i'm leaving in the morning to travel the southern part of thailand. our itinerary consists of: fishing with villagers, staying in a floating hotel, rubber tapping and rubber sheet making, snorkeling, squid fishing, mountain climbing, mangrove exploring, and probably more that i can't remember right now. i think i'm most looking forward to the snorkeling. i've only done it once in the bahamas, but that was a long time ago. maybe i can find a waterproof camera and get some sweet underwater photos.
i'll be back to AIT next saturday, and then i'm off the following day to Lamplaimat to stay for the rest of march. it's going to be a lot of traveling, but i'm excited to get started on the second half of my internship.
thursday was my last day at the PDA office for a while. for the past week i've been finishing up projects i started there, and researching some financial literacy curriculums and business skill training stuff to find some good ideas for the Barefoot MBA modules. we need to come up with some fun and interactive activities for the villagers to participate in during the sessions, so i've been trying to find some fun games that tie into each of the lessons.
also, my laptop is in the repair shop as i type this. Nim helped me take it in on wednesday to have the technicians take a look at it. the screen has been going black occasionally, and most of the time it's got horizontal lines that progressively turn everything white. it's hard to explain, but i'm hoping that it'll be an easy fix. although, from what my co-worker said (the same thing happened to his old laptop) it's pretty expensive, and i may just want to buy a new one. either way, there's nothing i can do about it until i get back from my field trip anyways. i'll just figure it out then.
kelly and i just booked our flight to borneo and our return flight to bangkok. now i should probably look into what there is to do there, huh?
alright i'm off to bed. it's going to be a long day of van riding tomorrow. i'll make sure to post a full report when i return next weekend.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Chang = elephant in Thai
Short update (well…are any of my updates ever short?):
I’m two weeks into my internship and loving it. The first week I spent in the office meeting and greeting everyone. My supervisors and co-workers are really nice. I have a supervisor for the first part, Nim, and one for the second part, Anita. This will give you an idea of how welcoming they are: my first day in the office, Nim invited me to go away with her and some other people for the weekend, so last weekend I went to Hua Hin with her, Anita, Anita’s friend and another guy that used to work at PDA. It was an awesome time, and very relaxing. We just laid by the pool and read books and took naps. I got to check out a beautiful sunrise. It was exactly what I needed.
I’m two weeks into my internship and loving it. The first week I spent in the office meeting and greeting everyone. My supervisors and co-workers are really nice. I have a supervisor for the first part, Nim, and one for the second part, Anita. This will give you an idea of how welcoming they are: my first day in the office, Nim invited me to go away with her and some other people for the weekend, so last weekend I went to Hua Hin with her, Anita, Anita’s friend and another guy that used to work at PDA. It was an awesome time, and very relaxing. We just laid by the pool and read books and took naps. I got to check out a beautiful sunrise. It was exactly what I needed.
The second week I spent in the field traveling around to three of the village centers in northeast Thailand. We visited various projects that PDA is working on and I was able to see first hand what I had learned about the week before in the office. One of the village centers we visited is the same one that I’ll be staying at for the second half of my internship, and they have internet! Yay! So you’ll all be kept updated even when I’m away from campus.
I returned from the field on Thursday afternoon, but I wasn’t at AIT for long because Friday we went to visit my friend Ryan in Si Ratcha. He is working for an up and coming eco-tourist business there for his internship, so he invited us down for the weekend. Si Ratcha is about two hours away from Bangkok, and is on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. The best part of it…ryan helps take care of the business’ elephant! Her name is Come Moon, and she is beautiful. Before we saw her though, we visited the school that ryan teaches at and played simon says with the kids there, and then, on our motorbike ride to the camp, the most amazing thing happened—it rained!! I should be more specific—it poured rain! You might be thinking…that’s ah, cool?? So what?? But let me remind you…it’s the dry season here in Thailand, and that means drought. I’m talking drought as in, it hasn’t rained here in months. Even before I arrived they hadn’t seen rain in a long time, so to finally feel rain and hear thunder was glorious! It really helped with the horrible humidity that has seemed to set in within the last couple of weeks.
