Sarah's Semester at Sea: Thailand

Day 1:

We got off the ship and boarded a bus. For some reason, the person who planned our trip thought we could be off the ship by 10 – that didn’t happen. I don’t really know what they were thinking. We left around 12, so the tour guides changed our program a little bit and we ended up doing what we should have done the first day on the last day. We took the bus to Bangkok which was about 2 hours away, where we got on a boat that took us to a restaurant. It was a cool ride and it gave us some cool views of the area we were in. We got to the restaurant and under the pier, 2 people were fishing by standing in the water and using a huge net. They were pro The food was BANGIN. I loved Thai food. After the restaurant, we got on the bus and went to the Bangkok airport. We took a plane to Phuket and didn’t end up getting to the hotel until around 9:00. We went to a street called Bangla street…I probably spelled that wrong, but it’s kind of like a street of bars and restaurants and it’s basically a street of skanks. There were prostitutes EVERYWHERE. Outside of every bar, you could see girls dancing on the bars. They were dancing near poles, but I wouldn’t call it pole dancing. It was more moving awkwardly near a pole. It was so bizarre. There were 5 of us hanging out so we went and got dinner because we were starving and then we went to a couple of the bars and had a couple of drinks. It was the best people watching I have seen in a LONG time. In one of the bars, there were huge pieces of what appeared to be tree trunks all throughout the bars. Everyone was playing this “game” where you hammered a nail into the tree trunk and then had a competition to see who could be the first to bang the nail into the wood using the back pointy end of the hammer. I guess if you were drunk it was supposed to be really funny, but we weren’t drunk and we still kind of sucked at it. We got the bartenders, these 2 really funny ladies, to play with us so that was fun. After that bar, we went back to the hotel and I was exhausted so I went to sleep.

Day 2:
We got up early and got in vans and drove 2 ½ hours to the elephant sanctuary. Our guide told us a lot of really cool stuff about elephants on the way there. Our guide was sooo funny. He was really effeminate and had the funniest voice and said the funniest things. I can’t even describe him with words; you would need to see him in person. When it came time to ride the elephants, I noticed that the elephant Nicky and I were about to get on was a monster. Our guide told us that female elephants are bigger than male elephants and that we were about to get on a female. We rode the elephants for about a half hour and then we got off of them and walked up to a small waterfall. We got back on them and rode them for a little over a half hour back. At one point, the elephant reached its trunk in the water and sprayed it back at me. We had a guy sitting in front of us on the elephant to guide it in the right direction and he looked back at me with a really awkward face, like he was waiting to see whether I laughed or got pissed. I thought it was funny, especially since I was just saying that I wished an elephant would spray me because I was so hot. I wish it would have sprayed more water on me than it did, actually. After we got done riding the elephants, they gave us slices of the freshest pineapple I’ve ever tasted. The fruit in Thailand was AMAZING. Then we fed the elephants bananas…they just ate them whole, you didn’t have to peel them. After the elephant sanctuary, we took the bus to a riverbank. We “canoed” down a river, except I don’t know if it could technically be considered canoeing. The canoes were these inflatable weird things that our guide called “a cross breed between a canoe and a kayak.” Besides that, we didn’t even paddles ourselves. Each canoe had a person in it that would paddle you down the river. I pretty much felt like a fat lazy American princess being paddled down the river. It was pretty, but it didn’t seem all that different than other rivers I’ve been on. I wish they had been able to explain more to us about where we were, but there was a language barrier. After we rode the 2 ½ hours back to the hotel, 4 of us went to get a Thai massage. It was $20 for TWO HOURS INCLUDING TIP!! The hotel set up the massage for us, so it was at a legit place…aka no happy endings. The Thai massage was the weirdest massage I’ve ever experienced. Some of it felt sooooo good and some of it was pretty painful. They bent my body in the weirdest ways. On the whole, it felt really good though. It was funny because we were on mats on the ground and all 4 of our mats were next to each other. There were curtains separating us from everyone else, but we could all see each other. Sometimes when I would feel something and I didn’t know what it was, I would open my eyes and look at Nicky or Laura, who were next to me, because they were usually getting the same thing done at the same time. Everyone’s bodies always looked sooo awkward. The massage didn’t end until about 10:00 so after it was over we went to get something to eat because we hadn’t eaten dinner. After that, all I wanted to do was pass out from being so relaxed from the massage so we went back to the hotel and I went to bed.

