Final Thailand Update.

It's official; I have a fear of old planks. 

We arrived at the ferry dock for Ko Samet after a 3.5 hour bus trip from Bangkok.  We had to walk a NYC block out to the boat.  The dock was built of 2 x 4's with about an inch space between each of them.  Many of the boards were broken.  You have to look down as you are walking across them, or you could trip or step on a soft spot and put your foot through the board.  It took me about 10 min to walk to the end....it took everyone else about 5 min.  Had there been someone available to carry me, you better believe I would have opted for that.  It got worse.  Once we had to board the actual ferry, we had to walk a plank to get onto the boat!!!!  My mouth dropped when I saw the old plank and I considered turning around.  Kalia (my traveling partner) told me to take a deep breath and just go.  I did, but only because the other option was a 3.5 hour bus trip back to Bangkok.  The board was moving around on the other side of the boat and it was flipping scary!  Once I was safe on the boat, Kalia asked me what the worse thing is that could have happened.  I could have fallen in between the dock and the boats in the water!  That would have been terrible!  Anyway, I was safe.

The boat headed towards the island, but made a pit stop at a barge.  None of us had any idea what was going on.  The hotel staff grabbed nets and started walking around on the barge looking in the water.  We realized they were catching our dinner.  It was really incredible!

We arrived at the hotel and got our stuff sorted.  It's a beautiful place!  It was raining, so we went to the open air restaurant and had lunch.  We ordered french fries for an appetizer and I had spicy noodles and Kalia had Green Curry.  Delicious!    By the time we were done, the sun showered us for a short time. We walked a long the white sand beach and picked some shells.  The water is crystal clear and as warm as bath water. 

After our beach walk, we took a short walk down the road in front of the hotel.  This island reminds me a lot of Jamaica.  I suppose a Tropical island is a  tropical island.  The people all live similar.  The biggest difference here in Thailand is the shrines that everyone has outside their homes.  Oh and the massage parlours everywhere!  Of course Kalia and I didn't miss our opportunity for a cheap massage.  I had a one hour leg/foot massage and she had an oil massage. Neither of us are sure how we are going to continue to support our massage addiction once we get back to the states.

Kalia is an amazing woman!  She is going to be 29 on Saturday and has been traveling with CCS for the last four months.  She started in Brazil, then Costa Rica and is finishing up in thailand.  This is her last week here before heading home.  We have a lot in common and have been able to share our Costa Rica and Brazil stories and now experience Thailand together.  She lives in Houston and I'm certain we will remain in touch.

It's 7am here Sunday and there still isn't any sunshine.  My fingers are crossed.  Regardless this is an incredible island and I'm enjoying listening to the rain on the trees and listening to the roosters crow. 

Monday evening......

The last two days were spent in the sunshine, getting massages, eating great food for about 50 cents, reading, doing SOME homework and walking around.   Oh!  and I cannot forget to mention the bats!  At night thousands of bats swarm together and fly through the sky; they must come out of some caves in the middle of the island.  I can't describe how amazing it is to see them.  The first time we saw them, we didn't know they were bats...and thought they were birds.  Kalia mentioned that she had never seen any birds that looked so calm.  Now that I know they are bats, it's a really interesting observation and very true!  Bats fly in a flock at night as they leave their cave and are extremely peaceful looking.  anyway, probably doesn't sound as amazing as it was and unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me as they were flying over us.  However,  I have attached a few pictures from the last couple of days that should tell you more about my few days on the island.

I'm heading back to Bangkok tomorrow  (unfortunately, I can't get back without walking the planks again)  at noon for one last night out on the town with the staff.  My flight leaves at 5am on Wed morning and gets back to Portland at 830 am on Wed.  I love gaining a day!  too bad it's not my birthday.

I'm off to enjoy my last Thai dinner on the island.

Love you all and I'll be back on the cell phone map soon! 

Progress! I slept until 7:30am!

Thursday.  Managed to sleep until 5am today.  Decided to get out of bed at 7.  It was a cooler morning than it has been and it felt great.  I sat outside with a cup of hot green tea and read.

Once the rest of the house started moving, I got up and showered.  I visited two different volunteer placements; both day cares.  The children were absolutely adorable!  I had my one big embarrassing moment at the second day care.  The children were all starting at me while they started singing a song.  The song sounded beautiful and I started dancing a bit.  The country director for Thailand was standing next to me.  She looked at me and told me they were singing their national anthem. I can't remember the last time I've been that embarrassed.  I'm a terrible example!!!

