10 day break

In the western world we have spring break, but in Thailand they do not have spring break they just get a few days off for the Thai New Year, and instead have a 10 day “holiday games break” it’s pretty much kind of like a mini-Olympics betweens the universities in Thailand. All the exchange students wanted to take advantage of the long break so people broke up into groups to travel in and went to different places. Some went to Vietnam while others went to Cambodia, Malaysia, and even China I think. I went in a large group to three different Islands while it is still “winter” in Thailand because I figured it is going to get too hot to go later during the semester. The first chunk of the break was spent in Koh Tao, followed by a few nights in Koh Samui, and finally Koh Phangan…

Koh Tao is a pretty small island by the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand it is fairly new and wasn’t easily accessible until the 1980’s. It was the first stop of the break and I spent the first 5 days there, a long time was spent their because a group of 16 of us went to Koh Tao to get PADI certified as open-water divers and the course was 4 days long. We left Bangkok on Thursday night around 10pm and took a bus to Chumporn which arrived there at 5 am,

we the waited at the pier for the first boat to Koh Tao which didn’t depart until 7 am and we reached our final destination Friday morning at 9 am. At the pier we met a driver from the dive resort we had booked at and we got in the back of two pickup truck taxis which took us up to the resort.

We then filled out some paper work and figured out what time we would meet to start the first class, we decided on 5pm of the same day, and spent the afternoon killing time on the beach playing volleyball, frisbee and eating. At 5 pm we went to the classroom and had to watch a couple of long videos about scuba diving and were assigned some homework, after class we walked the island and relaxed in the rooms.

The next morning we had to meet at the resorts pool at 8am where we put on scuba equipment for the first time and learned how to do safety checks and got used to breathing underwater by practicing in the pool. Later we met again in the classroom to go over the previous night’s homework and to get a couple of more worksheets. Sunday afternoon we went to the ocean and dove down to only about 4 meters to learn the rest of the skills we needed to know in order to get PADI certified, once again we went to a classroom later in the day to take a few quizzes. On Monday we got to do our first two real dives, they were at different sites the first was White Rock where we went down to 12 meters the point of the dive was to learn how to control our decent down to the floor of the ocean and how to ascend slowly at the end of a dive. The second training dive was on a site called “3 rocks,” we went down to about 10 meters and learned and practiced additional skills that would help in possible emergency scenarios.

After we finished the 2 dives for the day we had a few hours off and then had to take the final exam for the course. The next morning was our last day in Koh Tao; we left early in the morning for our last 2 dives. The first dive of the day was 20 meters (about 65 feet) at “Shark Island” and the second dive was at “Hin Ngam,” because all of the dives were training dives we had to learn additional underwater skills during each dive. After the dives were done we returned to the resort got lunch and packed up our stuff, while the instructors filled out paper work to get everyone officially certified. We then left for the next destination; Koh Samui.

Koh Samui was the most developed island I have been to in Thailand, and was also my favorite it’s unfortunately I only got to spend 2 nights there. We took a boat from Koh Tao to Samui; there were already people from our group in Samui when I arrived because they had left Koh Tao early because they didn’t want to go diving. So they had taken care of getting everyone rooms, the group was split into two different places. After putting away our bags everyone went walking around the island, everyone had different taste and I ended up at a Brazilian steak house with a few other guys. The meal was the priciest meal I have had in Thailand but it was worth every penny and it was still equivalent to only $25.00 =]. After eating we spent the night on the beach. The next morning we went looking for cheap motorbike rentals, we ended up finding a place that would give us 10 bikes for 1600 baht for 24 hours. So it ended up cost $5 US per person plus gas for 24 hours….not too shabby.

Around 13 of us headed out on bikes to go to a water fall, on the way up one of the guys slipped on some dirt and scratched up his foot. But if you ever come to Thailand you will realize that the sight of a little blood is a huge deal to many Thai people, a local person around where the guy fell called an ambulance up the mountain to take him to the hospital to get checked out. Everything ended up being ok the hospital just bandaged up his foot, and gave him drugs for pain, the grand total for an ambulance, bandaging up his foot, and drugs was about 450 baht ($14 US)……gotta love Thailand. Obviously the guy could not ride his bike back to our hotel so I parked my bike on the side of the rode and drove back his bike along with another guy and the rest of the group continued on to the waterfall. I then came back on the back of a bike and got my bike, so then me and Geoff (the other guy on the bike) were left without a phone or a camera but decided to ride around anyways.