Day 3:

We spent most of the 3^rd day on a boat. The first place we went was “James Bond Island.” Apparently The Man With The Golden Gun was filmed there. It was cool and had pretty views, but it was sooo far away and it wasn’t really worth it, especially because I haven’t seen the movie. After James Bond Island, we went to two different caves. The boat would drive to the caves and then we would get in canoes to explore them. In the first one, it was really bright and we could see everything and the caves would open up into different “rooms” that weren’t enclosed. At one point, we had to lay down to get under a rock to get into a room. When it was almost time to leave, a lot of canoes had to get back to the boat. During the time we had been exploring, the tide had risen a little bit, and we almost couldn’t get back through the cave. The canoe had to be deflated a little bit before we could lay down and go back through. After that cave, we went to a different cave that our guide called “the bat cave.” It was completely dark and we needed flashlights to see everything. There were bats everywhereee, hence the name. It was cool because it was totally different than the first cave we went to. The caves were definitely my favorite thing we did that day. After the caves, we went back to the boat and had lunch. The lunch was amazing, as usual. Thai food was probably my favorite food so far, second to Spain. After lunch, the boat drove us to a beach. It was really hot andh the water was full of jellyfish and I felt like I can go to the beach anywhere; I didn’t really want to be at the beach in a foreign country. Nicky and I tried to explore the beach area, but there wasn’t much of anything there. We only spent a half hour there so it wasn’t too bad. The guides on this day were sooo nice. They were asking us about Semester at Sea and going to school and such. We asked them if they go to school and they said they don’t, that they have just been working and stuff. Then, one of them was like, “you all are my teachers. We listen to you guys.” I thought that was really interesting because NO ONE in the United States would ever say that about a group of tourists. I tried to ask one of them my question about what they think of when they think of Americans. He wouldn’t answer. I thought that was interesting that that was the first country where no one would even respond, even when I made a point of making sure they knew it was okay to be honest. I didn’t get to ask the question in India because everyone was too busy trying to lie to me and cheat me out of money, plus if you read the pizza hut story, I wasn’t really in a position to ask questions. Anyway, I wish this guy had answered. We got back to the hotel around dinner time so we went to eat. Then, we had a few drinks and went to see a “show” of sorts. It was on the same street that we went to on the first day. It was disgusting, but the kind of disgusting where you just have to stare. If you want to know more details, ask me via email.

Day 4:

We took a plane back to Bangkok and got to the hotel, which was really nice just like the one in Phuket. I wish I had gotten to see more of Bangkok, but from what I could tell it just seemed like any other city. It seemed cool and like there was a lot to do, but pretty much a typical city. It was the first country in awhile where they actually drive in the lanes, so that was nice to see. But, it’s really hard to cross the street because when a light turns red, it doesn’t mean stop, it really means “stop in about 15 seconds or so.” I guess Thailand doesn’t have red light tickets. When we got there, a lot of people wanted to go out to a bar but I wasn’t really up for that, so Nicky and I went to dinner and to a night market. The night market was cool; it was also good people watching. One side of it bordered a street similar to Bangla street. The other side was a lot calmer. I bought a small painting of Buddha for about $12..it was my only souvenir from Thailand. Thailand didn’t really have much that defined it, at least not to me, so I didn’t really have anything I wanted to buy from there. It was a fun place but it felt more like a vacation than other countries have. As we were walking back to the hotel, I saw something that made me laugh. You know how sometimes something really small jars a memory that you didn’t even know you had? It’s always really random and it’s something you probably haven’t thought about in years. I saw a store/restaurant/I don’t know what it was called “Buddhi Belly” and it reminded me that when I was little my dad used to tell me I had a Buddha belly. I guess that ended when I was pretty young because if someone told me that today, I’d probably be pretty offended haha. But I thought it was funny that I even remembered that, because it’s not like I really knew what that meant when I was younger. I glanced up at this store and I laughed to myself because it was so random that I even remembered that. If my dad is reading this: the Chinese Buddha is the fat one; the Thai Buddha is really skinny. So you can still tell me that if you want, in reference to Thailand only. Anyway, on the way back to the hotel, I stopped in a pharmacy. I had a cut and I really wanted some hydrogen peroxide. I asked for hydrogen peroxide and they handed me a really sketchy bottle. It said hydrogen peroxide in English but the rest was all in Thai. I felt a little wary about using it, because pretty much anything could have been in there, but I saw the chemical formula for hydrogen peroxide so I figured it was okay. Plus, it cost the American equivalent of about 50 cents so I figured it was worth a try. I’ve used it, it works fine, so they didn’t give me sketchy Thai poison or anything like that.

