Hong Kong Study Abroad

After a great semester in Hong Kong, it was finally time to take my long awaited almost a month long vacation (or my vacation from vacation, you might be thinking). For the first 10 days, I decided to spend my time in Thailand.

My flight landed in Bangkok, the capital, and I got to my hostel with no problem, finding out that there were free snacks, tea, and wonderful A/C (Bangkok is one of the hottest cities in the world, and I can personally confirm that. Also the free snacks at the hostel made the costly $6 per night more respectable), I headed into the city. I took a bus to the Grand Palace (where the King and Queen used to live, now they live a few miles away), but it was closed due to a public holiday. On the bright side, I got to see it from the outside and I was also treated to the Thai military blocking off a road for some procession, although I never found out what for. The area that I was in with all of the governmental buildings was absolutely beautiful, wit great architecture all around. Speaking of government, pictures of the king and queen are literally EVERYWHERE you look in the city. Whether its huge portraits in the middle of the roads or a picture on the wall, you can't avoid them. Due to their love for the king, stepping on currency is illegal, as the king's picture is on it. The punishments are severe.

However, this beautiful architecture is only reserved to this area, as most of Bangkok is a dump. I didn't go downtown due to all of the horror stories that I heard, and I'm glad. I heard of blatant prostitution, scam artists everywhere, pollution so bad that 20% of police have lung disease, sidewalks that literally fall apart (I stepped on one tile and I fell through it into a puddle), and much more. Its a real shame for what could have been a beautiful capital city.

After walking around the not so bad parts a bit to take in the surroundings, I headed back to the hostel for some real Thai food (which is not surprisingly better than the Thai food in America) and a Thai ~~massage~~ torture session. A Thai massage is about 50% relaxing, 50% forced yoga, 50% torture. After what started out as a normal massage, I noticed things were a little different when the masseuse started bending my leg in ways that I never knew they could before, and even in ways I clearly wasn't able to bend. A few knees to the back and shins later, that soon led to a finger to the armpit and bending myself backwards in half. The list goes on and on, most of it actually feeling pretty good behind the pain, but not anything that I would ever try on somebody else out of fear that I would break a back or neck!.

The next day was a slower day due to a heavy rainstorm, but I was able to go to a park, a monument, and just examine all of the nuances that Bangkok has to offer. Here are some examples.

First, the language does not follow the Latin alphabet, as it has its own. Besides the few signs here and there at the tourist attractions in English, it is near impossible to know exactly what is going on. Besides the people in my hostels, I have yet to find a Thai person that I could have a quality conversation with, as their English is near zero (this held true throughout my entire stay in Thailand).

The public buses are more like super long trucks with a roof and hardly any seats, but I wasn't complaining since it was free! Speaking of transportation, they drive on the left side of the road, which led to some fun later on in the week!

Lastly for this brief list, Thailand is so cheap! Meals go for a dollar or two, and for one meal I had to stretch it in order to spend three dollars. The massage was six dollars for an hour, and fresh fruit shakes from street vendors was about 60 cents. As a college kid on a budget, it was the ideal place to go.

Later that afternoon, I took a 9 hour night bus tonight to the second biggest city, Chiang Mai, in order to not waste a day and to save money on a hotel. The bus was phenomenal. I sat at the front window of the second deck with nobody sitting next to me, giving me all the space in the world. There was ample foot room, a seat that reclined, a blanket, and snacks and drinks included in the ticket. I tried to see the country as we drove, but it was dark and I couldn’t see much. Instead, I tried to sleep, and did so like a baby, waking up 8 hours later in Chiang Mai.

Once arriving in Chiang Mai, me and two Canadians that I befriended on the bus took a Taxi (kind of, it was just a truck with a bench on the back. This is one of the main forms of public transportation along with Tuk Tuks) into town. I rented a bike for the day for 2 dollars and I biked around town (Chiang Mai’s main area is surrounded by a moat, which adds to the beauty). The city is an old fort, and parts still remain, such as the fort walls, bridges, and the water. I just took in the town, food, lack of English, and book stores for the afternoon. I met more Canadians in the hostel (a room of 4 beds and mosquito nets overhead) and we went to eat and to the markets together. I was in for an early night again after such a long, hot day (it is baking hot every-single-day in Thailand).

