Reintroducing, Readjusting, and Reflecting

Study Abroad

This post is coming very late. Forgive me. My last few weeks were a whirlwind of emotion, craziness and fun, saying hello and goodbye to some people who had become and remained very important to me.

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Haidee in Hong Kong

Luckily, I was reintroduced to western culture in a gradual way, which reduced the shock of getting home. A little over two weeks before leaving Thailand for good, I was able to go visit one of my friends from UW-Madison, Haidee, in Hong Kong! I cried a little when I saw her. It had been so long since I’d seen a familiar face.

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Visiting Hong Kong with Haidee was absolutely incredible. I’m so lucky her family gave me a place to stay and introduced and treated me to wonderful tradition Hong Kong cuisine and also that she was my tour guide through the city. It was so nice to connect with someone who knows Wisconsin again. Hong Kong is like the New York City of Southeastern Asia, it even has a Times Square! It was very westernized and modernized compared to lots of the other places I had traveled recently (especially compared to Nepal!) so I started to feel like I was getting back into my “normal” life slowly but surely.

Haidee showed me all around Hong Kong. We went to the Peak and saw Hong Kong from above, we took a boat ride around the islands and ate amazing, fresh seafood, I gorged myself on dim sum, we bar hopped late into the night, we explored the endless malls, we sweat our butts off in the sun hiking the Dragon Back trail, we drank lots and lots of bubble tea, and we meandered through art galleries and shops. I had an absolute blast in Hong Kong. Haidee is one of my favorite people to be around because she is a ton of fun but super easy-going and generous and she just makes people around her happy. So thanks Haidee, I love you and your home.

When I got back from Hong Kong, I only had to wait TWO DAYS before AUSTIN POWELL would be in Thailand with me! I wish I could explain to you how ready and excited I was to see him again, it had been so so long. I had started to feel like I had a fake boyfriend who just existed over a screen. Those two days I preoccupied myself by going about my normal life – doing laundry, studying for exams (kind of), and lots of binging on Netflix. Finally, on the day of, I distracted myself by spending the day shopping.

Hello, Again

Seeing Austin for the first time in six months at the airport is one of those moments I’ll never forget. He looked so handsome. And big. I swear his arms got bigger. And did I mention how handsome? I was very happy to have him in the same place I was, finally.

Just now, I was asking Austin what stories I should put in this post while I was writing it and he said, “Did you talk about that first night?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Idk, just how good it was.” And I think that about sums up how happy we were to see each other again.

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I still had a final exam to take, so Austin and I spent a few days at my apartment at Thammasat University. I showed him Bangkok. We visited temples and the shopping malls and the markets. After I was officially done with classes, we went out to Khaosan Road with some of my friends from journalism. Austin embraced absolutely everything about the journey and the adventure – especially the food – and his excitement to be there made me so happy.

After months of being apart, it was amazingly effortless being together again. It was so hard to be away but honestly, nothing changed other than gaining a deeper appreciation for each other. I’ll be the first to admit, I never truly realized how incredible a big, Austin bearhug is until I hadn’t been hugged by another person in six months.

One day in Bangkok, Austin and I decided to go visit the Jim Thompson house, since we were in the area and I hadn’t been yet. Even though I was in Thailand, a very, very different place than Minnesota, I couldn’t help being reminded of my Grandma and Grandpa Merritt’s Mississippi River oasis. There was something about the funky architecture, green surroundings and rusty red colored walls that kept Grandpa Merritt on my mind the whole time.

Afterward, Austin and I walked to a nearby Thai massage place. Thai massages are a weird experience: they hit you and step on you and contort you in all these weird shapes, so I wasn’t sure how he’d feel, but let me tell you, Austin LOVED it.

Northern Thailand

After Bangkok, we traveled up to Northern Thailand. We spent one night in Chiang Mai before taking the minibus to Pai. Our night in Chiang Mai was good. We stayed in an Airbnb run by an English man and it was spacious, clean, comfortable… plus he gave us a ride to the bus station in the morning which was a huge bonus.

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However, Pai was probably our favorite place. The ride there kind of sucked, it’s about 3 hours into the mountains. I think they say it ends up being over 700 twists and turns. Luckily, neither of us got car sick. The night before we had decided to change our reservation from a “party hostel” to a little cabin we found on Airbnb. After my terrible experiences at the party hostel in Cambodia (drunk, naked men peeing at the foot of my bed + bedbugs), I wasn’t really ready to risk it again.

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Changing our reservation was a great call. The area was so pretty, with the mountains surrounding us and cattle grazing nearby. Better yet, the Airbnb host offered us to rent his moped for 100 baht per day (Approx. $3) WE HAD SO MUCH FUN ON THAT SCOOTER! It was perfect. The scooter gave us so much freedom to see more and more of Pai. We scooted out to the Pai Canyon one night for sunset, we scooted up to some scenic look-out points, one day, we visited some waterfalls.

The waterfalls were a huge highlight of our trip. Based on the fact that there are basically no restrictions for natural areas in Thailand (sometimes a fun thing, but typically a bad thing), we were able to climb, slip, slide, swim, and jump around the waterfalls as we pleased. Austin watched as one older, local man threw himself with no restraint off the top of a waterfall into the pool below and said, “I’m going to do that.” He and several other travelers climbed their way up to the top and spent about 10 minutes taking turns looking off the side of it. Then, all the sudden, Austin went for it and jumped.

This was one of my favorite moments, personally, because I always love seeing the side of Austin that not everyone gets to see.

Without spending much time with him, you instantly can tell that he’s not a huge talker but he’s kind, humble, competitive and has a great head on his shoulders. And this is true, yet spend a little more time with him and you’ll find he’s stubborn, he tells the worst dad jokes ever, he’s an absolute sweetheart, he blushes when he gets embarrassed, he rarely judges anyone for any reason, he is steady and dependable through anything, he’s the most passionate, controlled, determined and motivated person I know, and he’s SO FUN.

Austin is easy-going and ready for whatever wild ideas come into my mind; I mean he came to THAILAND to have an adventure with me! We balance each other really well and help each other step out of each of our individual comfort zones and that’s my favorite, favorite part of dating him. On paper, we couldn’t be more different and yet we work, so well, in my humble opinion.

Southern Thailand

After Pai, we took a flight to Southern Thailand to spend some time on the islands. It was the monsoon season, so I was a little nervous about how the weather would treat us, but we totally lucked out with sun and great weather. However, since it wasn’t peak tourist season, we hadn’t been running into lots of other travelers. Bangkok is always hectic, but Pai wasn’t packed and the island was about to be even more deserted. We spent one night in an absolute crap hotel in Krabi, then took our mini-bus + ferry to Koh Lanta.

Since there weren’t many others on the island, our Airbnb host upgraded our room to the nicest one in the resort. So we paid $20 for a private room next to the beach and pool and bar and yes, we loved it.

There wasn’t a ton to do on the island, but that was almost the best part of it. We just relaxed. We walked near the ocean and swam and read books. One morning we went to the Koh Lanta Animal Welfare Shelter and volunteered to take some of their dogs for a walk. Singha and Elvis were the names, and they were two adorable little Thai pups. I love that Austin because he’s as big of an animal lover as I am – I’m a firm believer you can tell a lot about a person based on how they react when they see a dog. We both have to stop and give our favorite stray pups some pats and possibly some snacks.

Another one of our days on the island, we did a snorkeling tour! This took up basically the entire day but it was the best snorkeling I did in Asia. The coral was still colorful and there were tons of tropical fish. I was starting to get super tired while we were snorkeling though. I’m not sure if I was just drained from sun and travel, or if these were my first warning signs that I was beginning to get really sick, but I remember feeling off this entire day.

The trip was winding down, however. We had a beautiful time. I don’t quite know how to put in words how much it meant to me that Austin was willing to not only deal with a long distance relationship for half the year but also come all the way across the world to visit the place I had fallen in love with and explore it with me. He’s the best. Thailand is the best.

Finally, Coming Home!

I was EXCITED to go home. Let me tell you. Austin and I spend the last night in Thailand packing up my apartment and trying to even out our (my) baggage so we wouldn’t go over the allowed weight. We spent a lot of time moving my items around: “Well, what if I put my jeans in your backpack, my books in my backpack, and my shoes in your suitcase…” — You get the idea. However, after an hour or so, Austin picked both of our suitcases up and said: “If my years of weightlifting have given me any sense at all, I think that’s right.” Each of our bags was allowed to weigh 50 pounds, and we weighed them as soon as we got to the airport. Sure enough- I think both of our bags were 0.2 lbs above or below 50 pounds. I still laugh thinking of how pumped we both were, dancing around the airport in the middle of the night because we were going home and not paying any overweight baggage fees.

We both agreed, flying 15 hours in a plane is much better when you’re with someone you love instead of leaving someone you love or anticipating getting to see someone you love. We scored an exit row seat so had plenty of room to get up, move around and stretch our legs. We slept a bit and watched some movies and did what we could to make the flight go fast.

In the last two hours, however, I was beginning to feel a little nauseous. We had some turbulence almost the entire flight. I also felt a little feverish, claustrophobic and I was just dying to get off the plane. O’Hare was so backed up, we ended up having to wait almost two hours for our luggage to come out. I was so anxious to get out of there, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to see my parents. I wanted to eat Culvers. I wanted to cuddle Charlie.

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Malaria Scare

Finally, we got out. Yes, I cried when I saw my mom. I was overjoyed to get a hug from my dad. We stopped at Culvers before we even made it out of Illinois, and I gorged myself with more dairy than I had eaten in the past six months combined. But, at Culvers, on the drive home, and the rest of the evening, I had the chills, and I was burning up. Finally, I just put myself to bed early in hopes I was just readjusting and would be better in the morning.

Unfortunately, I was not. The next few days I dealt with fevers, especially at night. I got migraines with them too. I was SO BUMMED. I had just gotten home, there was so much I was dying to do and so many people I was dying to see, yet I was stuck in bed.

I decided to just deal with not feeling great because there was so much I wanted to do! My parents had a big two-week road trip planned to go out west, and I had agreed to watch Charlie while they were gone. Austin tried to take me out for a beautiful date on the lake but I was too exhausted to even be any fun. I slept on the boat the whole way there and back and could barely find the energy to do anything else.

After a week of reoccurring fevers, Austin convinced me to go to Urgent Care. They decided to take the situation very seriously when I told them I had just gotten back from Southeast Asia. Some blood tests confirmed my levels were off: low white blood, high liver count, etc. Now I was a little nervous but mainly just annoyed. I wanted to enjoy being home, I wanted to start working, I didn’t feel like dealing with this.

Long story long, I had to call my internship and ask them to push my start date another week back. Luckily, they were generous and understanding. I spent the next week going to get blood work done every day without any progress on an actual prognosis. They tested me for HIV, Hepatitis C, Salmonella, Tetanus, who knows what else…but their main concern was Malaria. The Prairie Clinic began sending my blood results to Infectious Diseases at St. Mary’s. One blood test for malaria came back negative, one came back positive, and one came back inconclusive, so basically… no one knew.

