3 Sides of Thailand


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Asia » Thailand
August 1st 2010
Published: September 15th 2010
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It's hard to believe I've been home for almost 3 weeks. I've purposely been avoiding the computer knowing that I have an immense amount of blogging to catch up on, but looking back on these pictures is bringing nothing but smiles and good memories. I decided to organize my entries by country instead of chronologically as I jumped back and forth between countries a lot. I flew from Hangzhou, China to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but almost immediately headed to Thailand where I spent 5 weeks (minus a few side trips). So, Thailand goes first!

Bangkok was my jumping off point for several small trips and I was there for a total of 4 non-consecutive days. It was quite shocking after China; foreigners are everywhere. Everything just seemed so easy, it almost felt like cheating. English is spoken and imports are available, and I spent a good 3 hours in an ALL ENGLISH bookstore! I avoided Ko San Road (the legendary backpacker slum) until my last time in the city and am glad I did, there was nothing there but more foreigners. There were some beautiful temples and it was so nice to see colors other than red inside of them. In fact, everything about Bangkok is bright - the pink and orange and green taxis, the flowers left on the roadside shrines, the fruit for sale. I enjoyed the Art & Culture Center which had an interesting and slightly propagandist exhibit on "national unity" in response to the recent Red Shirt protests. I ate a lot of mango rice. I saw a rat that was so big I thought was a cat at first. I saw many, many "sex-pats." This is a term coined by my friend Allison (she does long term volunteer work in Thailand) referring to the foreign men, usually middle-aged, balding, pot-bellied and red-faced, who have much younger and prettier Thai wives or girlfriends. Of course I'd love to think that at least some of them have found true love, but it's doubtful. They were all over China too, but even more so in Thailand. I saw lots of prostitutes, and ladyboys both pre and post-op. I spoke with many taxi drivers, vendors and cooks, all of whom were unfailingly friendly, smiling and helpful. They had a good laugh at the Thai I tried to learn (just numbers and some other random phrases). Bangkok was not what I expected at all - mostly in a good way. But a few days there were plenty for me.

The next part of Thailand I would be calling home for almost 3 weeks: a tiny village called Huay Ma Lai, 8 hours northwest of Bangkok and very near the Myanmar border. Desiring to turn my travel experience into something productive I went to volunteer at the Baan Dada Children's home (www.baandada.org). This is a WONDERFUL organization which houses around 40 children. Besides having their basic needs met, these kids are artistic, musically talented (check out their music video on the website!), active and so much fun to be around! Because of all the volunteers that come their English is quite good, especially compared to their classmates at school. Several other volunteers came and went during my time there (4 French 1 Aussie and 2 Brits) which made things a lot easier. Each day we to help prepare meals, which was pretty hilarious when we were told to do something like peel and shred bamboo stalks - have you ever tried that? It is extremely hard!!!! The moms in charge of cooking would just laugh at us. Each day we also taught English classes at the community school, helped the Baan Dada kids with homework after school, organized activities and crafts and games for them after school and on weekends, read to them, played volleyball and football and basketball, and a lot of the time was just spent cuddling. There was also constant cleaning to be done - gecko poop all over the bathroom was a big issue. Things are done a lot differently there, and I have to confess it was difficult at first to go from the strictness and rigidness of my school in China to this much more laid back atmosphere. Although the kids are extremely well taken care of and quite happy, there were times when their lack of (and need for) adult supervision was pretty obvious. A startling and sad reminder that, although many of the kids there have one parent out there somewhere, they are unable to care for them properly. It was hard to be there and connect with the kids, knowing that I would have to leave soon.

Being in an itty bitty town was both really fun and really challenging. Everyone knew that we were Baan Dada volunteers, would talk to us and sometimes give us rides. Lush green hills housed tons of interesting bugs - my favorites were a hopping spider and these GIANT roly-polys. The kids were constantly catching snakes and frogs and other fun things. Herds of water buffalo wandered around everywhere. And one of the house's pet dogs had puppies my second day there - I am positive there is nothing in the world sweeter than PUPPIES!!!! The internet was down at the house my first couple weeks, which was fine until my technology addiction kicked in. A 45 minute motorbike ride into town could easily fix that, plus give us our only opportunity to get caffeine. As a girl accustomed to cities I was surprised at how much I adored small town life.

My final stop in Thailand had one simple purpose: DIVING! I headed to Ko Tao = "Turtle Island" off the East coast, hoping to immerse myself in dive snob culture and skip the full moon party scene. Sadly there was no escaping it; foreigners on Ko Tao were rampant, obnoxiously drunk and belligerent throughout the day. The few locals on the island were working and seemed pretty disillusioned with foreigners, no more smiles and friendly chitchat for me. I'm all about having a good time, but personally I don't want to travel all the way to a foreign country just to get drunk. Luckily I had my diving to focus on, which was absolutely incredible. I ran out of film in my disposable camera and was running out of money to buy a new one (those things are pricey overseas!) so have no pictures of the breathtaking scenery, but just imagine your average white sand beaches, palm trees waving in the sunshine, plus a vibrant aquarium underwater, and there you have it. Ko Tao also gave me my worst travel injury to date - while hiking up one of the peaks I walked into some low barbed wire that was hidden by bushes and immediately started gushing blood and being swarmed by mosquitoes. Luckily I was pretty close to the road so was able to drag myself out, hitch a ride to the clinic and get a tetanus shot and antibiotics by an English speaking doctor - again, so much easier than China! It was really not too bad and left a cool scar, but was kind of embarrassing to tell people how it happened. Later on I was emphasizing how dumb it was to have wire down there when a Swedish friend commented that it was probably a trap for dumb Americans. 😊

Although Thailand has so much more that I did not get to see, I was really happy with the diversity of the places I did go. Like always, you take the bad along with good when you travel, and I wouldn't want it any other way.


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