After visiting the volunteer placements, I went back to the home-base and had lunch with all of the staff.  I had drunken spicy noodles and they were simply amazing!  I had the rest of the afternoon off.  The first thing I did was walk to the massage parlour.  I had a two hour Thai massage.  I couldn't think of any better way to spend those two hours.  It started to downpour during my massage and hadn't let up by the time I was done.   I hadn't learned that no matter where you go in Bangkok if it's October, you need to grab an umbrella.  It was a rainy walk home, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. 

AFter dinner, I headed out to do a little exploring.  I ended up in an area of Bangkok that reminded me exactly of time square.  Needless to say, I wasn't the biggest fan of that area.  An hour of that was enough for me and I headed back to the house.

I'm proud to say it was the first night that I slept until 7:30 am when my alarm went off.  That is a milestone when traveling to the other side of the world!  I'm finally adjusting with five nights left. 

Today.  gosh, it was a wonderful day!  Fridays are Cultural and Learning days for CCS Thailand.  We drove about 2 hours outside Bangkok to a small, local floating market.  Every boat either had flowers, vegetables or food.  My new favorite Thai dish is something I've decided to call Rice Flower Corn Cup.  I was told the Thai name, but It is something so ridiculously difficult to say, that I've just decided to give it another name.  It's a very simple dish.  It starts with a pan is similar to a cupcake pan but much more shallow and the edges are rounder - you put a drop of coconut oil in each cup, heat it up, and then drop in the rice mixture.  The mixture is rice flower, coconut milk and a tiny bit of sugar.  Once you drop that in, you add a few fresh corn kernels (or you can use green onion) and in a few minutes, you have a delicious cup of goodness.  It's the closest thing to eggs I have found since I haven't been able to eat eggs!  I think it's the texture that reminds me of eggs, but it's much sweeter than eggs. Yum. (picture attached)

After walking around the floating market for about an hour, we got into a little wooden boat and headed on a boat tour.  We floated by about a dozen different Thai style homes that can only be reached by boat.  The water was very swampy, but great for lotus flowers as they were everywhere.  Not only did I see a lot of lotus flowers, but there were also about a dozen different orchids.  We stopped by a home and were given a tour.  This is what a traditional style home looks like:   Traditional Thai Home

I was afraid to walk through the home as the boards supporting the home were over fifty years old.  I could feel many of the boards were loose,  plus there were huge holes in many of them.  One of the boys that lived in the home (he was about 6) kept laughing at me.  He thought it was hilarious that I was so nervous and tried to show me that I had nothing to be afraid of.  He kept  jumping up and down on each board and would run back and forth from wall to wall.   He had a beautiful smile.   

We headed back down the river to another home where they made some type of sugar for a living.  I'm still not exactly sure what the difference is from regular sugar as I asked, but wasn't given a straight answer.  All I know, is that it is practically impossible to get anything in Thailand that doesn't have sugar in it.

After the boat tour, we headed down the road to the next small town.  We stopped for lunch and the Country director ordered for us.  We had all types of great Thai dishes.  Attached you'll see one of my favorites.

It was a long ride home in the rain.  Sadly, I spent the evening packing up my things.  This last week has gone by so quickly!  Tomorrow morning I'm off to Ko Samet with Kalia - a girl I've been sharing my room with for the past week.  She is wanting to do nothing but lounge as well, so it should be perfect.  However, I haven't gotten any homework done on this trip and I am in serious trouble!  I'm really behind and have some catching up to do.  If I'm staring at blue water and don't have any other plans, I don't think homework will be so difficult. 

I look forward to sharing my pictures when I get home.  I have about 1000 so far and I'm sure Ill get quite a few more over the next five days. 

Happy Friday everyone!  Enjoy your weekends.

signing off at 11:30pm Friday evening - my last full night in Bangkok.

xo's

Two more days

Yesterday was such a busy day, I didn't have time to write...or did I write?  My days are starting to blur together. 

 

The day started off as all of my days in Thailand have started....wide awake at 3am.  I force myself to stay in bed until at least 5am.  I imagine when I'm finally sleeping through the night, it will be time to go home.   I had my tea and fruit and headed out to see some of our volunteer placements.