After a few days of just taking in my surroundings, things started to get a lot more interesting. I decided to rent a moped for only 6 dollars for the day so that I could go outside of the city limits to go to some things I had read about. Much to my assumptions, it wasn’t all too easy driving on the left side of the road at first. My natural tendency was to stay to the right, but I quickly found out that that leads to trouble, so I eventually adjusted. Once I did get adjusted, I had a blast and never looked back.

Everything that I had ever only dreamed of doing on my moped in Green Bay I was able to do in Chiang Mai. With driving laws either non-existent or only suggestions, anything went. This meant no waiting during traffic jams, I just drove right through the middle of the cars to the front of the line. It also meant not entirely stopping at red lights, being able to go if nobody else was coming from the other way. Again, the list goes on and on, speeding dramatically, weaving from lane to lane without using signals, driving on the median, driving on sidewalks, and so on. I had more fun on that moped than a normal person should have. But not only was it fun to drive, but it let me get to places far away.

The first stop I went to was a snake show. We sat in some bleachers around this little 8-shaped ring with water connected to it, ready to be blown away (which we were). The guy brought out a poisonous cobra (which he proved by having the cobra bite a cup so that the venom came out. It was also proved by his missing right pointer finger, which he lost when he was bitten a few years ago) and he acted like it was the most harmless thing ever. Although he was careful to not get bitten by a quick lunge, he ran his fingers up its neck to its face, grabbed them, and even kissed them. He then made the exciting, yet frightening decision to bring a cobra into the bleachers. I say exciting, because it was cool to see one up close, but I say frightening because of what he did with it. After letting us all see it up close, he decided to play a joke and bring the cobra’s head as close to my private parts as possible. One of the scariest moments in life is knowing that you are about a half a centimeter from never having kids in your life. Thankfully I wasn't bit, but I now understand that being bitten by a poisonous snake would be a very bad thing. After the cobra, they brought out a speed snake, a jumping snake (which one guy caught 2 in each hand and one in his mouth), and a python. The python was fun to watch, but especially when he threw it in the water. Pythons are extremely agile in the water, so when the guy jumped into the 8+ foot deep pool of water after the python, it was pretty suspenseful. After diving down deep and we couldn’t see him, he came up with the head and tail in each hand, and the rest of the body wrapped around his neck, almost squeezed to death. Something like this would never have flown in America, which made it a great experience.

After the show, I was allowed to walk around the snake farm, and I got to play with a real, poisonous cobra (don't worry, it was in a pit, safely away from me). I was given a banana leaf and I tried to test my reflexes compared to the cobra (I’d like my chances in a fight with it), which again would never have happened in America. The trainer then took me to the alligator pit, and he showed me the alligator’s reflexes when something touches it (I would NOT like my chances with an alligator).

I then tooled around with the moped through the Thai mountains, basking in the amazing sights (and elephant crossing signs!) until I got to the Elephant poopoo paper farm. It is exactly what the name suggests, they make paper from poop. It was actually fascinating, they showed me the process step by step, and even let me have a try (yes, I played with a ball of poop). The process actually worked great, and I could hardly tell the difference from paper made by wood!

Once back to the hostel, the Canadians and I went to eat again and had a good time sharing stories before another early bedtime.

Everything so far has led to this day-tour day. Only paying $39, I got a 10-hour tour with all tickets and lunch included.

We first went to the butterfly and flower farm, which didn’t really interest me, but it was just the appetizer to the awesome trip.

Then we made our way to the longneck tribe (yes, the ones we’ve all seen on National Geographic). They lived in a beautiful mountainous area with a river filled with waterfalls running through, and they truly seemed happy. I was incredibly curious to see the tribe, and it didn’t disappoint. All of the girls, from as young as 5 to the oldest ladies, had rings around their necks, increasing in number as they got older. The origin of this cultural aspect is unknown, but they seemed happy as anybody else. They lived like any other tribe, singing, playing instruments, carrying water in buckets, and so on. They didn’t speak English to be able to answer my questions, but the fact that they let us come visit them and being able to observe them said it all. I was able to take pictures with them, watch them use some contraption to make blankets, and carry water on their heads.

