Soo it’s been a while since I’ve written because things have been so busy and so relaxed at the same time. Travelling to a new place every few days only to lay on the beach/by the pool leaves very little time to be stuck to your computer blogging.

Anyway, upon last update I was on my way to Bangkok for the last 2 weeks of the program. It really felt like the program was over as soon as we got there, though, as we only had 1 lecture for each class in the whole two weeks. We stayed at an on-campus hotel (a practice center for their tourism and hotel management departments) and they were extremely hospitable to us, from the welcoming ceremony from multiple deans to the wonderful goodbye party.

Not too much noteworthy happened in Bangkok—it was better than the first visit because I learned how to use the bus and skyrail systems and thus avoided getting scammed by tuk-tuk drivers. The highlight was definitely when all of the students on the program got dressed up and went to a fancy bar at the Hyatt Millennium, 60-something floors high, for panorama views of the Bangkok skyline. It was the only time all 27 of us went out at night together, and was a really fun night even after the fanciness faded and we went to a newly opened dance club in the tourist/backpacker area—Khao San Road.

On Friday, May 20^th, after the program’s end I headed out with a group of people to the island of Phuket. We decided to stay in Patong Beach, the most frequented part of the island, and while the scenery was beautiful the town (especially at night) reminded me of the slimy feel of Vegas… lots of bright flashing lights, girls dancing in windows half naked, and people stumbling around drunk. That plus you couldn’t walk two steps without someone trying to sell you something. It was an interesting experience but not what I had in mind for a relaxing beach visit.

Next I travelled onward to Koh Phi Phi, an island off the western coast of the mainland Thailand isthmus. Phi Phi (pronounced Pee pee—ph does not equal f in Thai/Asian spelling) was great, I only stayed there one day but I wish it had been more. The town was packed with travelers and backpackers all laid-back and interested in soaking up the beauty, just like us.  We did a great snorkel tour around Phi Phi and surrounding islands—a 5 hour tour complete with snorkeling, fresh fruit for snacks, drinking water, and a bucket (a mixed drink in a little bucket like the ones kids use to build sandcastles)—all for about $8. Not only was it a great value, it was some of the best snorkeling I’ve ever done!

The next stop on the Thai Island tour was Koh Lanta (koh just means island, btw), a quiet island with few attractions—and it was like heaven. We stayed in “bungalows” where we had a/c and our own beds or half of a queen for under $5 per night, and there was a beautiful swimming pool overlooking the beach.  The beaches were not quite as nice as Phi Phi but still great, the fact that they were so untouched relative to others was a nice change. While on Lanta I took a cooking class and rented scooters and rode around pretty much the whole island—now I’m hooked on the motorbike.

So proud of my Fried Rice!

Anway, Koh Lanta was pretty uneventful but a great place to relax, and we continued that when we got into Ao Nang Beach, near Krabi, Thailand. We were staying less than a block from the beautiful beach and frankly had a hard time getting off our beach towels to do anything. There was one day we did an island tour to nearby Koh Hong, but it was of course the one day of rain that we had so we couldn’t do all the attractions we had signed up for. My favorite experience from the Ao Nang area was the top-rope rock climbing course I did for a half day at Railay Beach. The climbing was great, the scenery was beautiful, and I met people from all over the world. Oh also, I caught up with the climbers I had met later that night for a drink... take a look at the glass it came in!

After Ao Nang I headed away from the group and flew to Bangkok, then Siem Reap. I was kind of scared to head to Cambodia all on my own, especially because it has a reputation for being much poorer and much more dangerous than Thailand, but I wanted to go so badly and knew I could keep myself out of dangerous situations so I took the risk—and I’m so happy I did. I spent three nights in Siem Reap—the town next to the famed temples of Angkor Wat, absorbing the tourism-centered town and the friendly, joking spirit of the Khmer (Cambodian) people.  Although being a girl on my own it was frustrating to constantly fend off the offers for tuk-tuks, massages, and scarves for sale, I really enjoyed the town, especially when I moved from a hotel to a hostel nearby and met many other Westerners travelling on their own--just like me.

The temples were magnificent, as well. I was more intrigued by some of the temples other than Angkor Wat itself, but everyone’s got their own opinions. Here are some of my favorite views from the temples.

