My Thai! - Thailand!

I had a really awesome time in Thailand but it definitely lacked the cultural immersion that my other visits have had. I spent the first and last days of my trip in Bangkok which is a beautiful city that is soo westernized. This was the most western city we have visited and probably will the whole trip. Japan was modernized, but still “Japanese.” Bangkok’s architecture and city plan modeled a very American style. The middle day of my trip was spend on the island of Ko Samet which is a small piece of paradise! This really broke up the visit to the big city.

Thursday, we ported in Thailand at Laem Chabang. This port is unfortunately about 2 hours away from Bangkok. As soon as we could get off the ship Jess and I were on a SAS sponsored bus to Bangkok for independent travel. Immigration took quite a long time so we made it to Bangkok barely before dinnertime. We ate a great first meal with some friends from the ship who took off for other adventures soon thereafter. We headed to our hostel in the Sukhumvit district of Bangkok. After settling in we strolled the neighborhood for a while. At night, the sidewalks are turned into markets and merchants sell shirts, trinkets, DVDs, etc. on either side of the walk. The city streets stay busy pretty late in Bangkok and there is always traffic on the roads. We enjoyed taking in the city but called it an early night.

The next morning our full day mission was seeing as much of the “can’t miss” sights of Bangkok as possible. Our transportation of choice for the day: a took-took! These are three wheeled motor vehicles with a motor bike apparatus on the front and a covered bench in the back. They are a really fun way of seeing the city. We visited the Dusit Zoo and saw so many animals. This was a really cool zoo to visit because the way they present the animals is very up close and personal. The only caged animals we saw were tigers and some monkeys. The rest of the animals are separated by shrubs from you so you have a really clear view of them. We saw beautiful bears, tigers, leopards, giraffes, and the infamous albino barking deer. We also got to get really close to the elephants. I really wanted to ride one on this trip and am really upset that I never got the chance to. As we exited the zoo we found a took-took driver who offered to drive us to multiple sights for a fixed price. He first took us to the Marble Temple which is a Buddhist temple made completely of white marble. It was beautiful and it was so cool to see monks walking around everywhere. Next, he took us to the standing Buddha. This Buddha, which Thai’s come to pray to, probably stood 100 feet. (Buddhism is practiced by 95% of Thais) A very common theme in the Thai religious architecture is the gold mosaic tile, they don’t underdecorate! Next, we visited the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. This was an amazing sight. So many elaborately decorated buildings in such close proximity, I was so impressed. No inch of wall was not tiled with gold or brightly colored glass. Each building or chapel of the Grand Palace has a different story behind it (from different Kings) and a little different architecture.

Speaking of religion and the King, two interesting portions of Thai culture nestled into this city which could be mistaken for Los Angeles or Chicago are the monarchy and Buddhism. The King and Queen could not be any more respected in Thailand. While the monarchy holds very little power (the military has the real control as of late 06), the Thais hold the King and Queen in very high esteem. Celebrating his 60 years in power, there are humongous portraits of the King and Queen all over the city. Every corner, media, or turnabout you see the King’s face or a picture of him doing a good deed. The last day we were in Bangkok 75% of the population was wearing yellow, mostly “we love the king” yellow polos. They wear this color to support the crown. As far as Buddhism, the Thai’s pray anywhere! There are shrines outside of almost every building. Outside of every mall, high rise office building or small convenient store there are shrines where people lay flowers, light candles and incense, and pray to Buddha. This definitely sets apart the highways and couture malls of Bangkok apart from American big cities. They really make praying as convenient as possible for the modern Buddhist.

Back to my big day in Bangkok, Jess and I spent our last few hours exploring an area of the city and found dinner before hopping on an 8 p.m. bus heading back to the ship. We were heading back to the ship to meet up with two other girlfriends, Liz and Alex, to visit the island of Ko Samet the next morning. I signed up with this one night trip to Ko Samet through SAS during the summer and the girls tagged along and stayed at a hotel not far from mine. While it had been cloudy and muggy our first two days in Bangkok, on our drive down to the coast the skies parted. We had to take a boat ride from the mainland to the island. Ko Samet was amazing. Our large speedboat pulled right up to the main beach and we walked off right onto the sand and straight to our hotel. The beach is less than a mile and is lined with lounge chairs, umbrellas, and restaurants right along the water. Right behind are the bungalow resorts. There is no two story building on this island. The sand is white and the water clear. The island is lush and green. We spent the day relaxing and took quite a wild ride on a banana boat! =) I think our boat driver got quite a kick out of watching us fly off. There was a small village of people that I walked through while walking the back way to my bungalow. I can’t imagine living on this paradise island less than 2 miles long. That evening we went to dinner right on the beach, we would have sat on the sand except it started sprinkling right when we got there so we chose to sat under the awning which was a good decision because ten minutes later it was pouring! So we spent our night at this open-air restaurant and their adjacent bar. We had a great night hanging out with vacationing Thais and meeting travelers from all over the world. I think everyone on the island was hanging out at this one place! They even had a fire show at the restaurant. There was an all-Thai cover band that performed ALL modern American songs. They had a lead female singer and two lead male singers and backup instruments, it was a kick! I do have to share my two minutes of fame moment. At one point, I was dancing with some friends towards the stage and was singing along to the song being performed. The lead female singer saw I knew the words and pointed the microphone my way to chip in on the lyrics. The next time the verse came around, she grabbed me, pulled me on stage, handed me the microphone and stepped back. I was belting this American song in a bar in Thailand; it was too funny! The song was “Ghetto Superstar,” popular in the U.S. when I was in about fourth grade.

The next morning, we woke up early and headed off the island earlier than the rest of my SAS trip. We had a speedboat pick us up right on the beach, take us to the mainland and had a van taxi waiting on the dock to drive us the 3 hours to Bangkok. We were able to do this all for under $20. Gotta love Thailand! We arrived in Bangkok by the early afternoon and went straight to our hotel. We booked a room at the hotel where a large SAS trip to Bangkok would be staying. When we got there they informed us they had no rooms available to accommodate so they were going to have to put us in the Duplex Suite for no extra charge. We were blown away when we walked into our room. We had two floors, two living rooms, two queen size beds and a roll away, three full bathrooms with showers, a walk in closet and flat screen television. We were in awe and thought about meeting the ship in India just to spend more days in our suite. (Just kidding!) That afternoon we took the skytrain (their monorail-like public transport system) to the Chatuchak Market which is a huge, popular weekend market. We could see it from above on the skytrain while approaching. This was the largest market I have ever seen. It looked like it went on forever. It was interesting. It was a mix of vendors selling food, cheap t-shirts and trinkets, and small expensive boutiques tucked in the corners. We enjoyed a nice dinner and night out with some fellow SASers.

We spent our last day doing some more exploring around Bangkok. One especially notable find was the deep sea aquarium on the basement level of the Siam Paragon Mall. This mall is maybe seven stories and the bottom level has an aquarium and deep sea diving and glass bottom boat trips all from the bottom of the mall!! We had took-tooks take us around the city again and I think we stumbled upon a bit more crazy of the crew. The drivers sped around pretty fast which was unnerving, but I supposed they know the city better than I do.

Thailand was quite an experience and seeing the cultural imperialism prevalent was really interesting. There are a lot more interesting places that I would love to visit in Thailand. There are more beaches and untouched rainforests and many more natural beauties. I just wish I had had more time. I do look forward to visiting India and seeing their culture in the midst of their westernizing society. I am heading to the Taj Mahal in the first two days and the third I will be heading to a village in rural India to learn about child labor and recovering families that are a part of micro credit lending program.

Thanks for reading again!