Back in the States

Well for those who don't know I'm back in the States now and I got to admit that it's kinda weird to be sitting around and not wanting to do anything because there's nothing to do. Well at least nothing fun, new, and exciting to do.

The last weeks in Bangkok was a world wind. I was on 5 flights before I got on my last flight back home to the States. It was the most tiring week I've ever had in my life but it was pretty fun too. Went to Singapore, came back to the city where it started it all (Chiang Mai), left the IC for the last time in a Sawngthaw for the airport, and said good bye for now to the last group of friends that I met at SFO.

oh my parents where def late in picking me up from the airport so, I had to wait 15mins for them to come. Thanks parents.

I realize that I didn't really write in this blog which is lame but i kept a semi journal/scrap book which I got to admit I like better than using an online blog. But now i'm off to save sea turtles with no internet and maybe no phone reception. Ahahahh scared.

How weird is this. It is June 1^st and I have no clue how that happened. It doesn’t seem like this quarter should be ending so fast. Nor does it seem like I’m done with Thailand. I still haven’t seen or eaten at all the places that I wanted to go to nor will I likely get the chance to.

Today is the 2^nd day till finals and after finals it’s all over. Everyone is doing their separate things for a week (I go to Singapore for the weekend) and then I most likely won’t see a lot of the people ever again. Most of them are graduating or taking other flights home. It’s really sad that I’m leaving but I’m excited not to be sleeping in my own bed soon.

So, I guess I haven’t really written on this blog for a while. I guess that is because I have no internet in my room (I have to go down the hall way to use the internet) or it’s because I’ve been going non-stop for the last 3 weeks.

I’m in Bangkok and it’s amazing. I have to say that Bangkok isn’t anything like I imagined. I knew that there were a lot of things to do but still I had no clue that there was this much. I’m just going to list this that I’ve done while I’ve been in Bangkok

Ready set go…

-Actually went to Dance Clubs

-Had 3 b-days in a row

-Over Night Train

-Ruins of Ayutthaya

-IMAX movie (Night at the Museum 2)

-Wolverine movie at the nicest theater with patent leather reclining chairs

-Grand Palace Tour - not opened to the public

-Emerald Buddha

-World’s largest Laying Buddha

-Went to Cambodia

-Saw Angkor Wat

-Visited Killing Fields

-Went shopping at the nicest malls ever

-Shopped all day and bought everything for myself

-Ping Pong Show

-Visited one of the top hotels in the world - Mandarin Oriental

-Water taxi

-Khao San Road - where all the tourists go

-Sky train

-Subway

-Taxi

-Buses

-Bargained my ass off at the Night Bazare got pissed off because I had to

… and in the middle of all this I went to school well, at least some what

May 8, 2009

The rocket parade was today. I thought it was going to be fun but it was just kinda hot and drunk villages everywhere. People where covered in mud drunk and tried to touch all the bystanders and I didn’t really feel all that comfortable about it. Traditionally the rockets were being made to set off to ask the gods for rain. The parade had 12 different villages showing off their rockets, dances, costumes, etc. and during the entire parade there were a ton of fake penises everywhere. Such as on the fake cows they had the cows penis and balls were huge. Did that for 3 hours and that was way too long.

After the parade some of the girls went to go have dinner with some of the nursing students we met. We ended up going to Wat Pochai first because today is a Buddha holiday. The Buddisht holiday is because it is Buddha’s birthday and the day Buddha die. So, we got candles, incents, and lotus flowers and then walked around Wat Pochai three times for good luck and left the offerings at the pagoda in front of the wat.

After we had dinner at a hot pot street vendor. I couldn’t cook my meat properly so Som cooked my meat for me. Sad.

After dinner we walked along the river to a Pagoda that held a famous Buddha image. The Pagoda was supposedly the breast bone of the Buddha was held but now it is in Laos. This Pagoda was different than all the others because the original Pagoda was in the river. The Pagoda was built where the Mekong River is now when it was dry and then the river filled so now all you can see is the top of the Pagoda.

My new love is prickly heat. I realized in Thailand that you sweat a lot and chafe a lot at places you never thought u would chafe before.

May 7, 2009

Their Story:
These Laos are Mong Hill tribe people that their families helped the US during the Vietnam war. Once Laos turned communist the army wanted to exterminate all of these people so they fled to Thailand. But are considered illegal so the thai gov rounded up all these people and stuck them in a camp because they can’t go back to Laos because they will be killed so they are stuck. Most of these Laos living in the camp have been living there for 2 years with no hopes of leaving. They are only allowed outside for 2 hours a day and so we visited when they were able to be outside. We weren’t allowed inside at all. They are grateful for anything they have and were all very happy to see that we brought things that they needed and visited them. Everyone including the children wei every time they received something we gave them.

So, you know those tours that you take at Angel Island of the detainee camp for the Chinese. They were interesting to see but they were kinda creepy. Well a bunch of us went to a functioning detainee camp for Laos people in Nong Khai. The day I went was the second day that people went, so I’ve heard all the stories before and I didn’t think that I was going to be freaking out, but I did.