 First we went to go to another waterfall and Geoff’s back tire went flat so we had to get it fixed and then it was starting to get dark so we were going to head back but kept riding around and then we stumbled across a awesome statue it was “Big Buddha” we looked at it and “Laughing Buddha” that was a few blocks away and decided that we would wake up early the next morning and come back with cameras and the rest of the group.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn because the bikes had to be returned by 11am, we made it back to the statues took pictures and explored some more and then headed back returned the bikes and packed up our bags to catch a boat to our last destination of the break Koh Phangan……

Koh Phangan was the finale of the 10 day break and we were there for 3 nights, which is a definite overkill for this island. None the less it was fun, Koh Phangan is infamous for its full moon parties and that is why we were there. The full moon parties are at Haad Rin beach but accommodations are pricier there so we stayed at the next beach over and found a room for 400 baht a night and spilt it between me and a guy from Germany; David. The only problem was that since there were 20,000 extra people on the island for full moon the taxi’s would inflate their prices so it would cost 100 baht down to the beach and 100 baht back…it was a rip-off so once again we rented motorbikes 300 baht for 2 days and saved on taxi’s.

The 3 nights were crazy and all I can say is that I did not sleep much but the days were just as tiring but fun. The first day I got split from everyone and no one’s phones were working on the islands, so I went riding around and ended up hiking 2 km up to a viewpoint once again with no camera with me. I eventually ran into a few people at Koh Ma which is kind of like an island off of Koh Phangan but there is a sand bar which allows you to walk across to it. And then we all went to Malibu Beach. After the 3 nights were over there was a long journey back it started around noon by boat and ended by bus in Bangkok at 5 am Monday followed by class at 9am. Great.

Catching up: January

Time has been flying and January went by really quickly, I admit I did a horrible job keeping the blog up to date but I will do my best to remember the things I have done and catch up. I have been in Thailand for a little over a month now, but it still feels like I got here yesterday and until this past week started it still felt like I was still on vacation. I visited many different islands and beaches and did other touristy things during the month but also got to experience living within a culture completely different than what I am used to.

Living here has forced me to see many things differently and has made me more open to trying new things.  I am sure in the three and a half months I still have here I have a lot to learn from Thailand but for now I feel like I have settled in comfortably. I came to Thailand with no expectations but I feel that if I had any expectations before arriving they would have already been surpassed.   

The weekend of January 8^th I went to Koh Samet, followed by a week and a half of school and then a 10 day “holiday games” break during which I went to three different islands with very different experiences at each one; Koh Tao, Koh Samui, and Koh Phangan. I left for the break on the 21^st at night and got back to Bangkok at 4 am on February 1^st. Of course I did many things in between the 2 big trips, but the trips were the biggest highlight for January.

Koh Samet

It’s almost impossible to travel in big groups, everyone left in small groups through the course of two days but in the end there were more than 25 people from my building on the island. It took a while to get there from Bangkok I left at 7:30am, after an hour taxi ride I waited till 9 to get a four hour bus ride followed by a forty-five minute ferry which finally ended up in Koh Samet. After getting there we tried to secure places to stay in at night we looked for the cheapest accommodation possible and it might not have been the best choice but it was good enough there was 4 of us in a room that’s total cost was 300 baht a night so about 2.50 USD per person. For that price we got one double bed a cold shower that was broken off of the wall a toilet that was tank less and had to be flushed manually with a bucket of water which would then flush whatever was in it right below the house….The sheets might have been washed once since they were put on the bed and I decided to use my own towel instead of the pillow that was provided. The room overall was ok because not too much time was spent sleeping. After finding accommodation the rest of day was just spent relaxing on the beach.

Saturday was more or less the same everyone had arrived by then and the entire day was spent on the beach, I also went banana boating and ate a lot of food from stalls along the beach. Saturday night everyone ate dinner on the beach at a restaurant that had fish in a tank to pick from, of course me being picky I ordered a couple of chicken kabobs. I also met a guy that looked like he was Indian that was selling “roti” with different fillings, I tried one and got hooked he must have collected 500 baht in business from me alone during the course of the weekend. The guy ended up being from Burma and he had left Burma seeking refuge and eventually ended up in Koh Samet.

Sunday, I wanted to see the different beaches so me another guy from Canada named Geoff rented mopeds and went riding through the dirt trails, we found a few view points and a lot of nice beaches we circled a good portion of the island for about 3 hours for a cost of about $5 for the rental. After packing everything up from the room it was time to make the journey home and look forward to the first full week of class………….

Getting Settled In.

      I will be studying abroad from January 1st to Mid-May 2010 at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. I hope this blog helps me communicate and stay in touch with everyone back home, and saves me from having to tell each person the exact same story of what I did while I am abroad. So, I have been in Bangkok for two full days now and it feels like I have already been here for weeks (in a good way).  There a lot of things that you cannot explain in Bangkok unless you experience it for yourself. So I will explain what I can.

Getting to Bangkok:

I had a 1am flight out of Chicago to South Korea on December 31^st, a New Years Eve flight that I thought would be empty was actually full. The plane was delayed for a couple of hours after I boarded it because the airline was waiting for some documents and once they got them the plane and runway were iced over so they had to bring out de-icing trucks to hose down the plane.  The plane had great service except for the fact that I could not understand a word that anyone on the plane was saying (they made all the announcements in Korean and then really quickly TRIED to translate in English. The flight to Korea was supposed to be 14 hours but actually took longer because of headwinds. I should have listened to Shetal when she told me not to watch Food Inc. the day before I left… I could not swallow the plane food that they gave us for dinner (at 3:30 am) even though it looked really good. Asiana Airlines uses Korean time on their flight so I time traveled 15 hours from the second I got on the plane, in a way it was good because jet lag by the time I reached Bangkok was not too bad because of the gradual change. I arrived at the Seoul airport around 7:20 am (some 16 hours after I left Chicago). I had an 11 hour layover and was planning on walking around outside until I realized it was 2 degrees there, so most of my day consisted of falling asleep on random benches and walking around aimlessly to kill time.