After spending two days touring Angkor Wat on bicycle, I was ready to get back to the beach. I took an overnight sleeper bus to Sihanoukville, on the south-eastern coast of Cambodia. The sleeper bus was more comfortable than expected—I had read some horror stories online about the sleeper bus with beds being a myth, that if you book this bus you will get a regular bus with seats, but thankfully no such nightmares occurred.

 I spent three wonderful days on the beautiful white sand beaches of Sihanoukville (two of which were on the hardly-populated Otres Beach, in a charming little resort called Mushroom Point) just relaxing, reading, and meeting new people before heading back to Siem Reap for my flight to Bangkok. While down there, I got to talk one on one with some Cambodians, and learned what a truly friendly and kind-spirited people they are. I made friends with a worker in the hotel I stayed at only one night, and he gave me his phone number to call whenever I needed a ride on his motorbike, and also dropped me off at my new hotel 20 minutes away, refusing to accept even 25 cents for gas.

Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville, Cambodia

My Mushrooom!

A beautiful sunset over the Gulf of Thailand

With my new friend, Nak

 Now I’m in the Taipei airport on hour 1 of my 7 hour layover... how fun! This is the last installment of my blog—so thanks for reading. I hope to return to Southeast Asia someday in the not-so-distant future, so hopefully there will be more adventures to speak of soon….

Sukhothai and Nong Khai

So I haven't posted for a while, for two main reasons: 1. we were in the small and sleepy town of Nong Khai, and not doing much post-worthy stuff (most of the days were passed reading books, playing chess, and eating) and 2. I sadly lost my charger for my camera battery so I haven't been able to take any pictures-boooo. Luckily, I'm on the trip with an awesomely talented photo major so when I make my scrapbook I plan to steal her beautiful photos.

Anyway, two weeks ago we visited the ancient capital city, called Sukkhothai. There's not much to the modern town, but we toured the ancient ruins of hundreds of temples (called wats) on bicycles. Inside the walls of the ancient city, mostly everything looked the same, but our group got outside the city walls to the less-beaten path and found some really cool temples. Here's some pictures to give you an idea what the ruins at Sukkhothai were like:

Oh, also the hotel we stayed at in Sukkhothai was really nice and so was the pool--many hours were spent playing in/lounging by the pool. I had just gotten my stitches from the motorbike crash out on thursday and we arrived on saturday, so i was ready to get wet!

After Sukkhothai we headed to Nong Khai, a small river town in Northeastern Thailand just accross the Maekong River from Laos. We stayed at a beautiful little guesthouse right on the river, called the MutMee--and the best part was that it was owned by a European so there was actually good Euro/American food! After four weeks of soup, noodles, rice, and vegetables, I was so happy to see things like sandwiches, garlic bread, salad, and spaghetti on the menu. I definitely ate way too much, but the comfort food was much needed. Here are some views from the MutMee.

My room and bathroom (cutest room so far):

View from my room:

Front porch and view from it:

After two weeks in Nong Khai we went to Laos for the weekend. We took a van from the Vientiene, where we crossed the border, up to a backpacker town called Vang Vieng. There, we had a crazy day floating the river on inner tubes, where we stopped at various bars, got free drinks, and jumped/slid/trapeezed off of various high obstacles. As playing in the water is one of my favorite activities, it was a ridiculously fun day! Even despite the material casualties (pretty much everyone lost their sunglasses and shoes, if not more). When we got back to Nong Khai we took an overnight train to Bangkok, where we are now. We're staying at a University Hotel on-campus that serves as a training center for tourism majors. It's really nice to have a flushing toilet again and the service here is great. The University, owned by the Royal Family, also has a beautiful campus, with ponds, trees and flowers everywhere. On our first day in the city we toured the canals in a boat and went to a huge, beautiful wat. I'm getting a much more positive picture of Bangkok than my first experience here. Next up, planning my travels for after the program ends! The only definites right now are the islands of Southern Thailand for lounging on the beach and some climbing, and seeing the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia--the rest is still being planned, needless to say I'm stoked!

Songkran, Pai, and My First Stitches Ever!!!!

I should probably start with a disclaimer about the title—while I did get my first stitches ever this weekend, I’M PERFECTLY OK and NOT BADLY HURT!!!! (ok, mom?).