I was such a mix of emotions at this point: Frustrated because I wanted to move back to Madison and have fun. Thankful for Austin, who stayed with me as much as he possibly could throughout the week. Scared because my parents were gone and I didn’t know what was happening. Guilty because I knew my mom was worried sick about me. But mainly I was just tired. I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. So Charlie and I spent lots of time in bed snuggling.

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After a few more days, I began feeling much better. I had energy again, the fevers had stopped. However, one weird symptom remained. My hands were absurdly itchy, and then my feet too. It was the craziest thing, there was no visible rash but I couldn’t stop scratching my fingers. It kept me up at night, trying to itch them. I really just thought I was losing my mind at this point.  Unfortunately, my lab results didn’t show improvement, so the testing continued.

Finally, I received some good news — my blood levels had stabilized on their own. A few days after that more news, my test for Dengue fever came back positive. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical disease, typically just treated with rest and fluids. I couldn’t help chuckling a little looking through the 3 Stages of the virus, they were spot on:

1. Fever
2. Exhaustion
3. ITCHINESS

So, I wasn’t going crazy.

The mystery was solved, and I was thankful it ended up being something that could get better on its own.  Turns out there were more confirmed cases in Thailand this year than in the last two decades. Still, I read if you live in Thailand for 20 years, you only have a 1% chance of actually getting the disease — lucky me. My mom cried when I told her and I was happy that I knew she would be able too to enjoy the rest of her trip in peace now. The doctor confirmed I could begin working again, all in all, it was a huge potential crisis averted.

Finally, I could begin to enjoy my time being back. I went out with my friends to celebrate MALARIA FREE 2018, my parents came home soon after, I moved back to Madison and finally got to catch up with all my roomies, and lately,  I’ve been packing my summer days with a full-time internship, getting back into a running habit, and all the fun Madison provides.

Last night I went out with my good friends from Sauk, Mikey and Trent, and was blown away by how many detailed, poignant questions Trent asked me. I was so excited to actually get to talk about my trip without feeling like I was driving him crazy. Trent had read my blogs and followed my posts and truthfully wanted to know the details. So thanks Trent, I really appreciate it. Talking to you felt like one of the first times I actually got to reflect on my trip, and I needed that.

That’s why I finally pushed myself to finish this blog post that I’ve been working on for over a month now. Because reflecting is important, and between Dengue fever, readjustment, and jumping back into a full-time work schedule, I haven’t gotten to do that yet.

I miss Asia, I miss traveling, I miss the food… but when I look back I’m so proud of myself because I also dealt with a lot of frustration, sadness, and discomfort. I am so happy to be back in Madison, my favorite city and be able to drive home and see my family whenever I desire. But I wouldn’t change a thing about my experiences, and I feel so grateful to be home, safe, and happy. This is the final chapter of this journey, but there will be more to come in the future, I can feel it.

 

Nothing like Longtail Boats to Cure a Little Loneliness

Study Abroad

Since lots of my friends had prior travel plans in recent weeks, either solo or with family, last week I found myself in a predicament: a weekend with no plans and no one to travel with. But after exploring Thailand and the surrounding countries every week for the past three months I was confident I’d be absolutely fine traveling alone for the weekend, the only question was where did I want to go? Looking forward into my planner, I realized I didn’t have any other weekends that would work out well to visit Phi Phi Islands, a place I had on my bucket list since I first started researching what the heck was in Thailand, so this weekend seemed it would be the absolute perfect opportunity to explore.

I booked my flight into Phuket and figured out some accommodations (sadly pretty expensive on the Phi Phi Islands for a very basic dorm hostel) and was surprised a little that I actually had some nerves about the trip. After a short hour flight, an overpriced hour taxi to the pier and then a two-hour ferry to the islands, I had finally arrived! I was stunned walking down the ferry towards my hostel. The entire little town was settled between two giant limestone cliffs, and I’ve never seen more brilliantly turquoise waters.

My hostel was extremely small and sandy everywhere, but it would do. After getting my whereabouts, I decided to hike down along the water about 30 minutes to Long Beach, a beach that had been known for having blacktip reef shark sightings. The walk was beautiful and the beach itself was gorgeous, however, one downside of traveling alone on the beach is you have to leave your stuff unattended. I found myself a little too distracted to snorkel and search for sharks because I kept checking up on my backpack to make sure it was still safely where I left it.  The sun started to set, and I so I figured I should hike back before it got dark.

As the sun set on one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my whole life I was surprised once again at how homesick I felt. I missed Austin and my family and Charlie and Karma and wished more than anything I could enjoy the beauty with them. It was a tough night, and for whatever reason, I felt myself on the verge of tears for most of it. I wanted to just go settle in my bed in the hostel and watch Netflix and feel at home, but instead, I made myself stay out just a bit longer. Knowing I needed to eat something for dinner, I wandered down along the water and found a little place called the Happy Hipper Bar that had someone playing live music on an acoustic guitar and seemed chill. Trying my best not to cry over my french fries as the singer sang Country Roads, Take Me Home and Leaving on a Jet Plane, the mood and tone of the bar took a sudden change when all the waitstaff suddenly got on stage and announced there would be a fire show. Nothing to distract you from missing home like a group of upbeat, high-energy Thai men playing with fire! In the end, I actually got sucked into “volunteering” to participate in exchange for a few shots of flavored vodka from the bar. It ended up being just what I needed to lighten the mood for the night and remind me that each of the incredible experiences I’m having, including missing the people I love so much, are new, exciting, unique, and beautiful and truthfully those moments of sadness are just as important as the moments of joy and wonder.

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“Thai Fireworks Show”

After those few free shots at the Happy Hippie Bar, I fell asleep soundly through the entire night. The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and spirited. I planned to hike up the hill to see the Phi Phi Islands Viewpoint. I had read there were two ways to get up: 1. By stairs (The most common and fastest route) 2. By local road (The less-traveled and longer route.)

Of course, I chose option 2, and I was so happy I did! One thing that had been bothering me about the island was that the town itself was completely built for and ruined by tourists. The souvenir shops all sold the same things, the restaurants and bars had Western food and names (labeled Thai Pancake instead of Roti, Serving hamburgers and fries everywhere, etc.), and I saw more tourists than Thai people by far walking around. And it obviously was beginning to take a toll on the natural beauty of the island when people traveled here and didn’t treat it with the respect it deserved, for example, littering in the oceans.

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Cats rule the streets around here. Each cat has a shop and each shop has a cat (or two or three!)

However, on my hike up to the Phi Phi Viewpoint, I didn’t see a single tourist. Instead, I walked past Thai construction workers building new resorts, local neighborhoods and homes, families gardening alongside the road, mothers doing laundry in their front lawn, and tons of lizards, beetles, and other interesting insects. I’m not sure how long I ended up hiking (45 minutes maybe?) but the pathway, although paved, was sparsely marked so every so often I’d ask a local I passed by if I was going the right direction and get verification from a head nod and smile. The sun was beating down on me and my entire shirt was soaked with sweat but I felt really, really happy getting the entire trail basically to myself. Finally, arriving at the top viewpoint, I paid my entry fee of 30 baht to a man working the ticket station with a couple cats surrounding his desk. As I started up the last few stairs to the viewpoint, one of the cats decided to join me on the climb. However, much to my surprise when I looked down it wasn’t a cat hiking alongside me but a little monkey! She really was hiking with me too, waiting for me at the step ahead of me. That being said, she was probably just hoping I had some snacks in my backpack I could share (or she could steal if I was uncooperative.) The Viewpoint was worth the hot climb for sure. It was a stunning view of the town between the two rock formations. There was a little cafe at the top where I helped myself to a mango lychee smoothie and sat and enjoyed the view for a little while.

That afternoon, I had decided to book a snorkeling/island tour at one of the numerous tour agencies. It was so hard to figure out which one would be best or would give me the most value for my money so, in the end, I went with one that was fairly cheap and had an English-speaking guide. In all honesty, I just picked it because the girl in line in front of me picked it and was alone too, so I was hoping at the very least I’d know another solo traveler was with me! It turned out it was just me and her who booked the tour, so we had the entire longtail boat to ourselves! She was a kind, quiet, girl from Belgium, and we had a comfortable amount of talking & silent times throughout the day. It was very enjoyable. Our “English-speaking” (barely) tour guide was nice and had a happy smile.

Our tour included Monkey Beach, which was mainly a lot of monkeys sitting on rocks waiting for tourists to feed them. We were both a little monkeyed-out after seeing so many throughout Southeast Asia that neither of us needed much time here. Then we went to a lagoon and swam and snorkeled a little. This lagoon had tons of colorful fish, sea urchins, coral, and sea cucumbers!! I had never seen one before, I can’t say I honestly thought they were a real thing but they look like giant, rotting turds on the floor of the ocean. It was so fun to swim so close to these fun colored, tropical fish. I had never seen a coral reef before or swam so close to so many tropical fish, so I really enjoyed snorkeling. Plus, this was some of the clearest water I had ever seen. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my GoPro (I know — the one place on Earth a GoPro was literally created for.) So you’ll just have to trust me that it was gorgeous under the water too!

Then we went to another bay, a less-clear water but supposedly this one had blacktip reef sharks in it! I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to be looking for so I missed them. Others snorkeling there at the same time as us did say they had spotted some though!

Then we went to the famous Maya Bay, featured in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach. This beach, however, has been so decimated due to tourist overload that they are actually closing it off from all tourists this coming June until September to give the coral reef time to recover. With almost 5,000 tourists a day, it’s long past time to give Maya Bay some much-needed rest and restoration. I’ve never seen the movie, so seeing “The Beach” wasn’t super necessary for me. However, you really can’t book a tour through an agency that doesn’t take you here, so even those who don’t really care to see it will end up here, which made me feel guilty contributing to the masses of people who have destroyed the once natural and untouched beauty of this bay.

After, we went back into the ocean and watched the sun go down. Our guide had cut up some fresh pineapple for us to enjoy. Then, in the dark, we were able to snorkel once more with plankton. I was expecting the plankton to glow more, but instead it kind of just resembled glitter in the black water when you waved your arms in front of you — still cool to see I suppose but not really necessary.

Back at my hostel after the tour, I wasn’t tired but also knew I had no interest in joining some of the others for the giant parties on the beach. I already did that once for the Full Moon Party and, although fun at the time, that was about enough for me for the rest of my life. So instead, I walked over to a Mexican place a couple blocks away and helped myself to an extremely overpriced, giant margarita, a pile of chips and guac, and some chicken fajitas. They had nothing on La Mexicana but they subsided my consistent Mexican craving for the time being.