I had my first non-western meal for lunch; I have no idea what they gave me because I ordered something completely different than what I got. All I know is that it was a Korean dish and it had a bowl of soup with thick noodles and a bunch of other stuff with a plate of sushi on the side (and no I did not eat the sushi) I did finish most of the other stuff they served me but it took me a while because they only had chopsticks for me to use.

 My plane for Bangkok left at 6:20pm (South Korea time) and was 6 hours long. I arrived at Suvarnabhumi (So-wanna-poom) airport around 10:20pm (BKK time). I had no idea which baggage claim to go to until the sign switched from Thai to English. I went through immigration and then to the currency exchange counter. After I got my bags going through customs was a pain, so far from everyone I talked to I was the only one to encounter any problems. They opened all of my bags and had me empty everything out of each one on a counter after they kept saying “duty, duty, duty in bag.” They didn’t find anything to charge me duty on after I explained to them that I am a student and will be here for an extended time. The first time I got nervous about this trip came right after I cleared customs and saw a bunch of taxi drivers and hotel staff holding up signs with names on them and I did not see anything with my name on it. After peeing my pants trying to figure out what I was going to do I figured I should keep walking towards the exit and then I finally saw another section of people holding signs and one of them had my name on it. The man holding the sign was Justin; he works at the apartment/hotel building that I am now staying at it is called The Amarin Mansion. Also next to him was another exchange student from Canada named Chrystal, we found out that both of us had been on the same flight from ORD all the way to BKK. We had to wait for one more exchange student from Wisconsin named Jackie, her flight didn’t come in for a while after ours…

Finally we got to the mansion at 1:30am Saturday morning and checked into temporary rooms for the night in the hotel part of the building and called it a night.

First day in Bangkok:

                It was a long day especially in a foreign land. Chrystal, Jackie and I not knowing anyone else here yet all got together in the morning after sleeping a few hours and tried to find food, it was a very eye-opening experience. We walked around for 2 hours not knowing where we were going. We went through slums with cats and dogs sitting right next to food that was being cooked, and walked into a restaurant where they did not have an English menu. Finally the three of us gave up and started the next endeavor of trying to get a taxi back to our building which is very hidden, luckily we had a map of the building to show drivers and we ended up getting in our first tuk-tuk which is kind of like a rick-shaw in India.

We finally ended up getting our first Thai meal in the restaurant that’s part of the building for a total of 35 baht ($1.05 USD).  I didn’t like the first meal I got very much probably because I just pointed at a random number on the menu. But later that night I went back to the same place and ordered a dish that another student I met that morning recommended and it was delicious, food will be no problem in Thailand.

     After eating in the morning we went to look at other apartments and to a big mall kind of like Woodfield but the prices there were actually 2 to 3 times more expensive at this mall then they are back home (They had an Aldo shoe store and the exact sandals that I was wearing were 3,900 baht which is around $120 USD , I bought them at Woodfield back home for $30 USD). Clearly there was no point buying anything here, but I did find a good deal on a local phone and minutes to use here so I got a Thai number (08-5909-3520). I went ahead and booked Amarin Mansion for the remainder of my time in Thailand. Later we met two more exchange students and went back shopping to get sheets and stuff for the permanent room, I wanted to take a nap but ended up falling asleep.

Chatuchak Weekend Market/Bangkok at Night:

I decided to go to the Chatuchak weekend market with a few people in the morning. The market was huge it covers more than 30 acres of land and has more than 15,000 stalls. It’s the one place I have been so far where it is not too hard to bargain without knowing the Thai language. It was 93 degrees the whole day and very humid. I surprisingly ended up not buying anything at all. Then we went over to another apartment building about a 10 minutes taxi ride away that has an Olympic sized pool. Everyone then visited to McDonalds for the first time, the fries were really salty but finding out the McDonalds delivers 24 hours a day ended the trip there on a good note.

 Later that night about a group of 20 of us and 2 actual Thai students went out and ended up on Khaosan Rd which is a very touristy street that kind of reminded me of a little version of Cancun.We got fish massages which is basically a pool of fish that you put your feet and the fish eat all of the dead skin off of your feet, surprisingly it actually does work. We ended up at Soi Cowboy and Patpong which are districts that are more geared towards tourist, the two districts also happen to be red-light districts. There’s not much that can be written about the 2 areas except that it was intense for my second day in Bangkok, that there are some hard-core lady-boys and that there are some things that you cannot write about because people just have to see certain things for themselves to truly understand and appreciate what you would want them to know about an area.