Then we walked with Come Moon and her mahout (mahouts are the people who train the elephant from birth) to the pond down the road and she took her bath. She wanted to clean up so we could ride her. She took us on a lovely ride through the rubber trees by the camp. It was a lot of fun. After we all rode the elephant, we had a bbq dinner at the camp. Anon, who runs the camp/eco-tourism business with his brother, Oh, had set up an amazing spread for us. There were palm tree branches around for decoration along with an American flag waving above us. We ate some delicious shish-kabobs, a chicken, and a fish. Then we sat around a bonfire for a while and went to sleep in our bamboo huts. The next morning we left for Ko Si Chang Island for the day. We spent some time on the beach and walked around a palace, then headed back into Si Ratcha to catch the bus back to Bangkok.
Today (Sunday), Lauren, Kelly, Kaitlyn and I went into Bangkok to see a movie. We all haven’t seen a movie since we came to Thailand, so we were soo excited! Not only to see a show, but to eat popcorn! You would’ve thought we were five again, and we were excited to go to see the newest Disney movie. We ended up seeing “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” which is pretty good. I enjoyed it. Movies are released a lot later here than in the states. For example, Bolt is not out in theaters until later this week. We all decided after how much fun we had today, that we’re going to see movies more often from now on. For the couple of hours I was in the theater, I felt like I was back home with a group of my friends just watching a movie like it was a regular weekend activity. It was a bittersweet feeling because I miss home sometimes, and yet it was good to experience a familiar activity in a semi-familiar setting with some of my new friends.
This week I’m going to be spending time at the PDA office preparing for the Barefoot MBA project I’ll be working on during the second half of my internship. I’m happy that I get to be back on campus and stay for the week. I feel like I’ve been all over the place for the last few weeks, and it’ll be good to be home before I’m gone for the next month.
The next thing I’m looking forward to: Saturday we leave for our Southern field trip. We’re going to be road tripping, squid fishing, rubber tapping, snorkeling, and beach bumming for a week in the south, and I’m pretty stoked.
After program travel update: Kelly and I now have our tickets to Phenom Pehn, Cambodia and Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Our original plan was to take the train up from Kuala Lampur back to Bangkok, but now I think we’ve decide to fly to Boreno instead. We’re thinking that we might enjoy traveling to another country instead of seeing more of Thailand, especially since we’re already going to be visiting Southern Thailand next week anyways. AND Boreno has orangutans! I don’t know much else about it, but everyone here keeps talking about how beautiful it is and the orangutans, so why not go to Boreno?
Today (Sunday), Lauren, Kelly, Kaitlyn and I went into Bangkok to see a movie. We all haven’t seen a movie since we came to Thailand, so we were soo excited! Not only to see a show, but to eat popcorn! You would’ve thought we were five again, and we were excited to go to see the newest Disney movie. We ended up seeing “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” which is pretty good. I enjoyed it. Movies are released a lot later here than in the states. For example, Bolt is not out in theaters until later this week. We all decided after how much fun we had today, that we’re going to see movies more often from now on. For the couple of hours I was in the theater, I felt like I was back home with a group of my friends just watching a movie like it was a regular weekend activity. It was a bittersweet feeling because I miss home sometimes, and yet it was good to experience a familiar activity in a semi-familiar setting with some of my new friends.
This week I’m going to be spending time at the PDA office preparing for the Barefoot MBA project I’ll be working on during the second half of my internship. I’m happy that I get to be back on campus and stay for the week. I feel like I’ve been all over the place for the last few weeks, and it’ll be good to be home before I’m gone for the next month.
The next thing I’m looking forward to: Saturday we leave for our Southern field trip. We’re going to be road tripping, squid fishing, rubber tapping, snorkeling, and beach bumming for a week in the south, and I’m pretty stoked.
