Adventures of Kara

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

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?