Thailand -- first couple days

I'm going to post this update on the first couple of days in Thailand (Feb 15th - night of the 16th - when we took an overnight train to Chiang Mai) as I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish the whole thing. Also I still haven't found my camera cord (these pictures are stolen from Katie) --hopefully I'll be able to for the rest of my Thailand posts.

Monday (March 1st) I had a group paper due, two presentations to give, and a midterm. Now I can focus on more important things, such as updating my blog.

Where to begin? Its been over two weeks since I've last updated and I spent that time in Thailand and back in school, mostly in the library (that is not even a joke, and the air conditioning here is far too intense for me so I cannot go longer than like 40 minutes without needing to go outside for a break from the cold), catching up on work.

Anyway -- I'll start with Thailand. I loved Thailand -- that is definitely a place that I would love to go back to in the future, and we did not get to any of the southern beaches so I may travel to Phuket (POO - Ket) and the islands down around there for a few days after school is over with some friends.

We arrived in Thailand on Monday afternoon. Katie and I were going to stay in a hostel for Monday night -- "The Overstay", I posted a link to a CNN profile on it in a previous post. We arrived there and they did not seem to realize we were coming. After disappearing upstairs for approximately 20 minutes, the owner brought us up two flights of stairs and through a room of male travelers all sleeping on mats on the floor to our room...

This photo does not include the fan missing from the ceiling and the lock missing from the door. Although I'm glad that you can see the dying plant in the corner and the two mattress pads pushed together to form a bed, oh and of course the one rotting pillow (for the two of us to share?).

We did not wind up staying at the Overstay, we left and Katie and I stayed with her friend Ashley who is from North Carolina, goes to University of South Carolina and is studying this semester at Mahidol University, in the suburbs of Bangkok. Ashley is staying in a building which seems to function as both a hotel and an apartment building. I guess its pretty cheap and its really nice, she has air conditioning (I have been dying in my room back in Singapore, I'm not sure what is with the change).

Ashley took us to a night market which seemed to only sell clothes for girls our age. It was heaven. Imagine Forever21 but 20X bigger (maybe more than that) and 100X more selection (similar quality clothing is what I'm told).The only problem is that a lot of the clothes are pretty small and they don't make things in different sizes -- the women are also pretty blunt and will not hesitate to tell you if they don't think something will fit you. This caused a problem for me on my last night in Bangkok when I was considering buying a dress which I really liked, but wasn't sure if I wanted to spend anymore money (it was less than 7 American dollars...) and I asked the woman if she thought it would fit me and she told me that she thought I was too big. At that point I bought the dress to spite her. (The dress does fit me, however the woman may have been referencing that it would be too short for me...).

After the market we went to Khaosan Road which wikipedia describes as a "backpacker ghetto" which is interesting. It is a small road in central Bangkok which is lined with restaurants, bars, food stalls, stores, etc. There were certainly some interesting people to be seen.

Here Katie, Ashley, and I (from right to left) in a bar on Khaosan -- note the bags toward the back of the table. Ashley is actually coming to visit Singapore today, we are very excited.

Our third traveler, Albert stayed with a friend of a friend at King Mongkut's University of Technology in North Bangkok. We met up with them on Tuesday and got to see a little of the campus and went out to lunch with Tom (the boy Albert stayed with, a Thai student at the university) and a bunch of his friends. Lunch was good, however it was the first time I have eaten something so hot that my mouth was set on fire in Asia. I'm not quite sure what the culprit was (potentially this raw papaya salad which has chili peppers hiding in it)-- but it was to happen again, more than once in Chiang Mai.

Here we all are after lunch. I sat and talked mostly with the two girls to the left of me in this picture -- one was from DC originally and the other is from Sri Lanka (bet you cant guess which one is from DC)

After lunch we went to walk around Wat Pho (aka Temple of the Reclining Buddha), which is one of the oldest Wats in Bangkok. The complex had some really beautiful architecture and motifs and the buddha was massive.

Albert and I in the complex (did not realize that I was completely under dressed until afterwards, good lesson for the future)

Reclining Buddha's head - this thing is really impressive to see up close, it is massive. I have a picture where I am also in it - I'll have to post it once I find the camera cord.

View from the feet...the reclining position of Buddha signifies his passing into Nirvana.

Mother of pearl feet which show 108 images of Buddha

After we walked around the somewhat peaceful (with the exception of several tourists) grounds for a while, we took a tuk tuk (picture below) over to Platinum Mall - 6 floors and crammed with stores and people -

First of many Tuk Tuk rides

Platinum Mall was a mad house I didn't even wind up buying anything (huge shock). After an hour or so there it was time to head to the train station where we took an overnight train to Chiang Mai.

Few points -

• First - overnight trains are amazing and we had more fun than I imagined possible on the overnight sleeper trains to and from Chiang Mai
• Second -I really wish that they taught more Asian history in schools in America (or that I had at least taken some Asian history classes -- or any parts of the world besides America and Western Europe -- I have taken multiple classes which have covered either American or European history). When my parents and I went to London to visit Luke (who was studying abroad at the time) I felt like I was pretty familiar with a lot of the historical things that we saw. That is almost never the case when I see things here -- I feel like I'm missing out in a big way on not having much background information -- still trying to learn as much as I can though.

So thats about it for this entry -- I have a couple of group projects to work on and a test to study for before my mom comes so I don't know when I'll post again -- probably in the next day or two.

Things I am excited for:

• Holi Festival this Saturday - also called the Festival of Colors - I know that it takes place in the spring and have heard that it involves throwing colored chalk at people -- I'm currently reading the wikipedia article, so I'll get back to you on the significance
• Terri Donohue arrives on Wednesday night to stay for almost a week. Cannot wait to hang out and see Singapore with my mom
• I have to study for a test this weekend -- cannot think of a third one

Heard that the weather in CT was over 40 degrees (F) yesterday, sounds like spring is not thaaaat far off and I'm excited for all of you!

Emily