After program travel update: Kelly and I now have our tickets to Phenom Pehn, Cambodia and Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Our original plan was to take the train up from Kuala Lampur back to Bangkok, but now I think we’ve decide to fly to Boreno instead. We’re thinking that we might enjoy traveling to another country instead of seeing more of Thailand, especially since we’re already going to be visiting Southern Thailand next week anyways. AND Boreno has orangutans! I don’t know much else about it, but everyone here keeps talking about how beautiful it is and the orangutans, so why not go to Boreno?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Northern Field Trip
Here’s another week long update for you, but this time it’s not because I’ve been putting off writing. I’ve been traveling around northern Thailand on a field trip, and haven’t had access to the internet. I took a TON of pictures and you can check them out through the link here on the blog.
We left AIT on Saturday morning and having been packing in as many things as we could during the last seven days. At some points it felt like we were rushed to get through one site and on to the next, but I am happy with all of the places we were able to visit and the experiences we had. I’ll try to keep things brief because I don’t want to drag it out for you all.
Saturday was full of driving. We filled up two vans with the nine of us students, our advisor from MSU (Oumatie), one advisor from AIT (Mr. Vituhn), along with one of his PhD students (Om) and his daughter (Pat), and of course our van drivers (Nu and Odd). We arrived in Sukhothai in the afternoon. Sukhothai was the first capital of Thailand. The park was expansive, and we were only able to see a few of the ruins in the amount of time we had. After visiting the ruins we checked in to our hotel, got some dinner in town and called it a night.
Sunday morning we drove to Lampang Province to visit the Elephant Training Center and Hospital. We were so excited to be able to ride elephants and possibly help bathe them. The Center ended up being more touristy then we expected, but it was also very accommodating at the same time. Because of AIT’s relationship with the Center we were able to tour the hospital and see the baby elephants. They also kept their shops and elephant rides open later for our group so that we would be able to fit in everything we wanted to do. We weren’t able to bathe the elephants, but we did get to see the mahouts do it. I bought some art that the elephants painted. One of which is done by my favorite elephant artist—Jo Jo. He’s one of the biggest elephants at the Center, and he knows how to balance, as well as turn around, on a log. After the elephant center we drove to Chang Mai and ate at a “Khan Tok” dinner reception. There was good food and cultural dancers.
Monday morning we visited an OTOP village where we saw women weaving blankets and we shopped around for a while. Then we went to Doi Su Thep—the temple on the mountain. (A little more Thai for you…“doi” means “mountain”). The temple didn’t take long to go through, so Lauren and I toured a Jade jewelry store/factory. Side note: sales associates here are creepers. They follow you around everywhere. Sometimes when I go into a shop, I don’t even plan on buying anything I just wait for them to start following me, and then I try to lose them by weaving in and out of the aisles.
After the temple we continued our journey through the mountains and found our way to our community homestays. The homestay was probably one of my favorite parts from the field trip. Four of us girls stayed at a woman’s house with her children and grandchild. She cooked for us and shared her photo album of all the international visitors that have stayed with her before. The other group members were in other houses in the community. The homestay was a great way to authentically experience the lifestyle of a northern Thai.
Kelly and I woke up early Tuesday morning and hiked up the mountain to see a beautiful waterfall. It was totally worth giving up sleep for. We got back to the house in time for a good breakfast, and then we met up as a group to explore the surrounding area with a community guide. Later that afternoon we visited another Royal Development Project Center. There was an exhibit going on, so the place was packed. Most of the stuff we had already learned about at our previous field trip the week before, but there were still some new projects to see. That night we continued our journey north to Chiang Rai which is pretty much as far north in Thailand that a person can get.
Wednesday we visited the Development and Education Program for Daughters and Communities Center (DEPDC). It’s an organization that is focused on the prevention of child trafficking, so they offer a free half-day school, long and short-term stays for children that are at risk, and many other services for the surrounding communities. The stories and statistics the staff shared hurt my heart. I just feel so strongly about child trafficking, especially sex trafficking, that I left the DEPDC with a heavy heart. After lunch we moved onto the Hall of Opium near the “Golden Triangle.” The Hall of Opium was a museum all about the presence of opium in Asia, and included the history of the East Indies Trading Co. and a bunch of other information. I have to say that it exceeded my expectations. It was very high-tech, and I learned a lot of things about not only opium, but other stuff as well.