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Lanterns lining the streets and trees around town

Afterward, I went and sat at another chill, beachfront bar and drank a beer. My favorite cheap Thai beer is called Singha, so that’s usually my go-to unless Chang is significantly cheaper. I started reading a book here called If Your Dream Doesn’t Scare You, It Isn’t Big Enough on the Kindle app on my phone. This book was great as it was so comforting to read about another solo-woman traveler who has struggled with and also loved some of the same things I had struggled with or loved myself while traveling. Knowing all of my confusions and uncomfortableness and also wonder and happiness was all normal made me feel better. One of my favorite excerpts from the book so far is…

“It just reinforced my need for acceptance and patience when faced with obstacles, delays or changes. Embracing this perspective was one of the hardest lessons travel forced upon me. I had been spoiled by American expectations — that if I paid for it, I would get it immediately; that schedules were meant to be followed; and that I should have 24-hour access to everything I wanted.”

Another one I can really connect with is…

“I had left my culture to explore others, only to find that this vantage point compelled me to examine my life in America.”

I don’t pretend that every moment of my experience has been glamorous or beautiful or that I feel strong every second. I face a lot of frustrating moments, and I miss home often. Somedays I’m bored and others I’m overwhelmed, but mostly, I’m really happy. But it is all so worth it. It makes the entire experience more memorable, and I know I’m learning more about myself and the people around me this way. And I kept reminding myself that I chose to study in Thailand because it would be uncomfortably different. When I chose Thailand, I knew I was going to be living somewhere absolutely different than anything I had ever known, and that’s what I get every single day.

The next morning, it was already time for me to leave the islands! I had enjoyed my few short days here, especially when exploring the natural beauty, but with the touristy city and the overpriced everything, I was ready to leave too. I was headed back on the ferry to spend an afternoon and night in Phuket before going back to Bangkok. I had booked a hostel in Old Town Phuket, which I ultimately was sooo glad I had decided on! I was far away from the “touristy, get drunk on the beach” part of town and instead in this really charming, artsy area that reminded me a lot of Georgetown in Malaysia. My hostel was absolutely beautiful and had a little cafe attached. Walking down the street you could pop into handmade jewelry shops, art galleries, cafes, dessert bars, and even an English bookstore! On one of the neighboring streets, I found the greatest cone of homemade salted caramel popcorn ice-cream I’ve ever had — it was perfect. I was so happy exploring here.

I also decided to take a motorbike taxi to the Chalong Bay Rum Distillery during the afternoon for a tour. The distillery was really tiny with a gorgeous outdoor bar. It was fun to learn how and why they produce rum in Thailand. Thailand is one of the world’s largest producers of sugarcane. While most commercially produced rums are made with molasses, at Chalong Bay they make their rum with 100% sugarcane. Every single one of the Chalong Bay Rum bottles are hand-filled (using a ruler to get the exact measurements correct) and all the stickers are put on by hand too. With the tour, I got a mojito and free tastes of their rum (flavors: original, lime, Thai sweet basil, cinnamon, Keifer lime, lemongrass.) I got the original, cinnamon, and lime down before I was pretty done with drinking rum straight, although I will admit it was much smoother and easier going down than any Ron Diaz I’ve ever had! I’m officially 21 in the states so here are my celebratory drinks.

The distillery arranged a taxi driver back to my hostel for me, and she was an incredibly sweet young mom who wanted to talk the entire way about why I was there and where I was from and what I was doing and how her son doesn’t like speedboats and more. For the rest of the night, I chilled at the cafe in the hostel and drank a beer and read my book, and although I may not have gotten the typical Phuket experience, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

My flight the next morning was at 5:30 am, and it could take almost an hour to get to the airport. No matter how many times I explained I was only flying to Bangkok, everyone thought I was going back to the U.S., so I ended up getting a taxi to pick me up at 3 a.m., even knowing this would give me way too much time at the airport for a domestic flight. I was unhappy to wake up so early because my bed at this hostel was so comfortable, but even in the middle of the night, my taxi driver gave me a big smile and wave when I stepped out of my hostel. He had the trunk open and ready for my luggage and laughed when I showed him all I had was a small backpack. And although I would’ve been satisfied driving in silence or even taking a little nap, my driver wanted to chat! And he chatted my ear off in wonderfully broken English the whole way to the airport. I felt bad not being able to give him a tip when he dropped me off because I’m sure he was really hoping his friendliness would get him one, but everything in Phi Phi and Phuket was already so crazy overpriced, including taxi rides that I just couldn’t swing it. Clear sailing through the airport, about 30 minutes later I was ready to head home — a successful first solo trip finished and feeling fulfilled as I had continued to learn tiny, but important lessons with everything I did.

Cambodia: A Lesson in Compassion

Study Abroad

I think I’ve come up with fifty different ways I’d like to start this blog post in the last few days. As always, I began mentally writing it from the moment I hopped in the taxi to get to the airport. I’m just not sure if my usual post style is right for how much of an impact Cambodia had on me. But, I’ll write as I reflect and try to find the words I need to internalize my experiences. I only spent four days here, but Cambodia still managed to touch my heart in a way no other country has yet.

Arriving in Siem Reap was a lot like arriving anywhere else. We (Gabby and I) stood in lots of lines to go through all the customs and security measures necessary, I withdrew money from the ATM, and found a drive to the hostel. My two nights in the hostel at Siem Reap came with enough stories to be its own blog post entirely, and I don’t want the craziness of those stories to take away from how powerful this trip was for me so I will save them for another time. But I will say, for how terrible my nights at this hostel were, it really says something for Cambodia because I still absolutely loved this trip.

 

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Funky Flashpacker Hostel (No, not recommended but pretty sky)

 

In Siem Reap, we spent the day exploring a maze of temples thanks to a tuk-tuk driver we hired as our tour for the day. All the lesser known temples were the ones I really enjoyed. Baphuon was my personal favorite because there were so few people there and the restrictions of where you could explore were basically nonexistent. The view from the top was incredible and it felt the most authentic with fewer distractions from large tour groups. I’m not even sure of the number of temples I walked through (or the flights of stairs I climbed) exploring the old ruins of Angkor. It was hot and long, but it was a great day. As amazing as Angkor Wat was, I’m keeping this paragraph short because as stunning and interesting as the temples were, the most important moments of the trip, for me, happened in Phnom Penh.

The bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was supposed to take five hours, but ours somehow took more like seven. Our bus ended up having lots of locals riding it who requested stops in the countryside or surrounding area. The A/C was janky and my seat was broken so it leaned further and further back everytime we hit a bump, but once dusk hit and the sun wasn’t boiling me through the window anymore, I started to really appreciate my view of the Cambodian countryside through my bus window. We passed home after home (usually built lifted on stilts) in small rural villages. I saw men taking care of their skinny, white cattle and teens biking vigorously down the road, kids sitting in their dirt yard playing with each other and plenty of women selling fruits and snacks along the roadside. The sunset on this night was particularly beautiful, and if it hadn’t been for the moving bus I would’ve captured a better picture. I found myself falling into a little trance just observing everything go by and wondering what it would be like if the bus stopped, and I could just get out and stay awhile.

 

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Sunset over the Cambodian countryside

 

Coming off the bus, we were approached by a tuk-tuk driver offering to take us to our hostel. He also asked if we’d like him to take us to the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum in the morning — the two places we really came to Phnom Penh to see. We knew we had the option of booking a van with people from our hostel, but our driver (his name was pronounced Sa-coon, but no clue how to spell that) was so kind and, of course, told us if we hired him we would be helping his children get an education. True or not, you can’t really say no to giving someone’s child a better chance at an education. So, we made plans for him to pick us up in the morning and be our driver for the day.

The next morning, Sacoon was waiting for us outside with a huge smile on his face. In my last two days in Cambodia, I had really begun to notice the smiling faces of every Cambodian person I met. Thailand is called “The Land of Smiles,” but from my experience, Cambodia could also be taking this title. In Thailand, I find so many people are shyer and more reserved. Often, if I approach someone, I’m met instantly with a look of fear, because the person knows I’m about to ask them something in English and it’s intimidating for them if they don’t feel confident in their language skills. I was even turned down at a restaurant once, and while I’m not positive of the reason, the only one I can come up with is because the waitress was scared to attempt to communicate with me. However, in Cambodia, almost everyone I met was excited to speak with me and even if we didn’t talk, we often shared smiles and a head nod. People weren’t afraid to chat with me in English and liked to ask where I was from and what I was doing there. Little kids smiled and waved to you at the market; a monk even initiated a conversation with me at one of the temples in Angkor Wat! If you’re like me and have the habit of looking at passengers in other cars while you’re riding in a vehicle, it’s a very awkward habit to have in Cambodia because almost all the “cars” are tuk-tuks or motorbikes, so looking around you just come face-to-face with another person — but even those moments were usually met with reciprocated smiles. And so I was really feeling connected to Cambodia, simply due to the friendliness and outgoingness of so many of the locals I was encountering.

At our first stop, the Killing Fields, I tried to prepare myself for the tour I was about to take, but little did I know how little I knew about the mass genocide Cambodia experienced during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970’s. Here’s what I learned over the weekend…

The Khmer Rouge was a communist party that took power of Cambodia for four years during 1975-1979. The leader, Pol Pot, had a vision of bringing Cambodia back to its rural roots. In doing so, the Khmer Rouge killed 1-3 million people, almost 1 in every 4 Cambodian adults and many children as well. How, exactly? Here’s my best understanding…

While fighting the Vietnam War, a war the U.S. claims to have immersed itself in to fight a communist takeover in South Vietnam (we all know this war is largely disputed, but I really can only stick to the basics before getting incredibly confused), the U.S. was also bombing Laos and Cambodia. This war the U.S. refers to as “The Secret War.” But in the words of the genocide survivor who narrated my tour that day, the war was absolutely no secret here in Cambodia, it affected the lives of many every single day. After a while, due to bombing and landmines, the Cambodian countryside became increasingly unliveable and unsafe, thanks to U.S. bombs, so they flocked to the cities for resources.

With the political situation in such a desperate place, Cambodians living in the capital city, Phnom Penh, were joyous when the Khmer Rouge marched into the city to take over, hoping it would mean better lives for all. It was less than three hours later that the Khmer Rouge began forcing everyone living in Phnom Penh, and every major city in Cambodia, to leave and return to the countryside. This was Pol Pot’s attempt at cleansing the country and returning it to the “old people.” Not only were millions of lives lost during this mass exodus from the cities, due to starvation, exhaustion and sickness, the Khmer Rouge took it in their own hands to take the lives of anyone they felt threatened their party. Some of the qualifications of a threat were: living in the city, being educated, being an artist, doctor, business person or journalist, Buddhist monks, wearing glasses, or having soft hands. According to the Khmer Rouge, “It is better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.”  Ironically, in the end, this genocidal, communist party was defeated by combined Cambodian and Vietnamese troops. The Vietnamese troops were communist as well. The depressing irony is, the communist party the U.S. decided to fight (Vietnam) was the party that saved Cambodia from their own communist party.