 

The first stop - after a 45 min drive through Bangkok - was Siam University.  We send our longer term volunteers there as it would be difficult for 2-3 week volunteers to get much done.  Our main focus is to teach English to nursing students.   The students are 18-22 and very eager to learn.  The classes have about 100 students and because the classroom is so large, volunteers have to use a microphone to teach.  The department head for nursing students introduced me and the two volunteers to the students in the classroom.  We all were given a round of applause in thanks followed with 100 beautiful smiles.

 

After the university, I headed to an elderly home with our Program Coordinator, Jack.  Homes for the elderly are always my favorite volunteer placements.  I have so much respect for the elderly - especially elderly living in some of the situations I've seen over the past few years in various countries.  This elderly home is beautiful and they are very well cared for.  They have a Koi fish pond in the middle of the facility, an arts and crafts room (where I bought some Eucalyptus oil and a not so cute towel doll to support the elderly crafters a little)  Jack introduced me to many of the elderly, and I was totally flattered as about 5 different woman told me I was beautiful.  On the same property, there are several adorable little Thai assisted living homes.  One woman invited us in to her home.  It was filled with pictures of the King and miniature Buddhas....imagine a little shrine and that was her home.  It seems a lot of Thai people live that way.  Very sweet woman.  I've attached a picture of her that Jack took before we went into her home.

 

Going to these different volunteer placements is incredibly exhausting.  I was introduced to principles, deans, teachers, students and any of you that have traveled, know that introductions in other countries does not only consist of "hello, my name is --"  It tends to be more of a 20 min question/answer session.  It can be quite beautiful and I love it when I don't have to do it six times in one day.   

 

When we (volunteers and staff) all got back to the home-base we had a feedback meeting and talked about how things are going at each volunteer site.  All the volunteers had great stories to share.  We had dinner after the feedback meeting and then myself and 3 volunteers headed down to the nighttime Bazaar market.  It was interesting.  It just so happens I got a pair of Gucci sunglasses for 3 dollars!!!!! ; }    There were lots of strip clubs, although they weren't really strip clubs as all the girls were wearing their bras/underwear.  I found it interesting that all of the doors to these clubs were wide open and you could see straight inside without going inside.  Cultural difference for sure!  I imagine they all have little massage parlours in back.  After shopping the market for about 30 min, a torrential downpour hit.  It was awesome to be caught in the rain with so many people.  The volunteers and I sat at a bar and had a beer while people watching.  There were people dancing in the rain, and scattering for plastic to try and protect their goods at the market.  We headed home when there was a short break in rain, but still ended up completely soaked. 

 

I fell asleep quickly, but of course woke up at 330am. 

 

Today was another crazy day!  I visited two more placements.  One primary school/daycare and a secondary school.  Nobody told me I was beautiful today, so when a volunteer told me a coffee shop we were at sold Beauty drinks, I decided to order one.  Apparently they put collagen in the drink, but they also fill it with sugar, cream, syrup, and hundreds of other calories; I think next time Ill skip the tiny bit of collagen to avoid the extra calories.   Plus I'm convinced it's impossible to look beautiful when it's 90 degrees with 100% humidity.

 

After my short coffee break, I walked around some back streets of Bangkok with Jack and headed towards the Grand Palace.  The Thai culture is so beautiful!  I love all of the little alley ways and street food.  People are people everywhere you go, and big cities are big cities, but something about the Asian culture is extra beautiful.  

 

The Grand Palace is extraordinary!  It feels like you are in a fairy tale as you walk around. 

 

After the palace, we headed to the highest point in Bangkok and then to an exhibition to learn all about the history of the city of angels, The Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha, the costumes of Thailand and the masks.  Yes, this was all in ONE day!  I'm sure you can all understand why my email is getting less detailed...this girl is exhausted!

 

To wrap up the day, ten of us went out to dinner.  It was family style (there should be NO other way to eat in group settings) and delicious!  Just when we thought we were done eating, another dish would hit the table.  We had green curry, red curry, pad thai, some spicy pork dish, a fish dish, Tom Yum, Tom Kha, Fried Rice and I'm sure I'm missing a few other dishes.  Needless to say we all headed home stuffed.  I'm wondering how many of you are going to end up having Thai for lunch or dinner now.  (I recommend the Red Curry)

 

The next two days are once again packed full of things to do and see around Bangkok and then I'm off to my little island of white sand, massage and hammock time.