Secondly, I have a new favorite holiday: Songkran. Although it goes on way longer than it should, the first day of it is so much fun. Everybody is in high spirits, has work off, most people are drinking, and it’s a huuuuge waterfight! You can’t go anywhere without getting drenched by buckets of water and sprayed by water guns. And in case you are wondering, motorbikers and cars are not exempt from the madness—which can sometimes lead to dangerous situations, which we quickly learned. 

     Wednesday (April 13^th) was the official beginning of the three-day holiday, although we had water thrown on us starting Monday (PS being white/obvious foreigners made us extra targets). Walking around the city center was so much fun, throwing water on everyone and getting it thrown in return, although it was one of the coldest days so far and people insisted on using buckets of ice water—brrrr! After eight hours of being soaking wet for Songkran in Chiang Mai, we were definitely ready for a less intense scene—Chiang Mai is basically the center of the holiday, so anywhere we could go from here would be less crazy.

            A group of 11 of us decided to rent motorbikes and take the 130 km, 762 curves to Pai—a small mountain town that in the last few decades has gained popularity among backpackers and other foreigners. The road to get there was a pretty daunting task for my second day on the motorbike, but I had heard how beautiful it was and was determined to do it. We got up at 6 am Thursday morning (partially to avoid the ice cold buckets of water along our ride). I had everyone give me their best “6 am” faces:

            The ride was beautiful, and for me very uneventful until the last 15 km outside of Pai. Somehow me and one other guy, named Griggs, got ahead of the group by maybe 10 km. Coming into one of the last hairpin curves out of a steep downhill, I was riding the front brake a little too hard because the brake for my back wheel hardly worked. There was gravel all over the road, and my hard front braking led the bike to skid outwards on the gravel and tip me over, with the bike stuck on top of me. Upon hitting the ground, my first thought was “is this what breaking a bone feels like?” I quickly decided no, but as the wind was knocked out of me I couldn’t yet tell Griggs that I was ok. My next thought was that getting the wind knocked out of you on pavement while stuck under a motorbike sucks a lot more than floating face up in the water, which is the only other place I’ve had it after hard jump crashes. Anyway, I got road rash on both elbows, one knee, and a couple deep cuts (from the gravel, I think) on my foot. I had intense shock for the first 5 or so minutes and felt faint, nauseas, hungry, thirsty, and tired—all at once. I sat and laid on the side of the road while Griggs got my bike of the road and a nice Thai family ran up to help me.

            I was so amazed at the concern and hospitality that this family had for me, a complete stranger. They cleaned my cuts up with water and toilet paper, gave me some over the counter meds for pain, and insisted on having the father drive the bike into town for me so that they could take me in their car to the hospital. I wasn’t sure that I needed to go but one deep cut on my foot was more painful and was bleeding more than all the others so I figured it couldn’t hurt to get it checked out. I was amazed how quickly I received attention at the ER—I was having my cuts cleaned and evaluated within 5 minutes of arrival. When the ER nurse told me I would need stitches, I 1. Didn’t know you could turn them down, which I would have, and 2. Freaked out a little because I’d never had them before! I waved Griggs in from the waiting room to hold my hand and distract me because I was scared, and he was such a great comfort. The part that hurt the most of the whole day (and the only thing that made me cry!) was the shot that they gave me to numb the area—I don’t know how people get tattoos on the top of their foot!

            Anyway, I have been taking care of my cut very closely and cleaning it multiple times a day—the first few days I went to the hospital to get it cleaned but after realizing they were just using rubbing alcohol and iodine I went out and bought the stuff myself. It sucked, though because one of the main attractions of Pai is that it’s a river town—and as a water baby, it was so painful watching everyone swim and play in the rivers and waterfalls nearby and not be able to join!

            Onto the positive stuff, Pai was such a cool town and I’m so happy I got to see it, even if I was limping. It was very much touched by foreigners—there was a strong hippie vibe to it, I saw more dreads and smelled more B.O. than I ever have in my life—but along with that there was a very laid-back, natural vibe to the place. I had chai tea with the herbs ground up freshly with a mortar and pestal right in front of me, stayed in a hut made almost solely of bamboo, and had a bonfire on the river at night. 

