Bang Saen

After completing many of the requisite inner-Bangkok sights listed in the various guide-books we all brought, last week breezed by mostly filled with bus trips from our apartment in Bang Mod to Siam.

Siam was the former name of the Kingdom of Thailand until after World War II when they changed the name to Prathet Thai which reflected a growing sense of nationalism. I know Dad asked about this earlier, so there is really no political reason, except just to reassert the pride that Thai people have since their country was the only one in Southeast Asia to not become colonized. Now, Siam represents the thriving commercial center of Bangkok, with four of the largest, most extravagant malls all within walking distance. It's like Southpoint on crack, but all indoors, eight stories and air-conditioned. Probably the air-conditioning provides the main incentive for people to just hang out at the malls in Bangkok, it's not something I would do in America, but I understand why Thai teens/families come to the mall as if it were Central Park. We walked around and saw some wats that just happened to be located among rapid development areas. So there is a nice new luxurious five-star hotel and a fairly old, Buddhist shrine to Buddha on the same block. It's very apparent the transition of Thailand.

Our UNC professor and director of the program arrived on Friday night and Saturday morning he took us to Bang Saen, probably the worst beach in Thailand. It was a lot of fun, but it was quite amusing telling our Thai friends where we were going because everyone just gives you a look of puzzlement and semi-disgust and asks Why??? There was a UNC student who was studying in Vietnam last semester and was traveling through Bangkok and somehow got a hold of Rich, so she tagged along our beach trip as well, which was neat. We took the bus to the beach which was near Chonburi if you look on a map. The bus ride took about 2 hours, but it only cost 80 baht which is like 2.50 american dollars. We stayed at a beach bungalow. Randomly our Thai TA, Neung showed up unannouced which was fun, because we weren't expecting him to join us. That was fun, so we all hung out on the beach, rented a tandem bike, ate loads of seafood, and passed out from all the heat and such from the beach. I went swimming along with Ricker, Matt, and Neung, but there was trash everywhere, dead fish, and I felt pretty grimy afterward. It is pretty sad what happened to this beach, but it's not their fault at all. It's all trash from Bangkok and so what was once a glistening beach, is now a sort of run-down tourist trap for Thais. Although, it will probably be the only beach we go to without seeing any farang (white-people) of all the beaches I hope to see while I am here. Immediately after getting out of the water, we took a shower, which consisted of taking bowls of water and dumping it on ourselves. We rented a three-seater bike and rode around which was fun, even Rich biked with us. The hotel was the first time I had watched television since I arrived and it was funny to see Popeye dubbed in Thai and outrageous to see that the only American channel broadcasted was Fox News. Mostly though, there was a mix of British and Thai media. We ate dinner, more seafood, and then mosied about the town, trying to find things to do. The next day we went to several Buddhist temples, one of which was a shrine also to King Rama V. One of the temples was extremely peculiar, surreal, and possibly anglicized. Many statues depicted "hell" and what would happen to humans if they committed certain sins. Apparently, Rich has never seen any other wat like this, so it was very unique, although morbid. I took some pictures that can better describe the eternal damnation. It was funny at first, but after ten minutes of walking through bloody statues, I got the point. Then we traveled to a high point (elevation wise) and saw some monkeys, who are vicious and a decent view of the coast and rice paddies. Some of the girls wanted to shop around, and I got a snack. We traveled to a glamourous Chinese wat, which was amazing in how detailed and fancy all the architecture and shrines were. Everything was gold and silver and probably cost a fortune. There, we ate a free vegetarian lunch, which was neat. At that point the heat got the better of us and we came back to Bangkok. The van we took to come back to Bangkok didn't have working air conditioning, so we were sweating profusely upon arrival.

Classes began, Life Cycle Assessment is with Shabbir, who made a really good first impression. I'm excited about this class. We then had a lunch meeting to discuss our research project, which apparently is supposed to start earlier than the group last year. Their procrastination and excessive free time made the professors this year very anxious for us to start our projects on time. We were presented with several options, all of which sound fine by me, except I am not as interested in modeling the effects of biodiesel on air quality in Bangkok, because of all the chemistry. It gets really specific into aldehydes and such and I would rather do a project on solar energy implementation. We will have more meetings in the next couple of weeks to learn more about the possibly projects. The one I am excited about involves figuring out ways for rural areas of Thailand to build photovoltaic solar cells on their rooftops as part of the initial building phase, rather than expensive modifications as a retrofit, and perhaps may include some optimization of when, where, and how to best create solar electricity in rural areas. This is a pretty rough sketch of what may turn out to be a large project, but it's difficult to say at this point what I will end up doing, or if that is the direction of the professor's project.

There is a chance I may venture into Cambodia in the near future??