 

Have a great Wednesday everyone!  I'm about to fall fast asleep to an incredible thunder storm and rain coming down on the roof like you wouldn't believe! 

 

xxoo

I'm still waking up every morning at 3am and not able to fall back asleep.  this morning I forced myself to stay in bed hoping I'd get some extra sleep.  I tried counting to 100 forward and then counting backwards and nothing worked

 

 

 

Thailand...another update

Wow!  Yesterday was another busy day..but every second was wonderful! 

 

I had green tea, fruit and yogurt for breakfast.  After breakfast I had a two hour language course and can now count to 10 in Thai.  The language tutor is absolutely amazing!  She use to teach for Peace Corp Thailand. If I were staying longer, I would definitely sign up for some additional language courses with her.

 

After our Language lesson, we headed out into the big city!  We took a cab down to the pier to catch a boat taxi.  Talk about having to jump on to a boat quickly!!  The boat gave me my first "oh my goodness, I am in LOVE with Thailand" moment.  From the canal, I could see all the buildings, temples and people.  An even more incredible moment, was at the first stop when 5 Monks got onto the boat.  They radiate good energy!  They are so peaceful and simply beautiful.  Woman are not allowed to touch monks, and should never be closer than an arms length from them without being asked as this could interfere with all their hard work to control their urges....It makes me want to laugh, but it's true and taken very seriously. 

 

We continued down the canal for about 40 min and transferred to a boat that took us across the canal - just like the Shuttle train in NYC.  we then went to the temple of Dawn. Absolutely gorgeous!   The steps are incredibly steep and definitely had me a little nervous.  The picture I attached was taken on the steps.

Temple of Dawn

 

It was about 90 degrees and we were all exhausted after hopping a long boat taxis and climbing up temples, so we sat down and enjoyed fresh coconuts while people watching.  After that, we hopped back on the boat taxi and headed to the air tram.  We were on our way to Jim Thompson's house (a guy who has greatly influenced silk in Thailand) but ran short on time as Meghan and I were heading to Siam Niramit  so by the time we got to Jim Thompsons house, we had to jump back on the train and take the exact 45 min journey backwards that we had just finished taking to get to the house.  Megan and I knew that was going to happen, but we are going with the flow and staying relaxed just as the Thai people. 

 

We made it to the show just in time.  The show included dinner which was a huge Buffet of Thai food.  Did I mention Thai Food is my favorite?  There will be no weight loss on this trip, that is for sure!  I finished off dinner with fresh coconut ice cream topped with corn tapioca. Delicious!

 

The show was incredible, but both Meghan and I were exhausted.  The tour of public transportation was about 4 hours in length and we were still fighting Jet Lag.  So here I am.  Day 3.  It's 4:30 pm Monday at home and 6:30 am here in Bangkok.  I'm sitting out on the balcony under a covered area in the humidity, listening to the rain, drinking some tea. 

 

Today I'm visiting a few of our volunteer placements and taking the afternoon off for some more exploring and another massage.  This time, I'm going for the 2 hour massage for 10 dollars.

 

For those of you that don't know, Bangkok is one of the largest cities in the world.  The population is 10 million.  The Thai people also refer to Bangkok as Krung Thep which means "The City of Angels"  (just like Los Angeles)

 

Until next update!

 

With Love,

Karasinthailand

Day 1

Flight was delayed last night.  Ended up having a 5 hour layover in Nairita vs the originally scheduled 1 hour.  I made good use of my time with an hour at an oxygen bar and then an hour massage.

 

I arrived into Bangkok at 2:00 am.  Benz, the CCS driver was there waiting patiently.  Another volunteer, Meghan, was on the same flight with me. She is an absolute doll.

 

Here are the things I noticed about Bangkok upon arriving:

It's HOT even at 2am

The airport is beautiful

If you don't want to sit in traffic, a 2am arrival is perfect

It's a fairly clean city

Thai is written very similarily to Arabic and it is beautiful!

 

We arrived at the home-base at about 2:30.  My roommate was the only volunteer at the house....and for the life of me, I can't remember her name right now.  She was on Skype with some of her friends back in Texas.  2:30 am is a good time to do that considering it was like 130 in the afternoon there - I think.  I'm still trying to get the time difference down.