We started the day off by going to Tesco (a Walmart type store) and got men’s underwear, towels, various fruit, note pads, and colored pencils. We then walked over to the detainee camp. Once I got there there was just a bunch of kids and adults outside. So, we set up shop and started passing out fruit. All of them were very grateful and waited till someone got around to them to give them fruit but all of the older kids and adults pretty much refused to get the fruit so the little kids could get some. The number of children was overwhelming. We had a lot of fruit so the cutting of fruit and handing out fruit lasted for a long time. But mean while Katie decided to pass out notebooks and colored pencils so I helped by passing out colored pencils. And that’s where it got crazy like what u see in movies about people scrambling for any type of food. Once the children saw that there was something new that they didn’t have all the kids crowed around me and Katie until they almost pushed me and Katie over and I had to step back.

Another moment that hit me pretty hard was finding out that one of the girls at the camp doesn’t have parents anymore and just has another brother at the camp. Another moment was when I found out that the 3 older boys actually were at Bangkok University until the police found out that they were there and arrested them to come to the camp.

They thought I was Thai/Laos

So, I don’t think I have mentioned this but even thought I try really hard to make sure that I don’t look Thai people still think I’m Thai or in a new case Laos. The last time someone thought I was Thai, I happened to be at an Isan village where a Cal Poly graduate (Geffory) has made his home. In order to have the Isan experience we did a scavenger hunt asking the villages at various houses for certain things like milled and unmilled sticky rice. Well the people that were visiting the villages with us happened to nursing college and high school students that were learning English. Anyways during the scavenger hunt one of the nursing students (Un) straight up said I looked Thai and I just told her I knew already and wasn’t Thai.

People thought I was Laos during my trip to Laos trip to Vang Veng. At Vang Veng we were staying at a guesthouse that was above a store. Well Carrie wanted to go to this certain restaurant and she asked the nice guesthouse owner where it was. But she didn’t know any English so she responded in Laos and so Carrie, Shirley, and I all looked confused (that’s what you do if you don’t know a language and they think u do) and then she realized that Carrie didn’t understand and straight up looked at me and said the directions again in Laos and I then responded that I didn’t know Laos.

People that I was Laos while I was kayaking in Vang Veng. The guides on the trip were straight up speaking in Laos in front of me (remember I had to kayak with the guide) deciding if I was Laos or not until one guide asked me what ethnicity I was.

Laos

The view of the Mekong River outside my guest house

I just got back from Laos and it was defiantly an experience. Laos is first of all very different than Thailand. Laos is a lot more under developed and I swear there are a lot more creepy guys in Laos.

Well, I left for Laos Friday at around 8 am to cross the friendship bridge. And let me tell you it was quite the process. In order for anyone to cross the bridge you must get to the bridge, in my case via Tuk Tuk. At the bridge I had to go through Thailand immigration and pay a bunch of fees, such as a lunch time fee or a weekend fee. I then paid for a shuttle to take me across the bridge. Then at the end of the bridge I had to go through Laos immigration and pay for a bunch of fees too.

Going over the Bridge

After the bridge fiasco I got on a Tuk Tuk to get to Valitine and hung out there for the day.

Buddhist Park

Victory Arch

View from the top of the Victory Arch

That night I took a bus ride to get to Vien Vang. The bus stopped at Vien Vang on a random side of the road and I was very disappointed that the town was very small and wanted to go home. But, the next morning I saw that outside my window there were a ton of mountains covered with rainforest. I got there really late at Viene Vang is way pretty. I went kayaking and caving. I left for kayaking with others and first of all Shirley and I couldn’t kayak together so I ended up kayaking with one of the leaders. We all kayaked for an hour and then stopped for lunch were people were tubing down the river and good thing we stopped because it started pouring rain. After about an hour and half we kayaked some more until we got to the caves. On the way from back from the caves I had to pretty much bush whack where the trail was and since it was raining I fell every step of the way down. Now I’m sick after this weekend trip and that’s all for now.

Lampang and Sukothai

Well, I've left Chiang Mai and I'm now in Nong Kai. The trip from Chiang Mai to Nong Kai consisted of a long bus ride. I stopped at three areas; an elephant reserve, one of the oldest wooden Wats (Temples) in Lampang, and Sukothai runins.

Elephant Reserve was a waste of time. We only stopped for 2 hours and I didn't really want to do anything because it was extremely hot.

Lampang was once again extremely hot. An example of this is when I had to take off my flip flops to enter portions of the wat. But since the wat was outside my feet were going to burn off on the tiled floors, so i wore my flip flops and walked around all the sand. The wat itself was really cool because it was after new years so there were a lot of offerings the thai people left at the temple, such as wooden sticks to give offerings to trees and ribbon and sand for the monks.





I experienced my first hardcore thunderstorm the night before Sukothai. I went to sleep early so I could wake up early to visit the ruins of Sukothai, but I woke up at 1am due to thunder and lightening. I opened the door to my hotel room in Sukothai and the trees were swaying, there was purple light due to the lightning, and the on and off showers of rain. The storm lasted a good couple 3 hours.

I guess the thunderstorm was good because the morning after it was actually kinda chilly. Which meant I wasn't going to die in the heat while observing the Sukothai ruins.

Sukothai is Thailand's first capital in the 1200s and was amazing to see. The structures are all in various stages of ruins but a lot of them were still amazing to see and it spanded 40km sq. I biked around the ruins for 3 hours.