6/27/08 Last Trip

Wednesday I went on one last day trip. There were still a couple things that I really wanted to do that I hadn't yet. We started the day with the floating markets which are so beautiful! I've always had a crush on them and was really excited to experience it in person. We go to go on a bit of a boat ride and walk around. I ate some good food and took a LOT of pictures... sorry if they get a little boring!

Next we had some time to kill so we went to the snake farm where I wore a python around my neck and then saw a crazy show. One guy messed with a cobra and then they milked it to show us that it really did have it's fangs. It's supposedly good luck to touch a cobra so they brought it around so we could all touch it. Then they had a mongoose in a cage and they put the cobra in it so we could see how the mongoose attacks them... crazy! They had to pry the cobra away from it so it wouldn't kill it! Then they wrestled with a huge boa constrictor. And lastly this crazy guy brought out 3 snakes and caught one in each hand and the 3rd in his mouth.

Next was the highlight of the trip... The tiger temple! I got to pet tigers! It was so awesome! But you don't really get enough time to revel in the fact your touching a tiger. But anyway, there are tons of pics. They claim that they are not sedated and that they have just been acclimated to humans at a very young age and usually sleep during the day, so are just real lazy... but I don't know. They did open their eyes every once in a while and I did see one get up, turn around, and lay back down. After pics with the big tigers I got to see some baby ones that were only one month old and another that was 4 months. In addition to tigers they had some wild boars, water buffalo, deer, and peacocks.

Out last stop was the bridge over the river Kwai. I don't' know that I've actually watched that movie... but anyway. It was a really nice view and I got to walk across the bridge... which was a little bit scary. It's a railroad track and there are defiantly parts where you can see the water underneath you!

Tonight is my last night in Thailand. I can't believe it's time to come home already! Still feels like I just got here, but in a lot of ways I'm ready to be home. Nothing really exciting to tell about of my last couple days. Just finishing up stuff and getting prepared to leave. If I find there's anything else, I'll post it when I get back. Hope you had fun keeping up with me! Oh, by the way... the photos are filed under Last Trip and then subfolders from there.

6/24/08 Chiang Mai

So we left very early on Thursday for Chiang Mai. The flight was super short and pretty nice. We were a little concerned because our airline was called 1-2-Go, but it was fine. When we arrived at our hotel the lady sat us down and reviewed our itinerary with us. She explained that we could have a car and a driver for the afternoon to take us around to some places where they make handicrafts. This turned out to be a tour of shopping. It was fun though. In addition to buying all kinds of great stuff that we didn't need, we got to see a lot of how they make things like the silk, lacquer, jewelry, and umbrellas.

Then that night we went to the Thai Cultural Center for a dinner theater. It was super cool! We sat on the floor and they brought an array of Thai dishes out to us. Most of it was really really good. I especially loved the fried bananas! Then there was a show of Thai dancing which was really fun to see. They had elaborate costumes and strange Thai music. After that was over, we moved to a separate theater that was outside for some dances of the Hill tribe peoples. My favorite was the fire/knife dance.

The next day was trekking. We did a hike up a hill to a Hmong village. It about killed me, especially after all that hiking I did in Hua Hin. Can't really say the Hmong village at the end was really worth it, but we did get to go over a scary bridge that reminded us all of something out of Indiana Jones. After that was elephant trekking. This was pretty cool because how often do you get to ride on an elephant? But I thought there was an actually destination involved in this trek and it turned out we just went out and then came back the same way. There were 2 baby elephants that just followed their mothers around and they were very cute. We visited another village of one of the Karen tribes where they were making silk (shopping opportunity). After that we went to see a waterfall which was very beautiful and a welcome relief from the heat. Some people were for warned to bring swimsuits and a change of clothes so they went under the waterfalls and got wet! We weren't prepared for this, but had we known what was coming next, we would've just got in. Our last stop was floating down a river on a bamboo raft. You just sit right on it, so as a result you get really pretty wet. But I thought that was the most fun part of the whole day! Unfortuneately there are no pictures of that part since the getting wet part didn't allow for bringing anything with us.