This is where the Killing Fields steps in as one of the two main sites in Phnom Penh on genocide tour. When I arrived at the Killing Fields, I was taken back by how peaceful and beautiful the area was. Nothing like you’d expect of a place with a name like Killing Field. After buying my ticket, I was handed a pair of headphones and a little walkman-type device — this would be my tour guide for the next two hours. The audio for the entire tour is narrated by a survivor of the genocide. He begins the tour by stating all the family members he lost during this time — it’s most of them. Throughout the tour, he is joined by other survivors who give their own personal stories or stories of loved ones. The set-up of this tour couldn’t be more ideal. For something so heartbreaking and horrifying, it’s nice to be able to take it at one’s personal pace. The narrator warns his listeners when stories get extra graphic in case they don’t think they can listen or want to take a seat to hear it. It also keeps the grounds serene, quiet and respectful.

 

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Benches along the walkway so that visitors could sit to reflect and listen to their tour

 

The Killing Fields were sites used for the Khmer Rouge to execute truckloads of prisoners suspected to be threats to the party. While there are thought to be thousands of these sites around Cambodia, some that haven’t even been discovered or reached due to landmines, the one outside Phnom Penh was one of the largest and has been dedicated as the main memorial to the lives lost at these sites.

Warning-Graphic: As I walked through the memorial, I listened to bone-chilling stories — chemicals used to kill the bodies and mask the odors of decaying flesh, the farming tools that were used to smash skulls and slit throats, the political music that would blast during executions so neighboring farmers wouldn’t hear the screams and suspect what was going on, a woman who was stripped and raped by 12 of the Khmer guards. The stories, each somehow worse than the last, were terrible to listen to.

 

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The jagged edges of the palm branches were sometimes used to slit the throats of prisoners

 

At one point, you encounter this great, giant tree in the center of the property. Next to it, is a sign informs you this was the tree the Khmer guards used to bash babies and children against to kill them. The Khmer Rouge has a saying, “When pulling out weeds, remove them roots and all,” meaning that if one member of a family was killed, the entire family, including children, must also be killed to minimize the chance of anyone taking revenge on them later.

After killing their suspects, and sometimes even before the victims were truly dead, their bodies were thrown into giant pits of bodies, soaked in chemicals, and left to rot. Sunken areas on the ground are still visible throughout the entire site, and while the site has been excavated and many bones and skulls have been recovered and preserved, there are still clean-up crews that have to walk through the land every few months to gather new pieces of bones and clothing that have resurfaced from the pits over time.

Many of these larger skulls and bones are organized and displayed in the monument built out of respect for the victims. There are 17 levels of bones, the first ten of skulls and the last seven of jawbones, hipbones, rib bones and others.

When I finished my self-paced tour of the grounds, there were no words. We went back to our tuk-tuk in silence, and he seemed to know there was nothing to be said either. So, he drove us to our next stop, the S21 Genocide Museum. The entire ride there I couldn’t help but look at every single thing we passed differently. Hundreds of thousands of innocent victims had made the same exact trip almost fifty years ago; I was making a tourist trip, and they were making a death trip. It amazed me to see both how profound the impact was still on the society and yet also amazed at how lightheartedly everyone I met seemed to live their lives. As we drove from the Killing Fields to S21 it really became real to me how there was probably not a single person in Cambodia who hadn’t lost someone, if not everyone, that they cared about and loved during this time.

S21 was once a high school in Phnom Penh, but the Khmer Rouge made it into an interrogation and torture prison when they took over the city. Of the estimated 14,000 people who spent time in this prison during those four years, only 7 ever came out alive to tell their stories. One was an artist who dedicated the rest of his professional career to creating paintings that depicted the lives of the prisoners here. The tour of S21, set up in the same form as the tour of the Killing Fields, was just as, if not more, difficult to take. In this tour, you were able to walk into the rooms where the last 14 prisoners were murdered before the prison guards fled when the Vietnamese troops came in to take back the city. Vietnamese journalists found the bodies bloodied and tortured and took photos of each, which you can view in the rooms that they were found. The floors have been cleaned since, but are still stained from the blood. This tour feels so real because so much of the prison has been kept in as close to its original conditions as possible. As one of the seven survivors tells his story, you can step right into the prison cell that he spent his time in.

 

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One of the rooms where the Vietnamese journalist found one of the dead bodies

 

Once again, walking out of the museum, I didn’t even know what to say or think, I needed to reflect on all this. However, walking to Sacoon, a nearby tuk-tuk driver started waving and smiling at me, so I waved back. He asked me where I was from. Understandably, after spending the entire day learning about the horribly dark past of this country, and the United States’ less-than-innocent role in creating an opportunity for the Khmer Rouge to take control, I was a little embarrassed when I admitted that I was from the states. However, the man just smiled wide at me and began to flex his muscles as he said, “Ooooh. Very powerful!” I just smiled back and kinda shrugged a little. He continued, “U.S. #1…. but Cambodia #2!!” I laughed out loud and said, “That’s right, that’s right!” Which just overjoyed this man. He started shaking my hand vigorously and then pulled me in to kiss both my cheeks. This was one of my favorite interactions I had with anyone in Cambodia. It really hit me that this was a striking difference between how most of America and many smaller countries around the world approach these situations. In the U.S., when someone says they are from a place we’ve been known to not have the best relationships with in the past, like Middle Eastern countries, many American’s initial reactions are to approach with hesitancy and judgment. But here, this man’s initial reaction was to approach with love. Sure, argue that education about foreign relations might be different in these smaller countries… but even still, he was not afraid to show the utmost friendliness and compassion to me, no matter where we were each from, and it was one of the best moments I’ve had in Southeast Asia so far.

To those of you who stuck around, thank you for reading this even though it’s not fun to hear. In one weekend, I learned so much and became so passionate and enraged about something I knew little to nothing about days ago. We spend so much time focused on the horror of the Holocaust in our U.S. education that we don’t tend to take the time to acknowledge that similar human atrocities have taken place, and still are taking place, in other parts of the world as well. If I had the opportunity to travel back and spend more time in Phnom Penh talking to locals and hearing more stories, I would in an instant without a doubt. I’ll be posting more photos on Facebook soon and eventually, might get around to telling those hostel stories (we’ll see…)

How to Turn a Class Project into a Day Trip 101

Study Abroad

I have wanted to spend some time at one of Bangkok’s famous floating markets for a while now, but between my weekend trips, I hadn’t found the time yet! When my photography professor assigned me an editorial photography project, I decided this would be a great opportunity to visit Amphawa, take some photos of the market-life in Thailand, and also work on my school project all in one.

The markets around Thailand have been one cultural difference that has really intrigued me. Of course, Madison has its beloved Farmers Market, but beyond sunny, Saturday mornings around the capital square, I’ve never really had the chance to live in a place that relies so heavily on markets for its economy to function. And it’s fantastic being able to browse through loads of cheap and tasty items all in one place while getting a better look into Thai culture through the items being sold at each vendor. So, for my editorial photography project, I knew I wanted to try to capture the spirit of one of these markets. Ultimately, I chose Amphawa because I had read it was still one of the more authentic floating markets. By floating markets, I mean that the market is set up right alongside (and on top of) the Amphawa canal. So many of the vendors sell and cook the food right in their little canoes.

 

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Amphawa Floating Market

 

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Cooking prawns right inside their boat!

 

 

Amphawa is only open on weekends, so I knew I’d have to work to find a time that would make sense to go. I have midterms scheduled for next week, so I wasn’t planning on going anywhere big this week and decided it would be the perfect time to take a study break and make the trip to see Amphawa. I was texting Austin about it and he said, “Cool. Do you have any other plans for the day?” And I actually laughed a little when I wrote back, “This will take all day.” At that point, even I didn’t actually understand just how long of a “day-trip” this would be.

We (Gabby and I) planned to hop on a van into the city in order to catch another van shuttle from there to Amphawa. My photography professor had told me that I could catch a van from Victory Monument, so that’s where we were headed. However, as I read more about Amphawa on the way there, I found one blog post that said all vans from Victory Monument had been discontinued as of 2016… great. Not to my surprise, when we arrived an hour later, we were told there were no vans to Amphawa here. No worries though, Victory monument is located right under the Skytrain (BTS) line so we could catch a train to the Mo Chit bus terminal. Somehow, neither Gabby or I was paying any attention whatsoever, and we ended up taking the train the opposite direction and had to do a 180 switch around at the next stop.

Finally, arriving at the Mo Chit stop, we got off and looked around for vans. We were pointed towards a shuttle bus stop by some locals that would take us a few blocks away to the Mo Chit terminal. Once we got there, we just started asking around, “Pai Amphawa?” Sometimes we were met with blank stares, sometimes just a hand gesture in a different direction. Fourth or fifth try, finally a man told us his van would take us to Mae Khlong “4 km [away from] Amphawa.” Ok. It was already almost 2 p.m. when we finally left the city. I dozed off for awhile in the back of the van but when I woke up I was being asked to exit the van at a gas station. In Thailand, whenever they fill up the van shuttles they make everyone get out before they pump any gas. I’m not sure if there’s a fear it will blow up or what the reasoning behind it is, but at the gas station a friendly Thai man started talking to us and told us that he too was headed to Amphawa, so he would show us how to get there. When we finally arrived in Mae Khlong, we walked through the railroad market. This is another super interesting market in the area, and one I hope to return to another day. The market situations itself right along and on top of the railroad tracks and when the train comes through periodically throughout the day, the vendors just pack up their stuff, leaving just enough room for the train to sneak by, and then go about their business.

 

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Mae Khlong Train Market

 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the train come through but just looking at the space, I couldn’t imagine how a train snuck through this market! We continued following a local boy through some side streets and alleyways to an area where we could pay some pickup trucks to take us to Amphawa. I was so thankful that we had some local help because I’m not sure how I ever would’ve figured this out otherwise. In the back of the pickup truck, the helpful local Thai man was happy to tell us all about Amphawa, his family, terrorists in Indonesia, Siamese twins (“They each got married! Two wives! And had children! Look at it on Youtube!!”), and anything else that popped into his head as conversation topics. We finally arrived at Amphawa around 4:00 p.m. I was already tired, and I hadn’t even begun the actual work yet. If you ever read that it only takes 1.5-2 hours to get to Amphawa — IT’S A LIE!

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However, excited to finally be here, I instantly began taking photos. I figured that the more photos I took, the better chance I’d have of having at least five I can turn into my professor later. And through the lens of my camera, I really loved taking in this quaint, little market space. Seafood and delicious-smells lined the crowded boardwalk that weaved through the market. I was especially tempted by all the fresh, Thai desserts and sweets I was watching be freshly prepared.

