7 weeks of amazement!!

Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
July 22nd 2008

Published: July 22nd 2008

So welcome back!! It has been roughly 3-4 weeks since I wasn’t lazy to write a blog, but a lot has happened in the past month and many of you are itching to hear what I’ve (we’ve) been up to. We only have less than 3 weeks left of this awesome journey! As much as the first 2-3 weeks was getting acquainted with the land and culture, sightseeing, and for the most part kind of vacationing, these last three weeks will definitely make up for all of that. Congratulations to us for getting our IRB’s approved. (The IRB is the Institutional Review Board that reviews and approves any, and all, types of research being conducted under CSUF. Without this approval, technically all research must be at a standstill until the research protocol and procedures can be approved.) So yeah, we got our approvals for each of our research studies approved on July 9 (Happy Birthday Mom!) and we were then able to officially collect our data and start our project. I was able to collect all my data on Monday, July 14, which consisted of distributing and collect Questionnaires that I developed and adapted from previous literature. After collecting all my data comes the major tedious work. I have inputted all the responses from the Questionnaires into a statistical software program (thanks Vince Merrill) and now working on transcribing all of my interviews verbatim from digital recordings taken place during the interviews. Once all that is done, then I have the joy of analyzing it all and interpreting it into conclusions that will help me answer my research question. Then I get to write my paper and present it to my mentors out here in Thailand. So all of that in the next three weeks…crazy!!! Super busy now!! But that’s what I’m being paid to do out here, right? RIGHT! Lovin’ every moment of it!

So besides the research, we have done a lot around Thailand. Erik, Leah’s husband was just out here these past couple of weeks. We all took a vacation on Thursday, July 3 to Monday, July 7 down to the beaches of Phuket. We celebrated a very mellow Fourth of July with about 3-5 small fireworks that we saw from our balcony that were being lit from the beach. We stayed at Kata Beach at the Aspasia Phuket Resort (www.aspasiaphuket.com) in a lush 2 bedroom suite that was amazing! We hung out at the beach, swam in the Andaman Sea, which is just as warm, if not warmer, than Hawaii and the Caribbean, and rode some jet skis out in the water and around an island! The sand was incredibly soft, fine, and white, with the shore just lined with beach chairs and umbrellas. With our room stay, we all got a free trip to visit Ko Phi Phi island and saw some amazing beaches and bays! We got up at 6:30 am on Saturday and had an A/C van take us and others to the other side of Phuket island to the Boat Lagoon. From there we took a speedboat out to Phi Phi island and our first stop was the one place I wanted to visit from the moment I knew I was coming out here - Maya Bay, where the movie The Beach was filmed!!!! WOW! The water was a lil cooler than Kata Beach, but the water was absolutely crystal clear and turquoise! We coasted along other islands and Viking Cave and stopped momentarily at Monkey Beach where there were wild monkeys that inhabited the island and would come to shore and chill in the trees. People were literally feeding the monkeys from the bow of the boat to the monkeys that were sitting in trees…amazing!! We had an excellent buffet lunch that overlooked the sea and then headed to do some snorkeling in the middle of the water and at Koh Khai, where we chilled for a couple of hours. On this island, Erik, Jon, and I had one of the most incredible experiences in the world!!! Along with our boat tour guide, we snorkeled around the island looking at amazing coral and fish, and chasing after sharks!!!! YEAH, we were totally snorkeling and looking for sharks and we successful!! There were about 3-4 sharks the whole time we were in the water, but I only got to see the first one. It was huge, at least 5 feet long, and yeah, we were all swimming along with them, crazy guys we are!!

Let’s see, other things that have kept us busy besides research and working…In order to keep this somewhat short and sweet, I’ll just list off some things that we’ve done and leave some of the details out. If you would like to hear more about a certain event that we did, I’d be more happy to give you very, very specific details. Most of you know how I love to just ramble on with totally crazy details, so this I’ll be nice…

• Movies: Sex and the City, Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Wanted, and just saw The Dark Knight
• Don’t know if I mentioned in a previous blog, but we visited an orphanage out here and we went twice. The most rewarding feeling seeing the faces of these children when you arrive, incredible!
• Chiang Mai Zoo - saw two very cute pandas, saw hippopotamus, tigers, leopards, exotic monkeys, and so much more!
• Two hot spring resorts - imagine the geyser at Yellowstone Park. The first resort we visited had one geyser and had a very strong scent of sulfur, and we cooked hard boiled eggs in a pool of boiling hot spring water. The second resort we visited had two gorgeous geyser and we cooked hard boiled quail eggs in this place’s pool of hot spring water. The latter was much more gorgeous, with more scenery and a better restaurant.
• Muang-on Cave - this cave inside of the mountain took, I think I counted 317 steps, to get to the hole from the bottom of the hill and then another three-hundred something steps inside of the mountain itself to get to the deepest part of the cave. There were huge stalagmites and stalactites and two Buddhas, one of which was a sleeping Buddha.
• Learned how prepare a 5 course traditional Thai dinner. I have a recipe book, so I’d love to prepare a Thai dinner for any of you!
• Maesa Elephant Camp - took a 30-min elephant ride in the hills of Chiang Mai and watch a show where domesticated elephants performed various acts from playing soccer, to throwing darts, and amazing and most known, creating incredible art by painting. Leah and I had the great opportunity to watch these intelligent elephants paint and purchase the paintings they produced!!!
• ATV riding and white-water rafting - thanks to The Peak Adventure Tours and Jon’s idea, we had one very adventurous day where we rode ATVs (All-Terrain Vehicles) through the hills and jungles of Chiang Mai for about 3 hours and stood atop amazing mountain tops overlooking the entire Chiang Mai basin. Then had one of my most exciting adventures in my life white-water rafting down the river. This was also the setting for one of the army bases in the recently released movie, Rambo IV. Amazing hillsides. The river is usually a Category 4 on a scale of 1-6, where a Category 6 is for professional rafters and insane rapids. May be fortunately, or unfortunately, but there wasn’t much rainfall in the previous days, so when we rafted, the river was only considered a Category 3. But Jon, Leah, and I definitely enjoyed it and are so excited to go white-water rafting again, but we want to up the ante a little and try to hit a Category 4 or 5 river…yeah, we’re crazy! One of the most spectacular scenes on the river was we were just coasting down and just to the right off the side of the river was a wild elephant just chillin’ and eating trees…words can’t describe the scene!
• Doi Suthep - visited the famous Wat Doi Suthep on the mountain towering over the city of Chiang Mai. Gorgeous view!