The next day was a trip to the Golden Triangle which is where Thailand, Burma, and Laos all come together on the Mekong river. This involved about a 4 hour van ride each way which really kinda sucked as the roads were winedy and we all felt pretty car sick most of the time. Our first stop was at the runins of a temple in Chiang Rai. Then we went to the Mekong and took a boat ride around the area of the Golden Triangle and made a stop over on the Laos side (another shopping opportunity). The Laos are known for making wiskey and putting corbra and various other things inside the bottles. They believe this will make you stronger. James and Anna were brave and did a free shot of the cobra wiskey. James them proceeded to try the other 2: tiger penis and ginko. From the boat we could also see this giant Buddha that was built for the Queen's birthday a few years ago. They didn't have the money to build it so they borrowed 60 million baht from Austrailia. Aparently they have it almost paid off due to donations. After the boat trip we went to the Thai/Burma border. Not too exciting. Just a huge market (we're pretty much shopped out at this point) and we couldn't even cross the border... got a picture of it though. Lastly we went to another village where the Padaung and Akha people live. These tribes are all origninally from Burma. The Padaung people are best know as the Longnecks. You may be familiar with their pictures of the copper rings aroung their necks. Upon x-ray, doctors have discovered that their necks don't actually strech, but their shoulders are pushed down by the weight of the rings. The adult woman's rings range from 3-5 kilos in weight... trust me, that's heavy! The story goes that the Padaung people would clear the land of trees to plant their harvests. After a couple years the land would become infertile and they would have to clear another piece of land. One day a tiger attacked the village and killed many of the women by biting them on the necks. The felt that the attack was a warning from the gods to stop destroying the forests, but they had no other way of survival. So in an attempt to protect the women from future tiger attacks they began putting the rings around their necks. (makes perfect sence to me!) Oh yeah, and more shopping!

Our last day in Chiang Mai we only had til 3 when we had to leave for the airport, so we just spent that time wandering around the city. There are a lot of remnants of the old city such as ruined walls and temples. There are tons of temples in Chiang Mai! So there's some random pictures of the city and a creepy wax figure of a monk. All in all it was a pretty good trip! Most of the pictures of the elephant trek and such are of other people and I have to wait until they post their pics to get the ones of me. But what i've got so far is up! Enjoy!

6/22/08 Ayutthaya

I've just returned from Chiang Mai but I don't have my pictures and everything from that trip together yet. But on Wednesday we went to Ayutthaya which was the ancient capital of Bangkok. It was at it's prime in the 1300's and was sacked by the Burmese in the 1700's. There are several sites of the old city scattered about the new city. We visited 4 sites: Wat Chai Watthanaram - is one of the more complete sites and is very beautiful right on the bank of the river. A large group of school kids was leaving as we were arriving and I had to take some pics of their fantastically painted buses!, Wat Phra Mahathat - is best known for the Buddha's face within the roots of a tree, Wat Lokaya Sutharam - has a very large reclining Buddha but that's all that's left there, and Wat Ratchaburana - you can climb up the tower and then down into a crypt, which wasn't as exciting as it sounds, there are some remnants of paintings though.

Along the way we stopped at a place where they gave elephant rides. We didn't ride them but we did take some fun pictures with them! On the way home we stopped at Bang Pa-In which was a summer palace but is now only used by the royal family for special events. It's very grand and beautiful though! There is a shrine in the middle of a lake with a statue inside... the statue is of the King famed by The King and I. We also saw some soldiers doing their exercises around the grounds. So, enjoy the pics! Go to the Ayutthaya album and them there will be sub albums for all the different places!