After wandering back and forth on both sides of the market, my tummy was rumbling and I was little fried as far as photo inspiration. Gabby and I decided to sit at one of the waterside “restaurants” and ordered some pad thai with fresh shrimp and coconut juice (served in the coconut meat). This was actually the first coconut beverage I’ve had since coming to Thailand, believe it or not! And they are everywhere, so that’s a huge surprise. Unfortunately, it turns out I’m still not the biggest fan of plain coconut, although I really wish I was because it looks so fresh and delicious at almost every market I go to.

 

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Pad Thai with fresh Shrimp and Coconut Drink

 

After dinner, it was close to 6 p.m. and we knew we had about two hours before the final bus back to Bangkok left. We decided to pay for the longboat tour of the canals. Since it was getting later and darker, the price was more expensive because the typical tour became a “firefly tour.” We rode along the canals, stopped at one temple along the way, then, once it was dark, spent the rest of the time watching the fireflies dance along the marshy riverbank. It was cool and dark and there was a light breeze, and I was so relaxed finally. Being near the water and being a little chilly and having fireflies all around me seriously made me miss Wisconsin summers on the boat with Austin so much.

 

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Two Thai women at the temple who signaled to me they wanted me to take their photo

 

Before Gabby and I left to get our van back to the city, we decided to search around for some dessert. I tried some Mochi ice-cream. Mochi is a Japanese cake, so it’s kind of like this little cake ball with ice-cream in the middle — it’s like chewy ice-cream. I’m describing this badly, it was delicious.

 

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Mocha chip and Thai tea flavored Mochi Ice-cream

 

Gabby decided to try a Thai dessert that both of us had seen everywhere but never actually tasted called Khanom bueang (crispy pancakes). These desserts resemble mini tacos, but the shell is actually a mini crepe and the inside (which looks like sour creme and cheese) is actually a sweet cream and a traditional Portuguese treat called fios de ovos (angel hair), which is very similar to cotton candy. Walking back to the van, we passed a vendor pulling a fresh pizza out of the oven. Pizza isn’t incredibly common around here, and lots of the time it’s nothing like the pizza you find in the states (think when you’re babysitting and you make pizzas on top of English muffins for the kids) but this pizza was gooey, with real cheese and spinach on top. Neither Gabby or I could resist devouring a piece before we hopped on the van. Best decision of the day by far.

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Khanom bueang

Being even just a little smarter than when we started our journey that afternoon, Gabby and I got back to our apartments (after a van and taxi ride) around 10:00 p.m. Making it a long day with more traveling than actual doing. However, I must say how impressed with Amphawa I was! I hope I can make it back again before I leave to see more. There were plenty of interesting temples in the area and some of the riverside shops and restaurants looked really neat, plus I’d love to see the Mae Khlong market in full action as a train rolls through. Who knows? If my professor doesn’t approve of my photos, I might be back sooner rather than later! But for now, until next time Amphawa!

Chicken or Pork? Rice or Noodles?

Study Abroad

While preparing to live in Thailand, one of the things I was quite worried about was the food. I’m known to get an upset stomach often after eating in Wisconsin, so I was expecting this to only get worse in Thailand after reading about some of the differences in food preparation and safety. I had also been advised different things from different sources from “do NOT eat the street food,” to “if you go to Thailand and don’t eat the street food — you didn’t even go to Thailand.” You can see how I was a little concerned. In the end, I just prepared myself for whatever issues may arise by bringing plenty of western medications.

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However, I’ve been living here two months now (and yes, eating plenty of the incredible street food, fruit, snacks, and drinks) and I’m really happy to say I’ve felt healthier and more energized after eating than I typically do in the states! This might because of the practically nonexistent gluten and dairy in all the food products here, both things that are seemingly impossible to avoid when you live in the beer and dairy capital of America. Thankfully, I’ve dealt with very, very few instances of questionable food. Of course, I’ve also avoided some food entirely – like the live turtles you can pick from the market or the pork intestines you sometimes find in your soup or the fried-to-a-crisp-insects you can get on Khao San. But for the most part, I’ve come to absolutely love Thai cuisine.

I really worried that I would be missing Western food by this time, but I’ve truly been so satisfied with my meals here. Besides the occasional lasagna or pizza craving, it’s somewhat amusing that my mega-cravings haven’t even been for American food, but Mexican food instead. Seriously, all I want is a big plate of tacos and chips and guac and a margarita (I’m one month away from being legal in the U.S. ok?) from La Mex. The only Mexican restaurant I’ve found so far was in Georgetown in Malaysia – months ago now. I have even been searching out avocados in Thailand to be able to make my own guac to subside my craving. No luck so far, but I will not give up the hunt.

For the first few weeks after my arrival, I knew almost no Thai dishes, so when I’d go to eat my Thai friends would ask me, “Chicken or pork? Rice or noodles?” and that’s what I would get. Thankfully, I have begun to try and taste more dishes and have started to be able to differentiate what makes them each unique. But in all honesty, this is really the basis of almost any Thai meal – chicken or pork and noodles or rice.

(Scroll over the photos to see what the food is)

One thing I’ve really come to embrace about Thai culture is how the day, and many conversations, center around food. I can’t count how many times one of my Thai friends has greeted me with the phrase, “Are you hungry?” or “Have you ate yet?” It’s a beautiful thing. And I think this is largely because eating is such a social activity too, especially for students. Almost none of the apartments/dorms have kitchens, so we eat out for every single meal of the day. Before you think, “Holy cow, Mckenzie. You’re paying to eat at a restaurant every meal, every day?” Meals in Thailand cost anywhere from 20-150 baht. Mine are usually around 40 baht… this is the equivalent to $1.20. So I’m paying around $4 a day to eat full-blown plates of chicken and rice or pork and noodles — I’d say that’s doable. So typically, I meet up with a group of friends for meals around campus and we eat together and talk for awhile and have a good time. So, food is the center of my days because it usually determines when I will be seeing everyone next.

Luckily, my campus does not have a shortage of yummy and cheap places to find a meal at any point of the day. Here’s the layout:

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So the big red house is where I live at Skyview. Across the street from me, you can see…

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View down my road towards campus

Zone 1: I don’t have much over here but I do have a small restaurant under my building that will deliver food to me at my room. However, I do have to have a Thai friend call and order it for me because they only speak Thai. Then, I have a 7-11 which is very frequently visited by me. I often go if I’m feeling lazy or low on time. You can get food warmed up for you there, and as pre-packed meals go, they aren’t half bad. I usually go for the garlic chicken or basil chicken stir fry, always with sticky rice included. Although, after a night of drinking nothing beats a ham and cheese toastie. They are ALL the hype for drunk, Western food in Thailand. 7-11 has even teamed up with Lays to make a 7-11 special, ham and cheese toastie flavored bag of chips.

I also have a few small food vendors around here. I finally worked up the courage to order food from one of them the other night. I have been admittedly quite shy to order from some food vendors because I’m often wary of the language barrier. I mean sometimes people genuinely look terrified when I approach them knowing that I’m going to speak English to them! But I keep pushing myself to not give up because of it! Pointing and nodding works very well.

 

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Fried chicken over rice and some type of sauce (siracha mayo maybe?) over the top that I got from a small vendor near my apartment. Came with a baggie of cabbage with a lemony-mayo dressing – delicious! Plus, nothing better than dinner in bed with Netflix.

Zone 2: This area is called U-Village. It has a nice set of proper restaurants and cafes but for one reason or another, it’s not very popular. I have yet to try anything here. But it’s nice to know it’s available and close!

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Zone 3: U-Square. Ahh, the heart and soul to cheap eating at TU-Rangist. U-Square is basically just a large market area with a bunch of outdoor vendors who are set up permanently in their locations. But the food is delicious, there are lots of options (from fish to salad bars to crepes to noodle soup to steak) and it’s all very cheap. This is my most common stop for dinner. I can also find freshly cut fruit bags or fruit shakes here at almost any hour of the day, which I love.

Zone 4: Zone 4 has a set of proper shops underneath the apartment buildings here. There is also a small bar (the only one located so close to campus) that gets pretty popular on weekends. I have two restaurants I like a lot here. One is called Poon Poon (supposedly, named after the sound of a train whistle) and it has some good Italian-style dishes. The other is called Clean Food. I was struggling for a while to find a well-balanced meal with enough vegetables to satisfy me — Clean Food has it. You get a large portion of lean meat, jasberry (whole-grain) rice, a side salad and cooked vegetables — all for $2.20. This is my favorite place to eat on campus by far because it’s healthy and so tasty.

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Chicken breast, side salad, cooked veggies, jasberry rice and a sweet teriyaki sauce. Mmmmm

Zone 5: Another set of proper shops under apartment buildings. I haven’t tried a ton of these but you can find almost any craving (besides for Mexican food) you need to be fulfilled down here. They have sushi, dim sum, boat noodles, shabu, curry, American food, pizza, etc. A lot of these places are on my mental list of places to try when I’m craving something specific.

Zone 6: This area has a little market available on Tuesdays that I tend to stop by on my way home from class. There I can grab fresh fruit drinks or little sweets or my dinner for the evening, typically I can get all of the above for about $2.50. Plus they have some little boutique/thriftshop clothing vendors that can be fun to look through.

Zone 7: This is the canteen (aka cafeteria) I eat most of my breakfasts and lunches at. It’s right next to my faculty (in the dark pink circle.) The food here is super inexpensive (about 90 cents per meal) and very tasty! When I’m low on time, I’ll have a mug of granola with chocolate soy milk at my apartment, but if I have the extra time I’ll typically go here for a plate of rice, fried chicken, stir-fried veggies and egg for my breakfast in the morning.

Two weekends ago, I took a Thai cooking class that was offered through the Thammasat Office of International Affairs out in the countryside of Bangkok. It was so interesting getting to see what ingredients make up some of the dishes I’ve begun to enjoy so much, like spicy papaya salad! The menu, recipes, and ingredients are below. It was fun for me to read them and see how many I didn’t recognize, yet lots of these ingredients are very common in traditional Thai cuisine.

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Now, this entire post was really for my mom because I know she likes details and photos and maps and getting to feel as much as possible like she understands what my daily life is like here. Love you, Mom! But I also wanted to make a post about this just because of how different the culture surrounding food is! Getting my food from markets and small vendors and trying things I would probably avoid in the U.S. has been such a rewarding experience for me! I’m also proud to say that my spice tolerance has dramatically increased since when I left. So for those of you who stuck around till the end, thanks so much — I hope you learned something new!

 

Hi, I’m Mckenzie, and I’m Studying Journalism with an Emphasis on K-Pop

Study Abroad

After a few weeks of adjusting and settling into my classes, I thought it would be time to put up a post about how my classes are going and how they work here in Thailand.