We finished up the day with the “Golden Triangle” which is the area where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. Each of the countries are divided by the river, but we were able to take a boat over to Laos and look around for a while. I even got to send out a postcard on the island so it’ll have a Laotian stamp on it.
Thursday we left Chiang Rai and started to make our way back down the country. Before we left the province we visited the Princess Mother’s home. The King’s mother died back in the nineties, but her home is still kept up and used for various occasions. She loved to garden, and even though I’m not much of a flower person, I LOVED her garden. In an odd way it kind of reminded me of a McDonald’s play place with a structure to climb up and look out over the whole garden. It was pretty sweet. After that we also stopped to see the White Temple, which probably holds the title for my favorite temple yet. You can check out the pictures and see why. It reminded me of the Ice Queen’s castle or something.
Friday was full of driving. We did make one last stop to visit another temple. It has a reputation of holding the most beautiful Buddha in all of Thailand. To be honest, I didn't really notice a difference, but I took some pictures anyways. We arrived back to campus around 3, and I was very much ready to be back home. AIT has become "home" to me, and although i had a great time on the field trip, I was ready to be back sleeping in my own bed and eating meals at unscheduled times, and not waking up at 6:45 am.
The past couple of days have been very relaxing. I've slept in, layed out by the pool, and gone to the grocery store. I finally broke down and bought some cereal and milk. I had my first bowl of cereal this afternoon in over a month!! for those of you who know of my love for cereal, i bet you find it hard to believe, but it's true. i was kind of leary of drinking the milk here, but i found some at the tesco and it doesn't taste exactly like meijer or qd, but it's still tastes like milk. plus, when you pour it over sugary cereal, you can't even tell the difference.
tomorrow is a national Thai Buddhist holiday, so i'm going to enjoy another free day before life gets crazy with internship work. Oh! internship update: i am going to be moving to Lam Plai Mat on friday (feb 13th) to start work there. originally the plan was to make a site visit to the village next week, but i received an email while i was up north telling me that they want me to go and help teach english in the primary school there for a couple of weeks. i'll be sure to keep you all updated as i get more information. i'm not sure what the internet access is going to be like there, but i'm hoping i'll be able to get some wi-fi at a coffee shop or something like that.
hope you all enjoyed the heat wave! spring is coming soon so hang in there. i'll try and send some sunshine your way.
love you all!
We left AIT on Saturday morning and having been packing in as many things as we could during the last seven days. At some points it felt like we were rushed to get through one site and on to the next, but I am happy with all of the places we were able to visit and the experiences we had. I’ll try to keep things brief because I don’t want to drag it out for you all.
Saturday was full of driving. We filled up two vans with the nine of us students, our advisor from MSU (Oumatie), one advisor from AIT (Mr. Vituhn), along with one of his PhD students (Om) and his daughter (Pat), and of course our van drivers (Nu and Odd). We arrived in Sukhothai in the afternoon. Sukhothai was the first capital of Thailand. The park was expansive, and we were only able to see a few of the ruins in the amount of time we had. After visiting the ruins we checked in to our hotel, got some dinner in town and called it a night.
Sunday morning we drove to Lampang Province to visit the Elephant Training Center and Hospital. We were so excited to be able to ride elephants and possibly help bathe them. The Center ended up being more touristy then we expected, but it was also very accommodating at the same time. Because of AIT’s relationship with the Center we were able to tour the hospital and see the baby elephants. They also kept their shops and elephant rides open later for our group so that we would be able to fit in everything we wanted to do. We weren’t able to bathe the elephants, but we did get to see the mahouts do it. I bought some art that the elephants painted. One of which is done by my favorite elephant artist—Jo Jo. He’s one of the biggest elephants at the Center, and he knows how to balance, as well as turn around, on a log. After the elephant center we drove to Chang Mai and ate at a “Khan Tok” dinner reception. There was good food and cultural dancers.
Monday morning we visited an OTOP village where we saw women weaving blankets and we shopped around for a while. Then we went to Doi Su Thep—the temple on the mountain. (A little more Thai for you…“doi” means “mountain”). The temple didn’t take long to go through, so Lauren and I toured a Jade jewelry store/factory. Side note: sales associates here are creepers. They follow you around everywhere. Sometimes when I go into a shop, I don’t even plan on buying anything I just wait for them to start following me, and then I try to lose them by weaving in and out of the aisles.