After that, we went to my most anticipated stop, the elephants. I got to ride bareback on the elephant’s neck, exactly what I was hoping for. It wasn’t exactly glamorous, its hairs were sharp and my only handle was the top of its head, but that’s all part of what made it awesome. Since it was hot, it flapped it’s ears a lot to keep cool, hitting me every time, which gave me a good laugh each time. Also, it somehow had a ton of water stored in it, and quite frequently it sprayed itself (and us) to cool off. That actually felt great, not only because we were being sprayed by an elephant, but because it was so hot and it was refreshing. We walked it through the mountains with great views in addition to sitting on an elephant, and we got to feed it after as well. I handed it bananas and sugarcane after, and it reached right for my hand with its trunk and snatched it. The trunk is kind of funny, so it was hilarious to see it reaching towards me (I have a great picture of that).

Our next stop was hiking to a waterfall, and we got lunch before that. Lunch consisted of pad thai (one of Thailand’s most famous dishes) wrapped in a banana leaf. It tasted phenomenal, and we started the hour hike to the waterfall, baking in the ever-increasing heat. I had never been more excited to go swimming in my life, hardly noticing the gigantic waterfall in front of me. I jumped in and stayed submerged as long as possible, not taking anything for granted. After I sufficiently cooled off, I stood under the waterfall and continued to enjoy the cold water.

After hiking back, we drove to the rafting area, thankfully involving more cold water. Me, an old French couple, and a skipper hopped in one raft, while these Maltese people from our group sat in the other. With a lot of rocks, we had to strategically navigate, but we did so extremely successfully, passing every single raft ahead of us, undoubtedly taking first place (some may say that it wasn’t a race, but I disagree). The journey did not come easy, as the French guy almost flipped out of the boat before we had to catch him. There were commands such as move to the right or left side, shake the boat, move faster, and move backwards in order to avoid the rocks. Along the way, there were little Thai kids playing in the river splashing us, so I had some fun in smacking my paddle in the water to splash them back, and they loved it. At the end of the rafting, we hopped onto a primitive 24 foot long bamboo raft and just drifted down the river, which was a relaxing way to end the day. Our hour and a half ride back included a storm, soaking us all in the back of the truck, but it was great.

After seeing all that I wanted to in Chiang Mai, it was time for my next stop, the famed islands of Thailand.

After over 4 months of constant running around, I decided it was time for some uncanny relaxation time. I decided on the island of Phuket (the cheapest island to get to), and stayed at another hostel with free food, this time a free breakfast. I woke up and walked to the beach, which looked like it was straight out of a postcard, and sat there and read a book for a few hours in the morning. In the afternoon, I had some great food, and then some people from India and I went to the beach together to play Frisbee and play in the sea. We had a blast, and I was able to learn a little bit about India along the way.

This continued for the next two days, waking up and going for a run along the shore, reading a book, and swimming in the sea. It was a slow three days, which was unlike me, but taking in the cheap food, beautiful scenery, and relaxation, I am all prepared for my next stop-China.

For the next two weeks, I will tour a few cities in China, including visiting a local friend's house in order to see everyday Chinese life. Sadly, due to their restrictions on many websites, this blog is blocked and I will not be able to post anything until I return to Hong Kong for a day on May 27th. Until then, have a safe end to the school year and a great start of summer!

A building called Wat Pho

Defense building

Grand Palace

I don't know what this is, but like everything else, it looks nice

Police grounds

Guard poles neatly placed equidistant and straight up

A palm tree park (thats a first for me), and finally some grass!

Pepsi is written differently in the Thai language

I was trying to exchange money in Bangkok, but I waited 5 minutes for her to wake up until I got bored and started talking. I'm sure I could've waited a lot longer.