       The second night in Pai a few other girls and I decided it was time to upgrade from the rock-hard mattresses, manual flushing toilets, and mosquito nets of the bamboo huts and move to the 4 star resort across the river—where I shared a king bed with 2 other girls for a splurge of (combined) $50/night. The place had beautiful rooms and an even more beautiful bathroom—a much welcome sight after the bugs and bucket-flushing of the huts. As my foot was killing me I was happy to hear that my friends were content laying by the infinity pool that overlooked the river and mountains most of the day, and we had a fabulous time lounging in the water and talking girl talk (me with my feet up on the edge to keep the stitches dry). While constantly travelling in a group of 20 can be fun, it can also get really old and it was great to spend a day just talking to 3-6 of the people in our group instead of getting in a few words with each of the 20.

            Coming back from Pai, I asked one of the guys on the trip to ride my scooter home—not because I was scared, but because my foot was still killing me, and it’s the foot that I needed for the back wheel brake, which I learned the hard way is quite important. I took a van that zipped down the curves—not a great trip for me because I get intense motion sickness, but it worked out ok.

            The last few days we have been doing manual labor moving gravel, sand, and water with buckets, mixing cement with hoes and shovels, and clearing out large grasses with hoes. It has been tough for me as my foot has been super achey, but pretty satisfying nonetheless and its for a good cause—the building that we are laying the cement floor for will be an office for a non-profit organization that gives a home to elephants that have been mistreated. The land we are clearing is the future site of a bamboo nursery, and being here and seeing all that the Thai people can use the bamboo for (building, floor mats, food, rafts, and so much more) makes it a really worthwhile cause. 

More Awesome Adventures

Greetings! Upon harsh demand from my older sister, I am making a valid attempt to post more often to keep family and friends better updated. I mentioned in my last post that the hill tribe and elephant days were some of the best of my life--and the one after was just as good or better! I went with three friends from the program to Crazy Horse Buttress- a world renowned rock climbing site.

Since none of us had any experience with rope climbing we went with two guides, Muad and Day. They were awesomely helpful, and Muad was pretty funny, too. Not only did they help us to successfully climb all the routes we tried, they taught us to belay one another on the very first climb of the day. It's not that difficult but it's kind of a lot of pressure to have your friend's life in your hands. Here's me belaying for Georgia:

 In addition to the four routes we climbed up, we also rapelled into a 50-metre cave! View from above:

And below:

<(that's me!)

The actual rapelling wasn't as cool as the climbing, but being inside the cave was aewsome. Fun fact: these crazy formations were formed by years and years of acid rain, where the carbon dioxide in the air reacts with the rain to erode the limestone... or something like that.

Even though the day was so hot and humid you couldn't even belay one another without sweating, and there were hundreds of flies constantly buzzing around us, it was an awesome day--and now all of us are yearning for some gear to get out and do some rope climbing on our own. Here's our group at the end of a sweaty, but successful, day:

In other news, today (Wednesday) of this week marks the beginning of Songkran--it's a new year's celebration that also celebrates the importance of water to Thai sustenance and culture. Naturally, the way of celebrating the importance of the water is by throwing buckets of water on everyone and shooting people with super soakers! Since my camera's not waterproof, I won't have pictures, but just imagine riding a motorbike down a busy street hand having people lining the sidewalk with buckets of water to throw on you. Some might find this annoying, but--water fights!??! The Thais really know how to celebrate, in my opinion. Today we are marching in the parade that kicks off the holiday--we are representing CMU in some sweet purple Thai-looking shirts. I'll try to get pictures (especially because I somehow got stuck with a mens XL--it fits really well--not) when it's safe to do so. Anyway, I'm off to go find a super soaker of my own for the parade.

Chang Chang Chaaaaang in Chiang Mai

Sa-wa-tee kah! That’s pretty close to an English version of how you say hello here. I’ve been in Chiang Mai the last two weeks and I have loved nearly every minute of it. I haven’t posted in a while because life has been fairly monotonous for the last two weeks—Monday through Thursday I have Cal Poly classes 10:30-noon and then Thai Language Class 3-5 pm, so most of our days have been consumed by school. The language class is actually pretty fun though, although it’s incredibly hard and I don’t remember much I got lucky to get a fabulous teacher who takes us on fun outings all the time. This is my teacher, “Ajaan Ni”—we all love her!

 

But anyway, the first week we had class Tues-Fri because of orientation on Monday. We went out to some fun bars and clubs both weekend nights, and found a beautiful pool nearby that will allow us to escape the suffocating heat for just a few hours. Here’s where we go when we can’t handle the heat and really need to relax:

I didn’t do much cool stuff the first weekend, I was still trying to adjust to the jet lag and get settled into the swing of school. This week, however, we had class Monday-Thursday, and on Friday morning embarked on my favorite adventures of the trip so far.

