Thai Military Camp

Over the weekend everyone was going to Pattaya, and I was tired of the whole beach thing so I decided I wanted to do something different. There was an e-mail we got about an “American Studies Club” having a camp over the weekend at a military camp it was very vague, and I did not know what I was signing up.  I just figured the worst case scenario was that I would have wasted a weekend  and 400 baht ($12 US for 3 days staying at the camp, meals, and activities) and missed the Chinese New Year celebration in Bangkok, but it actually ended up being one of the best weekends I have had in Thailand thus far. Last minute a lot of people decided to come to the camp instead of staying in Bangkok for the weekend so we had a total of 8 exchange students from my building that went to the camp.

The 8 of us walked and took the ferry to our campus (Tha Prachan) and then took a shuttle to the other Thammasat campus (Rangsit) to meet up with all the Thai students that we would be going to camp with. The Rangsit campus of Thammasat is very nice compared to the campus I am at because the Tha Prachan campus was built a long time ago and has a lot of historic significance in Thailand while the Rangsit campus was built recently. All programs from my campus are being moved to the Rangsit campus slowly, and now there are mostly only older students at the school I go to. Anyways we got on the bus and a few hours later we arrived at Chulachumklao Military Academy around 9 pm which is when we all got to eat the dinner that was provided by the camp (it was actually good unlike your typical camp food). We then got to all meet each other and learn traditional Thai dances similar to the Macarena in the States. 

We broke up into teams and made team names (I felt like I was in middle school again and at camp) after a few more activities we called it a night. The next morning we had to wake up at 7am to start one looooooooooong day. We took showers in a community bathroom but they weren’t actual showers just a little pool of water in the middle of a room with little containers to use to scoop water out with and shower. It was surprisingly refreshing. We then had a huge breakfast and headed to what they called a 2 hour “Walk Rally” on the poster advertising the camp, but it actually was a 4 hour long team building event that taught us how to learn from each other. One thing that is very clear in Thailand is that there is no sense of safety anywhere, so participating in everyday activities always involves risks because there are rules and regulations for show but no safety precautions are enforced. 

Anyways during the walk rally we  were told that we had to fit into nature so we had to put black paint over our bodies and then walk through trails with random fireworks going off while we were running through them and random little fires in our way at the beginning of the course. We had to crawl through a pipe and the crawl under barbed wire face up while is was a couple of inches away from our faces, the rest of obstacles were typical of any camp (rope climbing, getting everyone on a team over a point without touching certain things, etc……). 

At the beginning of the rally each team was given a metal container with around 6 eggs, instant noodles, rice, 2 cans of sardines and 1 bottle of water per person. So we had to cook our lunch on a fire we came across on the trail, it was interesting to see how the meal was cooked using nothing but a metal container and water which yielded cooked rice, hard - boiled eggs, noodles with egg, and sardines. All the Thai sergeants would give us advice on how to get through the rest of the course by working together but it was always in Thai and not everything could be translated so it was difficult to understand what they were trying to say at times. About 4 hours after we started we were finally done with the trail and the obstacles along the way. We then had another lunch waiting for us, after eating we went zip-lining off a tower and then we headed over to the shooting range. They explained safety features and how to use the different guns all in Thai….so the rest of us just had to hope for the best.  I got to shoot a few rounds on 2 pistols a 38mm and a 45mm, and the shot a round with a rifle. We then headed back to our rooms (which there were 2 of total one for all the girls and one for all the guys with mattresses and pillows laid out side by side in a long room). We all showered and then got ready for dinner it was the eve of the Chinese New Year so they had a special dinner with examples of tradition Thai dance from different parts of the countries and then there was a talent show where every team had to have a 5 minute show, followed by karaoke. The dinner ended around midnight and everyone showered and then we all sat around till 3 in the morning playing Thai card games and talking. We were supposed to wake up at 8am for a 9am breakfast the following morning but no one was able to get up until 9am, everyone had a quick breakfast and then we headed to the military museum which was pretty interesting. Then it was time for Thai traditional games, so we were in our teams again and learned traditional Thai “backyard” games and the losing team always had to do an embarrassing Thai dance…. Another way Thailand differs form the States is that there is no sense of competition it truly is about having fun instead. We had a kayak race as the finale of the games competition and then zip-lined above the water, went paddle boating to look at the scenery and then went back to the rooms to pack up and get onto the buses to head back to Bangkok. The weekend was a lot of fun, and I learned many things about Thai culture that I did not know before. I got to meet Thai students one on one in a different atmosphere than a classroom where they could actually be themselves, which allowed me to also learn a lot about their everyday lives and where they had come from. I am glad I choose to go to the camp, I met a lot of people during it that I am sure I will continue to talk too.