Unlike many study abroad programs, when I arrived I did not have a schedule yet. In fact, I didn’t even know the exact class options that would be offered during my semester. Luckily, to help combat confusion or bad choices, the BJM (Bachelor in Journalism – Mass Media Studies) program here at Thammasat gave me a week to sit-in on any classes I wanted before officially enrolling. I was very strategically trying to pick my schedule to get all my classes at the beginning of the week so that I could have long weekends for traveling. I also didn’t want to take classes that would be too easy for me that I would get bored, which took out even more options. In the end, I had about seven classes or so I could pick from that worked well in my schedule.

Almost all the classes at Thammasat meet just once a week but are three hours long. So working out a schedule with all my classes early was easily possible but it does mean my first few days in the week will be basically spent in the classroom all the time.

The first class I attended was Photography for Communications. I was really excited for this class because I had never actually taken a photography class before, all my training was just self-teaching and playing around. Instantly, I was relieved to see my professor spoke English well and was super easy to communicate with. He had also worked as a photojournalist before becoming a professor, so he has tons of experience in the field. I’ve found that enrolling in the course has already encouraged me to bring my camera along when otherwise I may have found it easier to leave it at home. Some of the projects in the class included portrait photography, landscape photography, editorial photography, and a final project centered around a theme or narrative of my choice. It’s been interesting learning some new techniques so far for even basic things like balancing ISO, shutter speed, and aperture and using flash correctly, so I look forward to gaining more critical feedback for my work and hopefully becoming a better photographer from it!

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I was astounded in this class by how many students showed up late periodically through the class period. A few students strolled in only about ten minutes before the class was completely dismissed! This has gotten a little better since the first week, but what hasn’t changed is how much people talk while our professor is teaching. I just couldn’t believe it — I had a class dismissed at UW-Madison once because the professor felt like students were working on other things during her lecture; I can’t even imagine what the professors would do if students had as many loud, personal conversations while they were talking as they do during some of my classes here.

The second class I attended, on Monday afternoons, was Global Media Industries. I didn’t really know what to expect from this class, but what I got the first day was far, far from what I was anticipating. It turns out my professor for this course is kind of a big deal.

He worked for the Bangkok Post and was well-known for writing radical articles about the Royal family that kept him under the watchful eye of the palace at all times, then he was Editor-In-Chief for GQ Thailand — which is a once-in-a-lifetime position. Here are some of the pieces of fashion advice he dropped during his first class session:

“A belt is not a necessity. It is an accessory.” 

“Swag is not a group thing, it’s an individual thing.”

“Swag lesson #2: No socks with loafers. But, you must make sure your feet don’t stink.”

*He also taught us his go-to selfie face, the “pucker lips.” (more like what we’d call the pouty lips)*

So, you can imagine why I was a little confused by him. It was a little hard to pinpoint his personality on the first day: kind of a weird mix of egotistical and yet being able to poke fun at himself. However, as we’ve now had five classes with him, he has shown a great sense of humor and is a very interesting lecturer. Each one has been on thought-provoking topics for me personally, such as who controls the media and what makes the U.S. the only world superpower. The only grades in this class are based off two presentations. My first one is next week on how social media is used to give a voice to the 99 percent.

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One of the other humorous things about this class is that, for some reason, every week before class starts, my fellow Thai students will take over the computer attached to the presentation screen and play, sing and dance along to K-Pop or Thai pop music videos. Of course, this is highly entertaining for me because I have never heard of any of these songs or groups, but the Thai students (girls and boys alike) know every single dance and word. I look forward to my little lesson in Asian music culture every Tuesday afternoon.

One of the most popular songs in Thailand right now is by a group from Bangkok called BNK48. I’m attaching the music video below and please watch a few minutes of it because I’ve never seen something that summarizes all the parts of Thai culture and life so well. I’m not kidding you that this song is everywhere; I step in a mall, it’s playing. I sit at a bar, someone is playing an acoustic version live. I go to the traditional football game, BNK 48 makes a guest appearance to perform the song after the game — it’s everywhere. 

Next morning, I went to Interpretation of Current Affairs. I was somewhat comforted as the professor laid-down some ground rules: don’t come in late, don’t talk while he is talking and don’t eat in class — this was much more the structure I was used to in class. This class basically consists of analyzing current news to sort out the truth, fact, and nontruth and search for deeper meanings and impacts of news stories. A lot of the stories brought up are Thailand current events, so it’s intriguing having a way to keep up-to-date with what’s happening here in Thailand. For example, one week a Thai celebrity accidentally posted her boyfriend’s dick pic on social media which began a classroom-wide conversation on “if size really matters.” Other big news includes a Deputy Prime Minister who wears too fancy of watches, a CEO who poached black panthers, and, Thailand news aside, Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy has also been frequently discussed.

My final class, luckily during the trial week, on Tuesday afternoon, was called Creativity in Strategic Communication, which I was excited about, thinking it would be about creative advertising campaign messages. As soon as the professor began to talk, I realized there might be a little problem. Her English just wasn’t as strong as my other professors had been, and I was struggling to understand. All the sudden, without going through the syllabus or being introduced to what the class would cover, we were told to pick groups (Reminder: I knew no one in this class) and make a video using just the prompt…

“Impossible is Nothing. Love.” 

I was so confused. I had no clue why we were making a video or what it was supposed to be about. Apparently, the Thai students in my class were confused too because she explained everything to them for the next few minutes in Thai, telling me she would “translate later” which she never got around to. Another point, she wanted us to work on the project until 6 pm that night even though the class was only supposed to go until 4:30. I hated to be “that” foreign exchange student, but I had plans to go into the city and check out more of Bangkok after class, and I still had no idea whatsoever what I was supposed to be doing. So, knowing I was still in a trial period for classes anyway, I excused myself and decided I would enroll in a different class.

That different class ended up being Announcing in Broadcasting. It was canceled the first two weeks because the professor had to be a substitute anchor for a Korean news station (I think?) and then we had another two weeks off for the university sports week, so we met for the first time in February. This professor is incredible. She’s so smart, sweet, nice, and speaks clearer English than I do by far. Although this class is a little easier for me, so far, since I am a native English speaker and my Thai classmates are challenged to speak in their second language, I think I will be challenged when we get sent out to do field work and make real broadcast news stories. Finding people to interview will push me out of my comfort zone a bit more.

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So, there you have it! A quick glimpse into what my weekly class schedule looks like. Through it all, I’m happy to say that I feel like I am learning and interested in what my professors are teaching here. It’s such a great experience to be able to study what I’m passionate about on another side of the world!

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Elephants and Taxi Scams

Study Abroad

As many of you have probably noticed, my study abroad experience has been a lot less “study” and a lot more “abroad” lately. I promise, I really do attend school here — however, two weeks into the start of classes, we got two weeks off for “University Sports Week,” which I have been told is when Thammasat University hosts all the major Thailand universities for sports tournaments (To be honest, I don’t really understand either, I just graciously took the two weeks off and didn’t ask many questions.)

My two weeks of travels began with a four-day trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city in the North of Thailand. I was really, really excited for this because this was the first, real trip I would get to take after almost two weeks of being in Bangkok. Plus, everyone I talked to had nothing but wonderful things to say about Chiang Mai, and we had some fun things planned. The group of girls going included me, my Thai buddy Dew, her friends Kate and Aom, the other exchange student in my journalism program from Austalia named Gabby, and another UW exchange student, who studies at the other campus in the city, named Clare.

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Gabby, Me, and Clare

 

Things were going great — our hostel was clean and conveniently had a bar underneath that served locally brewed Chiang Mai IPA (Yes I tried it; I loved it. Wouldn’t have been “hoppy” enough for you though, Mom and Dad.)

We ate our first dinner at a traditional Northern Thailand restaurant. I got the Burmese-style curry, recommended by Lonely Planet. But, traditionally the meal is served family-style, so with my heap of white rice, I got to taste fried pork, chicken, chili chicken, veggie stir-fry, and fried sausage with sweet and sour sauce — it was incredible.

We walked the Sunday night market, and it was nice seeing the artisan and handmade goods as well as comparing some of the styles commonly seen in Bangkok to those in Chiang Mai. We all bought “Chiang Mai” style shirts. It was nice wandering the town. While Bangkok is this marvelous balance of sinfulness and righteousness, the low-key, hipster vibes of Chiang Mai were a breath of fresh air from the chaos of Bangkok. Chiang Mai is not a small city by any means, it seems to have everything that Bangkok has, just less of it– and less is sometimes more.

The next morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. The Thai girls I was traveling with had worked out a deal with a taxi driver to pick us up in the morning and take us to Doi Suthep, a beautiful temple on the top of a mountain, as well as drive us to a strawberry garden and to our camping site for the night, which was called The Campian and was about an hour outside of the city. He had told the girls that he knew of some great places along the way that he could take us to as well. I doubted his kindness, but I believed the others that this was legit and everything was good.

Right on time, our taxi driver showed up and drove us up the twisty mountain road to Doi Suthep. I wanted to see the sunrise from the top, so I ran (as much as I could) up the 309 steps to the top of the temple. We made it in perfect time, and the view was so worth my loss of breath from the climb. It was beautiful watching the sunrise overtop of the city of Chiang Mai.

Afterwards, we got back in the taxi. Now typically when I’m with the Thai girls, I’m never really sure what the next step in the plan is because usually, they figure it out in Thai, and I feel quite bothersome asking “Wait, so what are we doing now?” all the time. So I decided to just take a little nap and see where I woke up. It usually works out quite well for me, since I’m used to being the one who has to plan things and take charge, I enjoy just taking the backseat when I can and letting others figure it out. When I woke up a little while later there was a total change of scenery out the window, and it was obvious we were out in the countryside a bit. The driver stopped the car (I still didn’t know where we were), and we all piled out. First thing I saw was a little baby elephant being walked down the road towards us! As excited as I was to get to give his trunk a handshake and pat his cute little head, I was also a little concerned. Here’s why —

I had done lots of research before coming to Thailand about many things that could go wrong (and commonly do) while there. Two of them were elephant abuse and taxi scams. What I knew:

  1. I wanted to interact with the elephants in Thailand, but I also knew I wanted to do so as ethically as possible. There are hundreds of different elephant sanctuaries, farms, and shows in Thailand and many of them are in Chiang Mai, so I knew this trip would be a perfect opportunity. I researched the “ethical” sanctuaries in Chiang Mai, and it seemed a consensus to stay away from any places that made the elephants give rides or made the elephants perform tricks, as both were red flags for abusive training techniques. So I had booked a sanctuary that had great reviews and seemed to allow the elephants as close to a “natural” life as possible.
  2. I had also come across plenty of warnings for taxi scams. This includes when a taxi driver says he will give you a “tour” or take you to see all the “unique sites” he knows, and end up taking you a bunch of places that charge insane admission fees because he earns a commission for you buying a ticket.