 

I looked at my scheduled and had mixed feelings about orientation at 830am.  How in the world was I gonna make it on time? My itouch was dead, my world alarm clock was dead and I was exhausted.  The thought of searching through my luggage for my charger made me cringe, but I somehow managed to find it.  Turns out I didn't need an alarm clock. I woke up at 8am ready to go.  It's funny how that happens in tropical climates.   

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Pimsuda (our country director)  first thing in the morning.  I'm totally in love with her!  Talk about an amazing woman with one of the cutest voices in the world.  She welcomed me with a beautiful smile and a huge hug.  She introduced me to our office director, Jack who also has a smile that could light up any room

 

I sat down and had some green tea and a whole bunch of amazing fruit I had never had before.  I met two other volunteers.  One woman by the name of Kay  -whom has done 3 other CCS programs, and an Irish woman by the name of Jane or Janis?  gosh, I'm feeling bad now that I can't remember it.  I'm sure I'll get it down in the next day or so.  She is absolutely hilarious and makes me laugh a lot!  It turns out she celebrated her 70th birthday today and happened to mention it when the staff were around.  15 minutes later they brought this beautiful cake out and put it in front of her while singing happy birthday.  We got to the "happy birthday dear --------" and there was a bit of an awkward silence between all of us, but we continued the song anyway.  I think only 2 people out of the group had remembered her name. Something about that moment was adorable! 

 

During orientation we discussed Thailand history, safety, medical concerns and the geography of Thailand.  I'm in love with this country!

 

Megan and I were assigned a scavenger hunt to go to a market and purchase three kinds of fruit or vegetables that we had never seen before.  We also needed to take a Tuk Tuk there using Thai Baht, but no Thai language.  We tried our damndest to get a Tuk Tuk, but there were none in sight.  We ended up grabbing a cab and tried to explain where we needed to go.  I'm thinking the cab was from another part of Bangkok and had no idea what we were talking about.  He smiled and dropped us at the side of the road not wanting to chance taking us to the wrong spot.  I respected him for that.   We grabbed another cab.  This time, the driver repeated what we said, smiled and headed down the road.  He repeated it about 5 times and we thought for sure it was the market and that he knew where we were going.  According to our instructions, it should have only cost us about60 Baht to get to the market - which is about $2.00.  Before we knew it, we were on the highway and meter in the cab was up to 120 baht.  This cute little Thai cab driver was still smiling and repeating the name of this market.  I don't think we will ever know where he thought he was suppose to take us.  we decided it was best to give him instructions on how to get back to our house.  We made it home without ever visiting the market.  It was an unforgettable Thai experience.

 

We had about 20 min till dinner and I had no idea how I was still awake. My eyes were heavy.  There was no option of taking a nap anymore and I just waited it out for dinner...wonderful, spicy, Thai goodness!  After dinner I thought I was done.  I sat down and booked my hotel for the weekend on the island of Ko Samet (due to the many recommendations.)  My roommate came in (which again, next email, I promise Ill have her name down!)  and she smelled like menthol - or Tiger Balm as they call it here.  I think it's the same thing as any muscle soothing cream in the states.  I told her she smelled lovely and she started talking about the amazing Thai massage she had just gotten.  One hour was $6.00.  I was tired, but I wasn't tired enough to pass up a good massage.  I grabbed Megan and we walked to the massage parlor.

 

The wall has two sections advertising massage- one section is the regular Thai Massage and the other section is VIP Thai Massage.  I think it's safe to assume we all know what VIP Massage is.  Of course we both opted for the "regular" Thai Massage.  AMAZING.  I had never had a Thai style massage, but I'm pretty sure Ill be getting a lot over the next 10 days.

 

There you have it.  My first blissful day in Thailand!!

 

What's on Tomorrows agenda?

 

We have a two hour Thai language lesson, are visiting a few volunteer placements, learning how to use the boat taxis, the subway systems and then going to a Cirque Du Soleil type Thai show....and I'm gonna try to fit another massage in between all that fun.

 

On that note, it's 9:30pm and I have to try and sleep off this jet lag.  This email has been written with me running off 20 hours of flying, maybe 4 hours of sleep and running around like a crazy woman all damn day! 

 

Did I mention I AM IN THAILAND?

 

Thailand 2

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