So we just got back from another lil vacation on two other islands, this time on the east coast of the southern part of Thailand in the Gulf of Thailand. We stayed on Koh Samui and travelled to Koh Phangan, which was about a 25-30 min speedboat ride from Koh Samui. We stayed for another 4 days/3 nights at this really nice resort, Samui Palm Beach Resort (www.samuipalmbeach.com). The guys had a poolside suite and Leah had her own private beachfront bungalow. The water and beach was completely different from Kata Beach, Phuket. In Koh Samui, the beaches had very coarse and grainy sand, dropped relatively quickly - about 10 yards out you could not feel the bottom, but when you could, it was slimy and slippery. The water wasn’t too blue, but other beaches around the island had more blue water. Our resort was located at Bo Phut beach, about 20 min. from all the craziness at Chaweng Beach. We flew into Koh Samui Airport, which is a very, very small airport. From there, our free shuttle took us straight to Perchanat (spelling?) Pier and we took a speedboat to Koh Phangan to partake in the infamous Full Moon Party. All I have to say about this party is that it’s ridiculously amazing to party with thousands of people from all over the world on the beach in Thailand! Leave it Leah and I to dance on a stage that could hold about 30-40 people, all in a drunken state, right on the shorebreak, while listening to awesome music and it raining!!! AWESOME!!! We met some very cool people and partied our hearts out. Next day, of course, was spent recovering and hanging out on our island at the resort and beach. We hit up Chaweng Beach, which is the happening place and nightlife of Samui, lined with bars, restaurants, and vendors. Much, much more tame and cleaner than Patong, Phuket (smelly and just flooded with “sawaadee” girls - our name from Thai sex workers, including real girls (money girls) and kàthoeys (lady boys and money boys). Had amazing Italian food, the best so far out here in Thailand. The last full day we had we hired a personal driver to drive us around the island to sightsee. Saw Big Buddha; another gorgeous wat with two huge Buddhas, one which was a Chinese Buddha that had about 10-14 hands holding figures and the other which was the bald, big bellied Buddha. Had dinner at Fisherman’s Village and visited the Grandfather and Grandmother rocks. These rocks are naturally-forming structures, where the Grandfather rock is in the shape of a penis and the Grandmother rock is in the shape of, you guessed it, a vagina. It was kinda cool to see. Other than that, our trip to Koh Samui was very relaxing. Much more serene, tranquil, and calming than Phuket and Chiang Mai.

So from this point, we have less than 3 weeks to finish up our projects. We have one last trip planned where we will be visiting Bangkok for 4 days/3 nights, and for all of our first times, will be staying in a hostel. Yeah, for those of you that have heard or have seen the movies Hostel, I’m trying not to think of that storyline…yikes! :-D So yeah, that’s a very “short” description of what the past two months have been like. Back in Chiang Mai, we’ve just hung out at some of favorite restaurants and bars, one of which is my favorite bar, O’Malley’s Irish Pub. Thanks to Leah, my new favorite beer is Kilkenny, which unfortunate for me, does not get distributed in the United States. But lucky for me, until the rest of July, they have an awesome promotion where you buy a ½ pint or full pint of Kilkenny and get a coupon for a free one, redeemable anytime…YES!! Oh, and don’t know if I should disclose this or not, but I’ve gained just a little weight…not sure if its from the drinking or the quality of the food here, but the first 2 weeks, I lost weight and since then, have gained MUCH weight. But I like to think of it as “filling in” and I don’t look “anorexic” anymore…haha! Anyway, that’s pretty much it for now. Hopefully this has made up for my lack of blogs and little communication, but we’ve just had so much fun and amazing times out here in our new home, Thailand, more specifically Chiang Mai!! We’re starting to get depressed already knowing that we have to leave this amazing place and knowing that we’ll be coming back to the states, filled with inflated prices, busy streets packed with aggressive and road-raged maniacs, and not-so-personable, stay out of my bubble people, but it’ll be good to see all of you again!!!!

For now, hope all is well back in the states. Love you all, and I’ll post at least one other blog before heading back home. Oh, just to let you know now, I’m anticipating to have a Welcome Back party at my parents on the weekend of Labor Day, so save either Saturday or Sunday— will finalize which day as it gets closer. Us, scholars, are going to try to develop a movie of our travels out here for everyone to watch…it’ll be a lot of fun!!! Take care and miss you all!!!

P.S.
I'm sure you'd like pictures and videos to accompany such a long blog, so once we all share pics and videos, I'll go ahead and publish another blog with just a bunch of pictures related to this blog. Pretty much pictures from all the events and sightseeing that we've done! :-D Stay tuned........

7 weeks of amazement!!

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