The first place this taxi driver dropped us off at gave me huge, red flag, warning signs for both of these common issues. The taxi driver had brought us to a place that had elephants carrying multiple adults up a steep river bank, bragged about shows where 50 elephants danced synchronized together, and also sold tickets for bamboo raft rides and zip lining — and boy was our taxi driver pushing us to buy tickets. 1700 Baht for all of the attractions, but for us, we could do it all for 1300 Baht! I was so confused why we were even here, I had already booked my tickets for an ethical elephant sanctuary and this place defied everything I was looking for. We all declined to buy tickets and got back in the taxi. At this point, I guess that Aom was beginning to ask our driver to take us to the strawberry garden as he had promised he would the day before, but he kept saying “No, it’s too far away!” (Of course, this was all in Thai so I still had no clue what was going on.)

We drove about five minutes up the river before he dropped us off again, this time at a little cafe near a waterfall, at least that’s all I thought it was. I got out and got a coffee and enjoyed the view then realized, our driver was really trying to sell us tickets to go up and see the Hill Tribes that lived at the top of the hill. I hadn’t read enough warning about Hill Tribe scams; I wish I had known what I was getting myself into. It’s no wonder they keep the “tribes” hidden at the top of the hill because otherwise, you’d be able to see what a load of shit it is from the bottom. At first, it was a bit hard to tell if these ethnic groups were really living in this small little market town or not, but the more I actually looked at what was happening, the surer I became that we just wasted 200 Baht (luckily, only equivalent to about $7 USD). A list of things that made this place sketchy:

  1. There were supposed to be eight different tribes living together at the top of this hill but this area wasn’t even big enough for eight people to truly be living here.
  2. The “handmade” goods these women were selling were the exact same, tourist crap we find at the markets in Bangkok.
  3. There were absolutely no men in the village. I overheard another tourist ask her guide where they all were and he said either hunting or taking care of the elephants. At one point, I looked around the side of one of the “huts” these women supposedly live in and saw one of the men sitting in typical, Thai clothing playing games on his iPhone.

This whole place was a tourist scam, and it just really felt like awful cultural appropriation. I can’t tell you I know 100% for certain that these women and their children weren’t traditionally from Hill tribes, but I do regret ever paying money to encourage whatever was going on there.

By the time we got back to the taxi, I was pretty fed up with our taxi driver’s scam, and I was getting pretty frustrated with never understanding what was going on before I got sucked into poor decisions.  He started driving us to The Campian, even though we still had four hours until check-in. We pulled over at a roadside cafe, and Kate and our driver got into a pretty heated discussion over the original deal they made with him and what we were getting from him, saying either he should take us where he said he would or we shouldn’t have to pay him as much as we said we would. It was all in Thai, but the taxi driver was getting physically angry, and I was getting a little nervous that we wouldn’t make it to The Campian at all. One thing led to another, I don’t have the details, because once again, I don’t speak Thai, but we ended up at The Campian about a half hour later.

*Insert me listening to Thai being spoken for about another half hour– very, very confused at what was going on*

In the end, we paid the taxi driver about 400 Baht less than originally planned, which got him away from us and got us where we needed to be safely. The owner of The Campian, a retired teacher who only spoke Thai, was nice enough to let us hang around the property four hours before we were supposed to show up. Her kindness didn’t end there, she offered us fresh, cold water and free cookies, and then, realizing we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, she made us rice with fried egg and soup — all for free. It was exactly what we all needed to turn around a very negative experience. It was also a great reminder that just when you begin to lose your faith in the goodness of humanity, someone will surprise you with completely unnecessary kindness.

The rest of the evening and afternoon was much-needed relaxation time. After a frustrating afternoon of hearing lots of Thai conversations that I would’ve liked to have been involved in but had no way to be, it was nice to just be near nature and quiet. The Campian campsite overlooked the mountains of Chiang Mai. It was beautiful, and everyone else at the campsite was quiet and peaceful. We made shish kabob BBQ skewers on the grill for dinner and roasted marshmallows around the fire, it was just the relaxation we all needed after a hectic day.

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In the morning, I woke up feeling something I never thought I’d feel in Thailand — cold. The dew around the mountains settled thick, and I woke up shivering in my tent. Eager to get moving, I got up and helped myself to breakfast of instant coffee, cookies, and rice soup. It doesn’t sound like much, but let me tell you, it was perfect. Then the owner, kindness never-ending, took us to the bus station in the back of her pick-up truck so we could catch a bus back into the city. This took a good portion of the morning into the afternoon.

Once checked into our new hostel, Gabby, Clare and I decided to walk to a museum called Art in Paradise. It was not at all what I expected! It was an interactive, augmented-reality art museum that required an app and a smartphone to view the exhibits as animations. It ended up being a really good way to pass a couple of hours, and although it was a bit ridiculous, we had fun with it. However, for how innovative of an idea it seemed to be, the actual execution could use some smoothing out. The app didn’t always work and the augmented reality usually didn’t usually look convincing, but we had a good time with it nonetheless.

The next day was where most of my excitement for this trip lay — Clare, Gabby and I were finally going to see the elephants! Our shuttle service picked us up from our hostel around 7 am and drove us all the way to our camp, about 1.5 hours away. We shared our shuttle (back of a truck with benches) with some fantastic people! An architect and surgeon couple from NYC, two women from South Africa that worked as a freelance art director and a teacher in South Korea, and a woman from Vancouver who was a freelance graphic designer. We talked the whole way up and back which helped pass the time well.

Once we got to camp No. 9, where we would be spending our half-day excursion, we were given colorful smocks to wear so the elephants would recognize us as friendly places to get fed. Soon enough, here the elephants came running towards us. We got to feed them banana after banana from these giant baskets. The older elephants could eat them whole, but you had to peel them for the little guys. They were so sweet and gentle, and I was already loving the experience.

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After bananas, we got to cross over the little, wooden fence to be with the elephants. Then we got to take our pictures, of course, while they ate their bamboo leaves. After a short water and coffee break, we walked with the elephants down to the pond to take a swim and then gave them a mud bathe, which we were told is to help protect the elephants’ skin.

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Note: I will post a Go-Pro video of all of this to Facebook once I get it edited and uploaded, unfortunately, WordPress won’t let me add videos to my posts without paying extra.

I think the best part of the experience was watching the full-time workers (called mahouts) interact with the elephants. I only saw compassion and joy from each of the mahouts that spent the day with us. Of course, every person has a different opinion on if these “sanctuaries” are truly ethical or not. Some people believe all animals should not live anywhere but in their natural, wild habitat, others believe it’s a sustainable and healthy option to give elephants safe places to live that protect them from game-hunters. The mahouts explained that they think what they do is good because many farmers will shoot elephants for destroying their crops and fields. They also explained that many of the elephants are rescued from the logging industry, where they endured years of tough and abusive work. I don’t think I have enough information to come to a conclusion on what’s best for elephants in Thailand and much of the information available online has an obvious bias, but it did make me happy to feel the people working with the elephants every day really cared for them, and vice versa. Honestly, the babies showed much more affection and comfort with some of the full-time workers than with any of the tourists. And, if an elephant wasn’t feeling like being around all of us, the mahouts let the elephant wander off into the jungle, away from us if that’s what it wanted to do. I was given no red flags based on how our guides treated the elephants at our camp, and so it made me much more comfortable enjoying myself with the amazing creatures as well.

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Unfortunately, after a basic but tasty lunch, it was time to say goodbye to our new friends (elephants and humans). The shuttle service provided by the sanctuary was kind enough to drop Gabby, Clare and I off at the Chiang Mai International Airport, where we would be catching our flight to Singapore in exactly two hours time. I was even lucky enough to somehow score the first row on the flight (hello, legroom!) — check back in soon, Singapore’s blog post is next!

Some Serious Monkey Business…

Study Abroad

Last Saturday, a few exchange students and I decided to take a day trip to Lop Buri, Thailand, otherwise known as ‘Monkey City.’ The day was wild from start to finish.

I woke up initially thinking I would order a Grab (like Uber) to take me from my apartment to the train station. It was going to be expensive (in Thai standards) but it would be convenient. The first few attempts, no drivers accepted my request. Finally, on the third try, a driver accepted my ride request. A minute or two later I received a call from him, but he kept speaking Thai to me. I think he was trying to ask me to go to a café so that he could pick me up but I really had no clue. I decided it would be best to just cancel the request and take a cheaper van from the shuttle station into the city instead, then get a taxi to take me to train station. In all this time, I kept kicking myself for not calculating ‘mishap’  time into my travel plans. Now all the vans from Rangsit into Bangkok have been the most efficient, fast, and cheap ways to get into the city. However, in order for the van to leave the station, it must be full. And the van will not leave until all the tickets are bought. So, sitting at the van station I waited another 30 minutes as people slowly streamed in to buy their tickets. At this point, I’m calculating if there’s any possibility I am going to make this train at all – the chances are slim.

Luckily for me, the train left an hour later than expected, so I made it to the station with time to spare. I approached the ticket booth and asked for a ticket to “Lopburi at 9:25.” The ticket man replied, “Oooooh, Lop-ah-buri at 9:20. Ok!” Thinking that the 5 minutes probably didn’t really make a difference (it’s called Thai time, a few minutes never matter), I told him yes. Walking back to my friends, I was finally ready to go after a stressful morning. Then I looked at my ticket. Apparently, I had bought a ticket to Ratchaburi at 9:20. Thankfully, the ticket was easy to exchange for the correct one, but I did have to show a picture of where I was trying to go. The dialogue went something like this…

Me: “I’m sorry. I was trying to go to ‘Lap-buri,’ not ‘Ratchaburi.’”
Ticket man: “Same place, same place.”
Me: “But they are different trains at different times? *Showing him my phone with ‘Lopuri’ googled.*
Him: “Yes, same place.”
Me: “No, Lap-buri.”
Him: *Looks at my phone* “Oooooh, Loopeburi! Oh!”

Apparently, what I was saying sounded a lot more like Ratchaburi than Lopburi. It’s also apparent that I really need to work on my Thai language skills…

Finally, on the train, we had three hours to Lopburi. It was a beautiful train ride and it felt nice to get further and further away from the city. Upon arriving in the town, we were greeted by a giant statue of a monkey– obviously, the town really embraces their claim to fame.

We decided to wander the city a bit and spotted the first pair of monkeys on the roof of a little, local restaurant. Excited tourists as we are, we stopped in the middle of the street to take photos. The monkeys, obviously excited in return, began humping each other. It was not the last time we got to see the circle of life up close and personal during the day. Walking around the small town, there are monkeys (macaques) on every roof, railing, sidewalk, and anywhere else you turn your head. The tiny ones (the cutest but also the most mischievous) were not afraid to climb on you to get a better look. They want to open your backpack or pull your hair or try to grab your sunglasses or anything else that looks fun to them, so you have to stay on red alert monkey-watch at all times.