6/17/08 Hua Hin

After what seemed like an unusually long bus ride, I just got back to Bangkok from Hua Hin and am now sitting in a restaurant eating some strange chicken green curry soup that the waiter talked me into. Not really my favorite but it's pretty good... a little spicy. The beach was really nice. I took a few pictures, but was only there on Sunday afternoon. Monday James and I went to a National Park near by called Khao San Roi Yot and did a lot more hiking and climbing than we bargained for! It was pretty steep and rocky on some parts and then it rained part way into it which made it also slippery! It was definitely a thigh workout and I was pretty proud of myself for making it through... and no injuries! But as we climbed mountains we saw some really great views! The ultimate goal was a giant sinkhole/cave where we saw a petrified waterfall and a small shine down there. I was pretty bummed when I realized that there was not another way out as I thought, but rather we had to go out the same way we came in!! We did see a baby monkey though and its mom. We could hear others and see the trees moving, but they were very hard to see! After we climbed out we had lunch at a small restaurant there and then took a little boat trip around some of the islands and then got dropped off at our starting point to our awaiting taxi driver who was a pretty cool guy! He spoke English well and I found out that he grew up just outside of Hua Hin and his family is all there and they farm pineapples and bananas.


This morning I went to a "temple" where I got ripped of my a monk and a monkey all in one trip! I use the word temple pretty loosely because it was pretty chinsy as you will see by the picture of the Buddha with flashing disco lights around his head! I didn't even step foot inside the shrine because I could tell it was just another opportunity to rip me off! But there were monkeys everywhere which is what I came for. When I first came in I walked down this hill and there was a Monk outside a small kind of shrine. He saw me and was very admit that I come in and sit down. He then proceeded to put a friendship bracelet on me, not seeming to concerned that I touched me from time to time. (Monks aren't supposed to touch women, they are supposed to give and receive everything through a layman) The he grabbed a bundle of small sticks, dipped them in holy water, whacked me over the head a few times, and shouted a quick prayer in Pali. When he finished, he immediately said "OK, now you give me money." I was prepared to make some kind of donation but I was a bit shocked by his demanding tone. So I attempted to give him 20 baht which he gave back to me and kept carrying on until I gave him 100! (that's about $3 and some change) I was like "Wow! I just got ripped off by a Monk!"

After that I walked around, took more pictures of monkeys, climbed up to the "temple". The I looked around in some of the little tourist shops. They had bowls and vases and other things made of mango wood which I think is quite beautiful but I didn't really want to buy a big piece. So I finally found a small candle holder that I decided to purchase. After that I was just going to get a coke and head back. As I was walking to wards the stand where the Nuns were selling food and drinks (I'm telling you this place was shady! One of the Nuns was even smoking!) a monkey ran up and grabbed my bag with the candle holder and took off up the temple steps! I watched as he unwrapped it and took the candle out and gave it a taste. He soon discovered that didn't taste very good and threw it down, where another monkey also decided to give it a try. Meanwhile, the 1st monkey took out my beautiful candle holder and gave that a few bites too before setting it down. Of course the 2nd monkey also had to see what it was. This one was a bit more persistent and walked around with it a but and even ate the price sticker off the bottom. Just when I thought all hope was lost, he got interested in trying to turn on a nearby tap in the hopes of getting some water. He was so distracted by this he forgot all about my candle holder, but was still too close to it for me to risk a retrieval. Then one of the Nuns saw him fiddling with the tap and came with a stick and chased him away! I finally had my candle holder back! A few monkey teeth marks, but not really the worse for wear... if fact I decided it added character!

So that's it for my Hua Hin adventures! Tomorrow it's on to Ayutthaya! I may not have another chance to post until after I get back from Chiang Mai on Sunday! Until then, enjoy the pics of Hua Hin!

6/14/08 Erwan Shrine

Yesterday in addition to some shopping malls for research, Anna and I went to Erwan Shrine. It's a very famous shrine here on a street corner in downtown Bangkok. Apparently when a hotel was built there some time ago, all kinds of bad this were occurring so they built the shrine to ward off bad luck. Anyway, people go there to pray for luck or give thanks for a lucky occurrence. The amount of incense being burned there is intoxicating! There were times I felt like I couldn't see or breath! The other great thing about this place is there are some girls in traditional Thai dress who can be paid to do a traditional Thai dance that will help give your prayers more clout apparently. It was super cool!


