together and then rented bikes in an urban park. Ning goes to Chugalongkorn University in Bangkok, which is the oldest University in Thailand and well-known internationally. She is studying English Literature and it's incredible how well she speaks English, but I mean what would you expect for an English Literature major. She is a bachelor's student as I am, which was also cool since everyone at JGSEE is older because I am taking Master's classes.
 |
| From biking-ning |
All of the UNC students had high hopes for the Fourth of July, only to be dissappointed by going to a ridiculously over-the-top America festival. After about 30 minutes at some 4th of July party at the "American School" in Bangkok, we had enough of the hamburgers, hot dogs, barbeque, and other American things. The whole place was just really expensive and hot and pretty similar to America. If only we had our own grills, I think it would have been a better party. We could have stuck around our apartments and kept it low-key, but I will admit it was interesting to observe how July 4 is celebrated in a foreign country. Basically the festival was some sort of corporate fair where a lot of American companies gave away promotions and then food was really expensive. We were told there may be a party at the US Embassy in Bangkok, but when we walked to the Embassy after the fair, it was very quiet and there were only Thai guards who spoke little English and effectively said the embassy was closed from July 3-6. Without a fourth of July party, we were all pretty tired anyway and just went back to Ban Suan Thon (our apartment complex) and played cards and then went to sleep.
We had to get up early on the 5th, becuase JGSEE was sponsoring a cultural tour for us to travel to Ayutthaya. This trip fulfilled our lack of Fourth of July fun because Ayutthaya was awesome. Our school rented out two vans and eighteen people went to Ayutthaya. Eight UNC students, several Indonesian students, a Nepalese student, and then three Thai students went to Ayutthaya. We went to a former palace of the king, ruins, and some Royal Project.
Christina and I in front of one of the former palace's many sculpted elephant shrubs. We were standing at the wrong end, haha.
<--The JGSEE group (The school bought a poster to prove that they paid for this trip, so the joke was when were we going to take the stupid picture in front of the sign)
Ayutthaya, visually, presented one of the most unique places I've been. However, it is hard to imagine that all of the ruins are born from destruction. It was sacked by the Burmese in 1767, being the former capital of Thailand, and then it was a bustling regional center. Many Thais kept their home and businesses in this city once according to some scholars as large as Paris. Now it pales in comparison to Bangkok, the city which effectively replaced Ayutthaya and hides among the greater reaches of the Chao Phraya river.
 |
| From ayutthaya ruins |
 |
| From ayutthaya ruins |
There is a Buddhist Holiday this week that the Thai government mandated for many people to close schools and take off work in order to create a mini vacation. Usually the holiday is not significant, but the government wants to boost tourism and stimulate the economy by giving people a chance to travel. I have class on Thursday. Some of the UNC students and I may try to go to a national park close by tomorrow, or just hang out around our apartment.
Cheers
Noah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