At 8:30 AM Friday, we loaded into four huge vans (with big squishy seats and air conditioning, thank goodness) and after a quick stop at a museum, headed into the hills surrounding Chiang Mai. We were on our way to visit a (semi-) traditional hill tribe of Karan people. Luckily, though, the vans only took us part of the way and we got to hike through a beautiful jungle for the rest, complete with a swim at a waterfall!

Although Chiang Mai is not a huge city it was so refreshing to get out in the wilderness again and see nothing but green for a while. Along with the intensely beautiful wilderness we saw some intensely huge spiders—to give some size perspective that orange-ish brownish blob at the lower end of the spider is a butterfly that he was munching on—eeeek!

Anyway, after swimming at the waterfall and coming out of the jungle we hiked through tiered rice paddies to get into the Karan village. There was a pig or two tied up under almost every house, chickens running around everywhere, and water buffalo roaming the main road.

 

I didn’t take as many pictures as I wish I did, but I am lucky enough to be travelling with a photography major (also named Jenny!) so I plan to steal some of her beautiful pictures from the village—with her consent of course. Upon arrival at the village we were served coffee from beans that had just been roasted and ground. They used simple boiling water, not a coffee machine to brew it. The most interesting part for me was that even though there were animals running around everywhere, open-air huts as houses, and people hand-weaving on looms, most people still had electricity and cell phones. I felt like I was truly seeing one of the paradoxes of a developing area.

We had a great night at the hill tribe. Just as we arrived it started pouring, and we were all so happy to be there and refreshed from our hiking and swimming that we played like kids in the rain, lauging, dancing, and twirling around while we explored our new surroundings and got completely soaked. After an awesome dinner of vegetable and tofu soup (they were nice enough to make a pot without pork for the 2 vegetarians on the trip), rice, and stir fried veggies (with watermelon for dessert—yummmm!) we sat around a campfire outdoors with our group of 28 plus 12-15 indigenous Thais. We sang songs to a guitar and even had a performance from a famous Karan traditional musician—one of our guides described him as the Justin Beiber of Thailand. We drank beer and rice whiskey and had an overall great night under the stars just chatting, singing, and appreciating human connections. Although the nightlife in Chiang Mai has been loads of fun, with crowded clubs and lots of foreigners (who actually speak English!), our night at the hill tribe was definitely my favorite so far. Although we had little cabins with beds and mosquito nets, I opted to sleep by the campfire under the stars—I had a friend to help keep me warm though, one of the local dogs who loves the attention of the tourists. Here’s what “Momma” looked like:

 

The next morning, we reluctantly left our accommodations at the hill tribe around 9:00. We had a quick stop at a Hmong village where we saw just a flash of another indigenous culture, before riding a windy, bumpy road in our vans to an elephant camp! I was a little worried about how well they treated the elephants there, with benches strapped to their backs and a sharp tool in hand in case of emergency—but I was impressed with the kindness of the handler. Our elephant was a fairly new mom so we had her baby walking along with us—it was soooo cute. My favorite was when we walked through the river, the baby laid down in the shallow water and rolled around, playing in the mud and water. I had to fight the urge to jump in and join him. This is what the cute little guy looked like (with us riding on his mom's back):

Next we headed down the mountain a little more to another great experience: riding guided bamboo rafts. The rafts are maybe thirty feet long and 4 feet wide, with huge pieces of bamboo tied together with (oddly enough) broken bicycle tires. There was a guide on each raft with a long, skinny bamboo pole--which he used to push along the bottom and guide us around obstacles. I couldn’t take pictures here because everything was so wet (we obviously got in splashing fights with every raft we passed, whether we knew the people or not), but it was a really cool experience—hopefully our friend on the trip with a waterproof video camera will let me add his footage to my electronic archive of memories.

            The jungle hike/hill tribe visit and the elephant riding/bamboo raft days have been my absolute favorite days here, and possibly the best days of my life so far. I’m just as excited for tomorrow, where myself and three other friends from the program are taking a guided course in top-rope rock climbing at a world-renowned climbing site called Crazy Horse Buttress. I hope to never forget the amazing experiences I’ve had this weekend, and most importantly the simple happiness I found in being in a beautiful place with quality people. Life is good.