After that we made our way to Siam Paragon, a huge upscale mall with the biggest fanciest food court you've ever seen! This is where we ate lunch...they have everything! Then we went up stairs to do our observations. Normally you are not allowed to take pictures in this mall but they were having an orchid exhibit and photos were allowed in this area, so we got some good pics and took some of the outside. This mall is very upscale with designer stores. You hardly see anyone in there shopping, most people are just walking around. In contrast we went to our next mall assignment, MBK. MBK is obviously an older mall and packed with lots of little stores. The place was crowed with every type of people. Lot's of Westerners! This is where you can buy your fake designer stuff.



Tomorrow we leave for Hua Hin, a beach town. We come back on Tues and then go to Ayutthaya on Weds. Ayutthaya was the ancient capital of Thailand. Then James, Natalie, Anna and I leave Thurs for Chiang Mai in the north, where we will be until Sunday. Busy week ahead!

6/12/08

First of all I change the site for pics. This one should be easier... it is for me!
www.photobucket.com/jenninthailand Just look to your left where you see Thailand and then you will see different sub-albums which you can click on and then view the pics related to that topic.

Sorry I haven't written in awhile! Now I have a lot to tell about. Monday James and I went to Lumphini Park as part of our park assignment but unfortunately it decided to pour with rain that day. (It's about 40 acres and the land was donated by some king or other.) So it wasn't very exciting. Not too many people out. It has tennis and basketball courts, a weight area and you can even rent boats for the small lake. We saw a monitor lizard but that was about as exciting as it got. I like our local park better. It's new and much nicer and had more of a community atmosphere. Of course it has the giant aerobic class which is awesome! There's also a fountain that is synchronized with music.



Tuesday was a fun but long and crazy day! We wanted to go to Wat Arun but the cab driver dropped us off at some totally different temple. I still have no idea what it was. It appeared to be under construction too so we couldn't even get in. We went in the shrine across the street and there was a wall there that seemed to be a mausoleum with pictures and offerings. Then we decided to make our way to Wat Arun on foot. It wasn't too far away but far enough especially since we didn't really know where we were going. We stumbled across Wat Kalayanim on our way and stopped there. It has the largest bell. There was a lot of construction going on there too! Weird. We finally go to Wat Arun and it is awesome! The tallest of the buildings has stairs and we were able to go up. They are steep and really far apart. Pretty scary but worse coming down!

From there we went to the Royal Barge Museum which was also an adventure to get to. The taxi could only take us so far and then we had to follow the signs through a canal neighborhood to it. The barges are pretty cool but I'm not sure it was worth the hassle of trying to get to it. From there we took a boat down the Chao Phraya River to Wat Pho which is the temple of the reclining Buddha and also has a massage school. But fist we ate lunch!



Wat Pho was also amazing. The reclining Buddha is huge!!! After we wondered around we went to the massage school and got traditional Thai massages. Awesome! Different from any massage I've ever had though. They kind of put you in different positions and the massage is more pressure and squeezing than rubbing. Pretty neat experience! Needless to say... we were tired, ready to go home, and a but Watted and Buddhaed out!