Day 5:

Apparently Bangkok is sometimes referred to as “The Venice of the East,” so we took a short canal tour. After the canal tour, we went to the Grand Palace and to a famous Buddhist Temple. They were both sooo intricately designed and they were both really cool to see. After that, we had the option of going back to the ship or to a tiger zoo. I really wanted to go to the tiger zoo because I knew you got to hold a baby tiger. 2 buses went back to the ship and 1 went to the tiger zoo. We needed a good place to do the bus and luggage switching, and we hadn’t really eaten lunch either, so we stopped at a rest stop. We ate in McDonalds, and let me just say…I don’t know how Americans get the fat reputation. I think Americans on the whole need portion control, but other countries are wayyy worse about the actual things they eat. They serve a double big mac. I’m all about the fast food every now and then, and I’m not going to pretend like this McDonalds didn’t taste delicious because it did, but A DOUBLE BIG MAC?! Just looking at the picture made me want to throw up a little bit. Then, this doesn’t have to do with fatness but it was just random…there was an advertisement in McDonalds and the food on it looked similar to our McDonalds’ apple pie, but it looked different. I looked closer for the description…it was TUNA pie. Gross! They had a deal for a tuna pie and a coffee for $1. Is this supposed to be some kind of breakfast item? I don’t know but it looked disgusting. Anyway, we went to the tiger zoo and it was like a zoo on crack. The first thing we see when we walk in is a giant mother pig and some baby tigers in the same area. There was a sign saying they were “experimenting” on letting pigs feed and raise baby tigers, and learning how the tigers ended up being a lot tamer than if they had been raised by tigers. I thought to myself, “hm, that’s different, but interesting. I can see how that would make them tamer.” Then, the next area over..it was the opposite. Big tiger, baby pigs. Not cool. Not cool at all. Besides the fact that the tiger wasn’t all that nice to the piglets and the piglets will probably be eaten eventually, the piglets WERE IN TIGER OUTFITS. They had on orange and black tiger-striped onesies. It was so creepy. There was also an exhibit in the zoo called “happy family” where tigers, pigs, and GOLDEN RETRIEVERS were all housed together. They had “shows” with animals that were kind of depressing because they were very circus-like so you know the animals were abused. Nicky and I watched an elephant show. It was kind of funny because us and like 3 or 4 Semester at Sea people were the only non-Thai people watching the show and at one point they asked for a boy and girl volunteer and two SAS kids volunteered and all the Thai people thought it was hilarious. Thai people were probably some of the nicest people in a country so far. But, like I said it was very circus-like so it was kind of depressing. I didn’t see the tiger show but I heard it was similar. There was a “crocodile show” which was basically just two people provoking a bunch of crocodiles and then running away from them. It was so weird. One of them deserves their foot bitten off. One guy from Semester at Sea walked over to us at one point and said, “Can someone please legitimize what is going on right now?” So I’m glad it wasn’t just my friends and I that were kind of confused. They had various other weird things…deer and ponies in one area, monkeys in clothing…I don’t know. It was so weird. One girl described it as “disturbing” and I’d say that was pretty accurate. I was mad because our guide cheated us out of money. He said it cost 500 Thai bat (sp??..their version of the dollar) to go to the zoo. That’s about $15 so I didn’t think that sounded that unreasonable for a zoo. When we got there, someone noticed that the group rate was only $350. When we tried to call him out, he kept brushing it off or acting like he didn’t get what we were asking, which is annoying. I don’t expect people in these countries to speak English. WE’RE the ones visiting THEM and it’s fine if people don’t understand me. But this was a TOUR GUIDE. I KNOW he speaks English. He’d been speaking English for the past 24 hours. It’s only about $5, but it was annoying because the pictures with the tigers cost 150, and I didn’t have that much left. A lot of people had the same problem. We tried to tell him he should pay for everyone to get a picture but he was a dick and that didn’t happen. Nicky and I ended up getting in a picture together so we could split the 150. It is a really cute picture so I guess it was worth it, but it was just an annoying situation on top of the fact that I was already creeped out by the weirdness of the zoo.

By the time we got back to the ship, I was exhausted. I can’t believe we’ll be in Vietnam TOMORROW. The next couple of weeks are going to be so crazy. I had a really good time in Thailand and I enjoyed the trip more than I expected. Even though it was annoying to pay for them, it was kind of nice to have dinners to yourself so you could hang out in small groups and not be forced to be around a bunch of idiots like on my India trip. But, even though it was a good time and I’d definitely go back to Thailand given the chance, the country didn’t really impact me the way other countries did. It was just kind of like a vacation to me, which I guess is a different kind of cool.

My laptop died and I’m using a semester at sea loaned computer so I’m only putting a couple of pictures up because I don’t feel like dealing with it.

Nicky and I with the baby tiger: