Sawadeeka from Thailand!

Sawadeeka, is the Thai version of Hello, women say ka at the end and men say “kap” (pronounced kau-pt). Thailand was one of the countries I was looking forward to the most, because of friends who have traveled there and seen Bangkok along with other cities. It was a lot of fun and I definitely know I’ll be coming back to this country (along with bringing people with me). We heard so much before getting there that the pollution was horrible and people wore masks it was so bad (which they did). But I didn’t notice, mostly because we had just come from India and it seemed clean in comparison.
Bangkok was way more commercialized than I was expecting. It’s a HUGE city and has a lot of international companies I wasn’t expecting to see. Some of these included several starbucks (which was kind of depressing), KFC, Burger King, a lot of high-end brands like Coach, Kate Spade, and even some more Western stores. It was both comforting but frustrating as I didn’t miss any of those places.
The ship was docked at the Laem Chang port, which was about two hours from Bangkok-so I took a bus into the city and went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market that Sunday when we got in. It was fantastic!! It was similar to a State-Fair atmosphere, except there was a new different food every 20 feet, which I loved. It was all sectioned off my furniture, clothing, antiques, and other items. It took place in this HUGE park and I had a lot of fun shopping and trying new foods. One included these delicious cream puffs like thingy's which were amazing, along with fruit shakes and yummy Thai Sour Mangos! There’s tons of fruit stands over Thailand which I thoroughly enjoyed eating. They put their fruit in this chili salt before they eat it, sounds strange but it’s actually delicious. Anyways, after the market we hopped back on the Sky train (Just like D.C.’s metro, or the T in Boston), and then got a cub to Khalsan Road where we heard was a good place to get a hostel. I traveled with two new friends Alice and Amy who were great girls. We found a pretty run down place, a small room with a king bed and decided it was only for one night…and it was $5 a person. So cheap. Khalsan Road was a huge area and basically a Mecca for backpackers. There were so many travelers we met from all over the world. There was tons of street food, venders, restaurants and bars with open patios to just sit and enjoy a drink and some good Thai food. It was a lot of fun. We spent the rest of our night exploring the street, trying new foods, and shopping a little as well. I found a tailor shop and was measured for two dresses to made (They turned out great and fit awesome!). 
I had two coconuts which they just crack open in front of you and then you can go back and they’ll slice open the whole thing so you can eat all the inside. It was delicious, plus it was like 20 baht, which was like 60 US cents, a coconut in the US costs about $2.50.  It was an awesome night. The next day I bought trains tickets for myself and three other friends to take a sleeper train to Chiang Mai that night. I decided to separate from Alice and Amy because they wanted to do things I didn’t really want to, because they would be in Bangkok the whole. So I walked to the Grand Palace, which was beyond amazing. I felt very safe in Bangkok and Thailand in general. It was pretty easy to get around between taxis, buses, the sky train, and just walking. It was abnormally hot. I’ve never sweated so much in my life, it was gross…but that’s backpacking. I loved seeing the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It just kept going with gold painted everywhere and small colored stones in the architecture.
 I ended up bumping into more SAS kids (they’re everywhere) and they hired a guide for the day, so we finished up the palace then all went to lunch someone heard about in the New York Times. I was happy because it had air conditioning. We tried mango sticky rice (Sooooo amazing!!!!!), which is a sweet dessert with coconut milk. I had Thai iced tea, which was very sweet and succulent. Lunch was amazing, I enjoyed every bite. Thai’s don’t usually eat with chopsticks, they use the fork in their left hand (if you’re right handed) and actually use it to shovel into a spoon, and then eat with the spoon in your right hand. It’s weird to us, but it actually makes more sense. Then I explored with two of the LLC’s from the ship (Learning and Living coordinators, basically RA’s for dorms), one was my “dad”-we do “ship families” on the ship and he adopted myself and two other students on the ship to have dinner together every once in a while and just have one more support system.
His name is Brad and he’s a dean for an international school in Italy. What a cool job right? Anyways, we walked around, tried to go to the National Museum, which didn’t end up happening. We kind of just wandered around and then I showed them there Khalson Road was and we checked out the Chabad (Jewish like temple for young people), which had a location there. They were very friendly and welcoming to us, but I left to get my dresses fitted while they used the internet. After my dresses were fitted and I made some suggestions, I got a cab to the train station to meet up with friends. The train station was huge and had dunken donuts in it. A little strange, right? It was interesting to see how the menu was different. I got a boba tea while we waited for the train and then six of us all got on our 7:30 train to Chiang Mai, which is a smaller city in Northern Thailand.
We wanted to check out the Hmong villages up there and just get out of Bangkok. It was a fun 14 hour ride; they had chairs than converted into beds and had a dining service. They handed you a menu on the train when you got on (which is strange because there was no dining car) and then called the town ahead to get food for the people on the train so it was fresh. It was pretty good. I ended up talking to a lady for while whose son taught at the University of South Carolina, and one of our friends attends there. What a small world. She gave us her nephew’s number in Chiang Mai (she lived in a small town an hour outside Chiang Mai, and invited us to stay with her, but we already paid for a hostel) to call to hang out. We thanked her and once arriving in Chiang Mai were picked up and taken to our hostel, which was beautiful. For only $7 a night, we had a pool, restaurant, and beautiful rooms. It was a sweet deal.
We got some delicious lunch and wandered around the town for awhile. It was bigger than I was expecting and we went to see the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep (wat on the hill or known as temple) on the hill. It was beautiful and walked the 300 + steps to the top. We had called her nephew just for kicks and he asked to meet us at a restaurant near his place. So we did! We met up with his girlfriend and her other friend and ended up hanging out with them the entire time in Chiang Mai! He took us to this open Thai like food court with lots of different carts. He told us how to ask in Thai what we would like, and we had fun trying new things. We had delicious mango sticky rice, some meat like curry noodle mixture, and I had roti. Roti is amazing!! It’s a Thai dessert that is very similar to a crepe, but fried and you can put chocolate, coffee syrup stuff, sugar, banana, or sweeten condensed milk. It was so good, I had three servings.
We also tried a sweet dessert, which has a variety of different choices put in coconut milk or a sugary syrup mixture; you can put pieces of coconut, jellies, sweet potatoes, and other things. Similar to Sweet Factory, but less choices, better, and in Thailand. It was amazing. Later we went to the night bazaar-which was a blast and then went this cool lounge like club to hang out and listen to live music. I got sushi there with a friend which was delicious and so fresh! The band even played a bunch of American music! We were definitely the only tourists there. The next day Anan took us to a little handicraft market and to a fun place for lunch. They had all types of juices, some calling pennyworth juice; paeans leave juice and logan juice. It was fun to try them all. I also had some more Thai iced tea…which I’m officially addicted to now.
Then we explored a pottery village and actually got to spin on their pottery wheels and attempt in making some bowls. It was really cool. Before we left, he wanted to take us to a coffee shop which was in a garden and had a bakery in the back. They had delicious fruit shakes and amazing pie. I had Oreo banana crème pie and a caramel blended coffee drink. We had some much fun hanging out with these students who were just like us. They loved just hanging out, eating, going to coffee shops and meeting new people. I’m really glad we were able to hang out with them. They offered to take us to the train, and we picked up our backpacks at the hostel and made out way to the station. We kept thanking them and took a few photos, we then grabbing some snacks and dinner before getting on our train back to Bangkok. We bought all the train tickets together so we were all sitting next to each other, which was nice. We had fun playing games and ending up talking about all our experiences on this trip and some of things we’ve learning while being on the trip. We had already seen changes in ourselves and how we looked at world. You learn a lot about people on a 12 hour train ride, and I know I’ll never forget it. It’s definitely a different experience than flying.
We arrived in Bangkok early in the morning and sleep-deprived. I hung out with Andrea most of the day because we had already done a lot of stuff in Bangkok before going to Chiang Mai. So we visited the Reclining Buddha, which was HUGE. This huge golden Buddha was larger than the size of my house. It was insane, and so beautiful!! We then took a ferry (love the ferry for only 13 baht!) and got a little lost and got off to soon, shared some spring rolls and eventually made our way back to Khalson Road to pick up my dresses. The people here are so healthful and even when getting lost people would go out of their way to show us how to get where we needed to be. It was really helpful. Eventually we got to the tailor, and the dresses turned out great! I got one that’s brown with pink trimmings, it’s a little hard to explain and it wasn’t how I envisioned it, but it’s something I would never buy for myself and I really like it.
Both are fit perfectly to my body, and the second one turned out exactly like the photo in the magazine. It’s a blue satin cocktail dress that gathers in the front with bows and chiffon on the bottom. It’s really cute and I plan on wearing it to the Ambassador’s ball. :-) We wandered around Khalson Road and enjoying spending the last of our baht and getting some delicious lunch. I was able to talk to my mom for awhile, only 9 baht a minute!
So, I got an international plan for my phone, but in Thailand it was $1.30 a minute, and at an internet café, for ten minutes it only cost me $3. So that was pretty cheap. We got a cab back to the train station to meet up with all our friends and got a cab back to the ship. For 400 baht, or about 12 US dollars, was all it cost to drive two hours each person from Bangkok to Laem Shebang.
I really enjoyed Thailand, and I’m really glad I was able to see so many of its monuments and temples while I was there. But the best thing was being able to hang out with University students who were my age. I feel like so many people in the United States would never just adopt a bunch of college students from a different country for two days and hang out with them. Part of me just wants to go to the international arrivals section of the airport and wait to new arrivals to the United States. I wish I could give back to these people who welcomed us with open arms. I just hope that if you see someone lost, or perhaps know an international student at your university that you extend your invites and try to make an effort to help them. They would probably love the offer for a potential new friendship. We’re on our way to Vietnam which I will be doing a Semester at Sea side trip to Cambodia for the first three days. Here is a brief description. Stay posted!

GENERAL DESCRIPTION FOR ALL TRIPS TO CAMBODIA: PHNOM PENH & ANGKOR WAT (Several trips are offered)
Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, was once considered the loveliest of the French-built cities of Indochina. Its charm is still evident despite the violence and destruction during and immediately following the Viet Nam War. When the Viet Nam War spread to Cambodia, the city's population swelled with refugees, reaching about two million in early 1975. The Khmer Rouge took over the city in April 1975 and immediately forced the entire population into the countryside as part of a radical social program. During the next four years, more than one million Cambodians (including the vast majority of the educated people) were killed.
On your city orientation of Phnom Penh, you will visit the National Museum and view the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. And, if time permits, you will visit the Palm Tree Orphanage. You will also visit the Tuol Sleng Museum (formerly S21 prison), a school that was converted into a prison camp and torture chamber by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands of Cambodians were incarcerated here before they were taken to Choeng Ek to be killed. Photographs of the victims, taken before or after torture, line the walls of the former school rooms. The only ‘crime’ committed by most of these victims was that of being educated. A map of Cambodia, constructed of human skulls, dominates one room and symbolizes the fact that the death and destruction carried out by the Pol Pot Regime affected the entire country. At the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek, you will see the mass graves of more than 17,000 men, women and children who were executed at this extermination camp between 1975 and 1978. Please be advised that these sites are grim reminders of the extermination policies carried out by the Khmer Rouge. If you choose to participate in these visits, be prepared for some gruesome and depressing sights.
Angkor is an incomparable temple complex built between 7 and 11 centuries ago at the height of the Khmer civilization. Angkor’s 100 or so temples constitute the sacred skeleton of a spectacular administrative and religious center covering 200-square kilometer. The ruins represent successive capitals constructed by a dozen Khmer kings, which included massive stone temples, majestic causeways and imposing towers. You will visit the most famous temple complex, Angkor Wat. With its soaring towers and extraordinary bas-reliefs, many consider Angkor Wat to be one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind. The largest religious building in the world, it was built by Suryavarman II who reigned from 1112 to 1152, to honor Vishnu and for later use as his funerary temple. The Bayon Temple of the complex is an edifice of 54 towers, each carved with the four enigmatic faces of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara and bas-relief events.