6/8/08 Chatuchak Market

Yesterday we went to the Chatuchak Market which is a huge market that’s only open on the weekends. It was so overwhelming that we had to leave after a couple hours, but I went back this morning and got some serious shopping done! Some of the shops are in a covered building and some are on the edges open to the outside. This market is crazy huge and has everything you can possibly imagine. If it exists, it’s here! There’s lots of food vendors too and I decided to try these flavored little waffles they have. Soooooo good!!!! They’re all warm and yummy. The chocolate one is the best! There’s also lots of orange juice vendors. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but Thailand has the best orange juice! There’s a pic of a glass I had yesterday, but I mostly took it because it looked pretty but it was not the best juice. Typically it is a deep orange color and really sweet and delicious! One of the sadder things at the market is the animals for sale… rabbits, birds, kittens, and puppies. They are super cute of course but you can tell they’re really really hot and who knows where they come from. I took a nap after I came home today and had a dream that I put 4 of them in my bag because I felt the need to rescue them but them I had no idea what to do with them after that….glad to wake up and find that didn’t happen! So one of our assignments it to make friends with a Thai person and then be able to use that person as an informant to help us understand the culture and other things we see and don’t understand. My plan of attack was to go into a hair salon and strike up a conversation with someone there; after all we do have something in common. I thought this would be relatively easy… wrong! I went into one of the salons on our street called Zone yesterday evening to get a shampoo and blow dry. My hair has looked horrible since I got here so I figured I could kill 2 birds with one stone…of course it’s so hot and humid that it began to frizz a little within minutes and I surrendered to the ponytail not too long after! They were nice and did a good job, but turns out the girl doing my hair didn’t speak any English. So I made a second attempt with the girl at the little salon that’s in out building, but after a few works of greeting and getting across so her that I’m also a hairdresser, we were pretty much at an impasse. Guess I’ll have to keep trying! I think that’s about all for now!

6/6/08 evening

Today rocked! James (the only guy in our group), Shayna, Anna and I went to Wat Phra Kaeo - the Temple of the Emerald Buddha- and the Grand Palace. There arent any pic of the Emerald Buddha himself because you can't take pics inside his shrine, but.... It was so great! He isnt very big but he is green and he has 3 different outfits...hot season, cold season, and rainy season. Right now he's wearing hot season, but the other's were on display at a little museum that had all kinds of cool artifacts like swords, jewlery, crowns, tea sets, etc. Anyway, he sits on this high gold, glittery throne in a hight ceiling room with all sorts of embellishments. In the corner were 3 monks, one seemed to be chanting. I love it when I see monks!!! Words really can't do this place justice, the pics probably wont either but at least you'll havc something to go on. We were a really nice mellow group that all got along well. So it was a good day with minimal frustration. After we went to some little place to eat and I have the best cashew chicken on the planet! Our taxi driver on the way home was very amusing. He spoke really good English and was super funny. He was telling us how when he comes home with "big money" his wife says "I love you" and when he comes home with no money she just yells. He also wanted to set James up with one of his daughters. Enjoy the pictures... sorry if there's too many!!!
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6/6/08

The last couple days have been spent mapping the street we’re staying off of, Rang Nam. This means I have walked up and down both sides of the street a few times taking pictures and making notes so that in the end I have a map with each establishment and what it is and any other significant information. It was kind of a fun little exercise, but if I shared my notes they would most definitely bore you. And the pictures are just random pictures of buildings, also not too interesting. But this is an exercise that every Anthropologist does when he first arrives in the area he is going to study. So I now know my street better than I ever wanted to and know the exact location of our many 7-11's. People definatly were wondering what the hell I was doing! I saw a guy with a pomeranian that looked like Elisa's dog Penny. I happened to have a pic of her on my camera so I showed it to him and he said, "Same, same!" It was really cute. Other than that, nothing all that interesting has been going on. My map is finished and we are not meeting today so I’m planning to go to one of the temples. Hopefully to Wat Phra Kaeo, the temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is situated on the same site as the Grand Palace which was the king’s residence from 1782 to 1946. But we’ll see if I can get anyone else to do that with me or if they’re all stuck on something else for today.