After the temple we continued our journey through the mountains and found our way to our community homestays. The homestay was probably one of my favorite parts from the field trip. Four of us girls stayed at a woman’s house with her children and grandchild. She cooked for us and shared her photo album of all the international visitors that have stayed with her before. The other group members were in other houses in the community. The homestay was a great way to authentically experience the lifestyle of a northern Thai.
Kelly and I woke up early Tuesday morning and hiked up the mountain to see a beautiful waterfall. It was totally worth giving up sleep for. We got back to the house in time for a good breakfast, and then we met up as a group to explore the surrounding area with a community guide. Later that afternoon we visited another Royal Development Project Center. There was an exhibit going on, so the place was packed. Most of the stuff we had already learned about at our previous field trip the week before, but there were still some new projects to see. That night we continued our journey north to Chiang Rai which is pretty much as far north in Thailand that a person can get.
Wednesday we visited the Development and Education Program for Daughters and Communities Center (DEPDC). It’s an organization that is focused on the prevention of child trafficking, so they offer a free half-day school, long and short-term stays for children that are at risk, and many other services for the surrounding communities. The stories and statistics the staff shared hurt my heart. I just feel so strongly about child trafficking, especially sex trafficking, that I left the DEPDC with a heavy heart. After lunch we moved onto the Hall of Opium near the “Golden Triangle.” The Hall of Opium was a museum all about the presence of opium in Asia, and included the history of the East Indies Trading Co. and a bunch of other information. I have to say that it exceeded my expectations. It was very high-tech, and I learned a lot of things about not only opium, but other stuff as well.
We finished up the day with the “Golden Triangle” which is the area where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. Each of the countries are divided by the river, but we were able to take a boat over to Laos and look around for a while. I even got to send out a postcard on the island so it’ll have a Laotian stamp on it.
Thursday we left Chiang Rai and started to make our way back down the country. Before we left the province we visited the Princess Mother’s home. The King’s mother died back in the nineties, but her home is still kept up and used for various occasions. She loved to garden, and even though I’m not much of a flower person, I LOVED her garden. In an odd way it kind of reminded me of a McDonald’s play place with a structure to climb up and look out over the whole garden. It was pretty sweet. After that we also stopped to see the White Temple, which probably holds the title for my favorite temple yet. You can check out the pictures and see why. It reminded me of the Ice Queen’s castle or something.
Friday was full of driving. We did make one last stop to visit another temple. It has a reputation of holding the most beautiful Buddha in all of Thailand. To be honest, I didn't really notice a difference, but I took some pictures anyways. We arrived back to campus around 3, and I was very much ready to be back home. AIT has become "home" to me, and although i had a great time on the field trip, I was ready to be back sleeping in my own bed and eating meals at unscheduled times, and not waking up at 6:45 am.
The past couple of days have been very relaxing. I've slept in, layed out by the pool, and gone to the grocery store. I finally broke down and bought some cereal and milk. I had my first bowl of cereal this afternoon in over a month!! for those of you who know of my love for cereal, i bet you find it hard to believe, but it's true. i was kind of leary of drinking the milk here, but i found some at the tesco and it doesn't taste exactly like meijer or qd, but it's still tastes like milk. plus, when you pour it over sugary cereal, you can't even tell the difference.
tomorrow is a national Thai Buddhist holiday, so i'm going to enjoy another free day before life gets crazy with internship work. Oh! internship update: i am going to be moving to Lam Plai Mat on friday (feb 13th) to start work there. originally the plan was to make a site visit to the village next week, but i received an email while i was up north telling me that they want me to go and help teach english in the primary school there for a couple of weeks. i'll be sure to keep you all updated as i get more information. i'm not sure what the internet access is going to be like there, but i'm hoping i'll be able to get some wi-fi at a coffee shop or something like that.
hope you all enjoyed the heat wave! spring is coming soon so hang in there. i'll try and send some sunshine your way.
love you all!
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