Thailand, India, Seychelles

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It's been long since I have been able to update this. Much has happened.

We arrived in Thailand and for the first 3 days I spent them in Bangkok which was about an hour from our port. We were at a shipping-container port. It was quite vacant. Many of my academic field programs were held in Bangkok or at Chulalongkorn University. It was quite an experience. I visited a television production company and learned of how they operated their company within Thailand. I learned more about the educational system in Thailand, more specifically their higher educational system. Chulalongkorn University is the equivalent of Harvard in Thailand. Top notch school. After my first three days in Bangkok and learning the public transportation system, I took a plane to northern Thailand to Chiang Mai. This wasn't until I had spent a night at the most scum-filled "hostel" that I've ever been in my life... I'll have to post more evidence of this later. Lets just say that there were no sheets on the bed, no bathroom, one tiny lightbulb, bars on the one window and a light-switch that appeared gunky and icky (i feared it's touch). I arrived Chiang Mai with two friends. We wandered into town without a place booked to stay (this is all part of the adventure). We eventually found a family-run hostel that was 10x better than the night before in Bangkok. After entering our room in Chiang Mai (located in northern Thailand) I felt as though I was in Mexico (but this was only while I was in our humble little hostel room). This was more of a guest-house than a hostel.

We wandered around Chiang Mai the first afternoon and then located some other friends from school that had also independently traveled there. We met a trek guide that would take 9 of us in the back of his pickup for the next 2 days through the back country of northern Thailand. Over a 2 day period 9 of us crammed in the back of a pickup for hours on end we would stop at the gates of the Golden Triangle where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet. We would visit a monkey temple where thousands of monkeys run wild (many great pictures from here!). I fed them too! Ignore the possibility of rabies b/c that'd be a bad thought! I visited some amazing temples. I road an elephant through a jungle and floated on a bamboo raft down a river. I visited the Karen Village where the women wear rings around their neck, which is part of the tradition that they still carry. This was incredible to see the lack of technology. One of the ladies had a guitar though... she played for me and then I was able to play for her... we couldn't communicate in any other form than music..but it was an incredible moment... -I'll try and post a picture of this later.

I then spent the night with a hilltop village... we sat around a fire exchanging stories as students from all around the world. We saw a sky that we'd never seen before.. the stars were so bright it was almost overbearing..but the most beautiful type of intensity. The kind of intensity that one welcomes with arms wide open.

The next morning we would visit a waterfall in the middle of the forest.

next update......
-----India & Seychelles
(still in the works with this one..and I apologize for the lacking details of Thailand.. I'll try and edit and update as soon as I can.. technology has been limited where I have been over the past month..and I don't have any access onboard).. I hope you are all well and you are most definitely in my thoughts!

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Comments

[Justin]

Kjersti, Foster and myself are enjoying the blog and envying your travels. We look forward to the next one.