I’m having a little trouble with the group dynamic here. I’m 10+ years older than everyone else in the group, so I’m having a hard time feeling like I fit in anywhere. That on top of the fact that I’m not really a group person. I’d be fine going around in a group of 2 or 3 but trying to organize 5-6 people is a lesson in patience at the least. We don’t have to do anything in groups but it seems like the other girls want to do it that way. It’s very frustrating to me because I want to just get on and do whatever it is we’re going to do, but there’s always 1 or 2 people that hold things up. No one else seems to care. I learned a lot of patience in Uganda, but patience with the people in the culture you’re visiting and learning about and patience with a group of American strangers are proving to be two different things. And these girls are young and I definitely feel my age around them.

6/4/08

Yesterday we had another meeting and acquired a list of our assignments. There are 12 which are basically writing about our observations and impressions of several things, people, and places. They are: Mapping our block, Community Inhabitants, Establishing Rapport (Meet a Thai 1), Key Concepts (Meet a Thai 2), The Park, The Restaurant, The Club, The Temple, Chatuchak Market, The Day, The Night, and The Shopping Mall. I’ll probably give you more detail about all of these as I complete them. I slept a lot yesterday. I was just so tired from a mixture of let lag, the time change, the heat, culture shock and my body trying to heal from getting cut into on Friday morning. For those of you who haven’t heard about that, I had a mole that came back pre-cancerous and had to have a couple centimeters of flesh cut out of my stomach and I have 8 stitches. There’s a beautiful park down the street from where I’m staying and we went and checked that out yesterday evening. It’s landscaped really nicely with a great ½ mile path, fountains, lots of benches, and even music playing. Every evening at 6 hundreds of people show up for aerobics! It’s intense and these people have amazing stamina and hardly break a sweat. We may try it but will probably end up providing more entertainment than anything else. All for now!

6/2/08 Arrival

Ok, so here’s a more detailed email as promised. Where to start… It’s hot and very humid. Our rooms have A/C and so do most stores, but you don’t want to be going from cold to hot too much or you’ll have sinus problems. The city is huge and there’s lots of people and traffic. Our rooms are nice. I will try to attach some pictures of my room and the view from the balcony. So far the food has been really really good. Yesterday we had an orientation meeting with our Professor. We just met in a little restaurant. Than after that we went to the mall to buy our phones. They have a raised train here, kind of like the L in Chicago but way nicer. So we took that to the mall which is about 3 miles from here. The mall is insane! It’s huge and it’s the nicest mall I’ve ever seen! Every designer store you could possibly imagine is there. Needless to say I didn’t do any shopping because who can afford anything there?! But we all got our cell phone which ended up costing about $30… we got the cheapest models. It’s the same deal as Africa where you buy minutes and load them onto your phone. It’s about 2 bhot per min for local calls… that’s about 6 cents per min I think. But you don’t pay for incoming calls. Some of you expressed an interest in calling me so the number you would dial is: 011-66-878118676. You can buy calling cards at most gas stations or little convenience stores or Indian or Asian markets. The one I usually get is called Extreme and it’s on a bright yellow background with red lettering. A $2 card will give you about 2 hours of talk time. (you don’t have to use all the time in one call) And remember that I am 11 hours ahead of you if you’re on the East Coast… California I guess would be 14? So far we have been unsuccessful in picking up the wireless in our rooms which is a bit of a bummer. I can’t figure out if it’s a configuration problem with the computer or if it’s a network issue as they just installed it recently. I may try taking my computer to a place with wireless and see if I can pick it up somewhere else. If I can’t then it’s the configuration and calling Dell might be able to remedy that. But there’s an internet café 2 doors down from us which is what I used last night and will probably use today to send this. I was able to talk to a couple people via Yahoo IM and was able to use the web cam and the calling feature with Susan… but something was up with her mic so she could hear me but I couldn’t here her. It was a very interesting conversation of me talking and her typing. I said I felt like a deaf person using one of those services for calling and she said she felt like the guy on Pirates who’s had his tongue cut out and can’t talk… unfortunately she didn’t have his bird to talk for her. I’m not really sure what’s on tap for today. We are meeting at about 9:30 and I guess I’ll see what transpires from there. I’ll keep you posted!
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Love, Jenn