The monkeys truly rule this town, and it was hard to imagine how different daily life must be for people who live here permanently. Yes, it’s about the only thing that attracts tourists to the city, but these little buggers are everywhere! And they definitely have no respect for personal boundaries, especially if food is involved. All of the store owners keep wooden sticks with them so that they can shoo-away the nuisances, the owner of a crepe stand we stopped at had a slingshot one her to warn away any hungry macaques. Yet other than the necessary forms of protection, no one seems particularly bothered by them.

The town is subject to the monkeys. Instead of relocation or population-reducing efforts (that I can see), the town feeds the monkeys regularly in order to keep them contained. They even hold a whole festival/feast for the monkeys in November. Most of the monkey population hangs around the old, abandoned temple, Phra Prang Sam Yot, where they know they will have the best access to food and tourists’ personal belongings.

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If you want to see the monkeys here with no risk of having one jump on your shoulder and pick you for bugs, then you must go inside the temple, which is kept monkey-free by big gates that block all of the doors and windows. Inside the temple you can watch the monkeys or see the ruins of this old building, including the eerie, beheaded Buddha statues (presumably from the Burmese army’s raid on the nearby former-capitol of Ayutthaya in 1767?) In Lopburi, the humans are in cages and the monkeys watch from outside. I wouldn’t want to be around if these monkeys ever stopped being fed, you really wouldn’t believe the number of monkeys here! And, as I mentioned before, they are constantly reproducing…

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It was an experience that I’m still not sure exactly how to feel about. It was tons of fun, and I laughed harder than I have in awhile observing each of the monkeys’ different personalities, but I also left feeling like I desperately needed a shower. One of the exchange students who was with us got a small bite on his hand and as a safety precaution now has to get the rabies vaccines. The monkeys eat and drink food that is obviously not a traditional diet; I watched one chug an entire bottle of Coca-cola (yes, he/she belched after), but they all seem well-fed and not to be starving. It was a pretty constant debate of, “is this right or not?” I haven’t come to a solid conclusion, but in the end, who am I to make the final decision.

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My Feet are Blistered, but My Heart is Happy

Study Abroad

It’s been a whole week now in Thailand! The past seven days felt like both the longest and fastest week of my life. Between brief periods of frustration, confusion, and homesickness, I have found amazing moments of wonder, beauty, love and joy. Luckily, in the words of Lin Manuel Miranda, “Ev’ry action has its equal, opposite reactions,” and with every negative situation, there has been a counter positive to focus on.

With that, here are this week’s ups and downs:

1. Down:
I found out I would be living and studying on a campus 40-75 minutes from the heart of Bangkok because this is where the school of Journalism and Mass Communication is located at Thammasat University. Only one other exchange student is living on the campus with me as most international student study at Tha Prachan in Bangkok, so I was bummed to not be living close to all the other international students and afraid of feeling isolated living so far away.

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Up:
The other international student on my campus is a fantastic person and is studying journalism with me! Also, living on the Rangsit campus has given me the opportunity to become friends with Thai students.

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Rangsit Center is massive and vastly different than Tha Prachan (the campus in Bangkok), so I get a nice balance of city and “countryside” life when I visit the city to do fun things. For example, on Rangsit, there are trees, canals, and lots of wildlife, including the Varanus Salvador, or Asian water monitor.

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(Note: the picture of this is from the internet, although I did encounter one on my walk the other day, I had a mini heart attack so I couldn’t snap a photo of one in person [yet]. I have been informed, “Don’t touch it!” It seems that they are not friendly creatures…)

 

2. Down:
I discovered that the immigration officer at the airport gave me the wrong stay on my passport. So, instead of 90 days in the country, I got stamped for 30 despite having everything correct on my visa. This means I must take a trip to the Immigration Office in Bangkok and figure out how to make sure I can study in the country without being an illegal immigrant, which sounds like it could be a long day with lots of frustration.

Up:
I learned this from a very helpful, Thammasat University orientation day, and I’m beyond thankful I was informed to even check the stamp in my passport at all because I’m not sure I would’ve realized it was wrong until it was too late otherwise!

 

3. Down:
Many of the menus (particularly around my campus) are written in Thai only, so ordering for myself can be quite the challenge…

With that, the language barrier, in general, has been harder to work around than I expected. This can especially be an issue when using transportation services because it’s hard to explain where I want to go.

Up:
The food is so, so good so it’s worth the extra innovative effort. I’ve learned to take a photo of what I want to order if they have menus on the wall with pictures or go out with Thai friends so that they can help you figure out what to get. Plus, I have never had a problem finding food when hungry – there are restaurants everywhere.

 

Photo 1: Orange juice and Iced latte
Photo 2: Gai Ped Med Ma Muang (Chicken, cashews, green peppers, onions, dried chiles and sticky rice)
Photo 3: Vietnamese Noodle Bowl with Pork

I have been doing a lot of walking (hence the title of this blog post) which allows me to discover and stumble upon lots of other little places on my way from point A to point B. I’ve also been able to try lots of different transportation modes: van, shuttle, taxi, motorbike, and ferry. Still to try: train, tuk-tuk, skytrain, songthaew. When I do figure out how to get somewhere, it’s great. Some of my favorite places I’ve visited so far are Chatuchak Weekend Market and Wat Ratchanatdaram.

 

 

4. Down:
I really miss my family, my pets, Austin and my family.

Up:
My texting and data plan has been working great so far with 4G everywhere I’ve needed it (so far only been around the city, so hoping it’s good further away when traveling too). This allows me to stay connected with the people I love and eases the strain of me being away. Plus, Austin is working on getting a plane ticket to come here at the end of my semester so that we can travel together for a little over a week and come home together. Having that to look forward to makes it much easier!

Other ups: I have settled into an apartment! It is spacious, has a nice shower, a fitness center and pool, really hard beds, and I share it with these little white geckos (Chingchok lizards) that I only see occasionally. It is supposed to be good luck if you find them in your house, plus they eat mosquitos, so I’m going to get along with them.

If you want to try to send me any mail for whatever reason, my new address is:

Mckenzie Halling
88/38 Sky View @TU, 5108
Klong Neung, Klong Loung
Pathumthani 12120
Thailand

Today, I start school and with that, I expect a whole new set of ups and downs. But I am truly in a place of comfort, and I am happy to officially be settled in my new home for the next five months. I am so excited to plan adventures and start seeing the Southeastern part of the world!

 

Ringing in the New Year

Study Abroad, Uncategorized

Two days before I left, my mom and I went shopping to get the odds and ends I still needed before I left. I was scatterbrained all day trying to sort my thoughts into lists:

1. what needs to be done right now
2. what needs to be done before I leave
3. what needs to be worried about when the time comes.

A little overwhelmed by the time we got home, my mom asked me what my mantra has been to keep me pushing, even when I feel scared or exhausted trying to plan for living in a new country for the next half of a year. Honestly, I can’t say that I’ve had one. Studying abroad never felt like a decision to me; it was just something I knew I needed to do. There was no choice involved – when I went to college it was instantly part of the four-year plan and now the time simply had just come. I’m not sure what it is in me that seems to know this is what I need to do, but I hope I’m listening to it correctly, and I hope I understand it by the end. My mom, Austin and I watched Moana the next night, and oh you can imagine how much she loved the symbolism there – going beyond the reef and listening to the voice inside of you that tells you what you need to do (See tweet).

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Although I prepared myself for feeling sad leaving my parents, my puppy and Austin behind at the airport, I didn’t think it would be as terrifying as it was to walk away and in doing so, know I was committing to living for five and half months in a completely unknown place, virtually all alone.  The entire first (15 hour) leg of my journey I couldn’t even think about my goodbyes without feeling a lump in my throat and a prickle in my nose – the old familiar signs of my pride doing everything it can to not cry in a public place (I failed, multiple times to contain this).

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But it wasn’t all sadness I was feeling. I think my ability to cry at the drop of a pin was because of all the overwhelming emotions. This was going to be the biggest change I’d ever made in my life. Sure, college was huge, but Austin and my family were never far away, and Madison was always familiar. I’ve never considered myself a person who needs familiar. I enjoy change and the excitement that comes with “new.” And so I am embracing this change for all it is and trying to remind myself that the good and bad both will become memories and help shape me into a better (at the very least in the sense of understanding more of the world) version of myself.

Yet, adjustable and ready for adventure as I am, I have been quite emotional since my final hugs. So, using my travel neck pillow (Thanks, Auntie C-rae!) as a blockade from me and anyone sitting around me on my first flight, I went through a pack of kleenex watching the movie New Year’s Eve (I know, it was pathetic.) At one point, one of the many main characters gives possibly the cheesiest, most stereotypical rom-com speech, but unauthentic as it was, it gave me some good perspective on the symbolism of me starting this journey on New Year’s.

Quote from New Year’s Eve: “And as you all can see, the ball has stopped half way to its perch. it’s suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop, and reflect on the year that has gone by, to remember both our triumphs and our missteps, our promises made and broken, the times we opened ourselves up to great adventures… or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt, because that’s what new year’s all about, getting another chance, a chance to forgive. to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more, and to stop worrying about what if… and start embracing what will be. so when that ball drops at midnight, and it will drop, let’s remember to be nice to each other, kind to each other, and not just tonight but all year long.”

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That being said, I started my journey at 12:20 a.m. on December 31st, understanding that as I traveled across the world, from Chicago to Taipei to Bangkok, I would get to celebrate New Year’s Eve multiple times from my airplane in the sky.

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This truly is as new of a beginning as one can get for the New Year. And what better opportunity to actually follow through on some New Year’s resolutions than forcing myself to because I’m literally flipping my entire world upside down? Starting this trip, and this new year, here are my resolutions to myself and to those around me (plus, now their public so I really have to follow through)

  1. Be Patient and Be Gentle
    I will soon be living in a culture that is much slower paced in everyday lifestyle than we are in America. I will also be challenged (as I already have been) by not knowing everything and therefore not being able to anticipate or plan every moment of my day. I remind myself daily already to be more patient. Dating Austin has reminded me how important this is because he has unending patience with me, and I need to remind myself often to return this favor. I hope this time will help me find that patience to deal with frustration in better ways than just being, well, frustrated.
  2. Embrace Uncertainty
    Somewhat similar to the first one, but also different. I am my mom’s daughter and my grandpa’s granddaughter– I am a planner, and I am a list-maker. College has made me worse (or better?) than ever at this because I am forced to in order to stay on top of the many responsibilities I’ve decided to take on. However, I will not be able to know everything while living in Thailand, and it’s important I don’t let that bring me down, defeat me or make me feel bad (not even when the Thai sim card saleswoman loses [or gives away?] my real U.S. sim card.) So, I want to embrace these uncontrollable situations as opportunities to learn or experience instead of as failures.
  3. Be a better friend, daughter, and girlfriend.
    Not being able to see those I love will force me to be more attentive and focused when I can talk. I know already that missing everyone who means so much to me will help me appreciate those in my life so much more, I just want to be able to communicate and express that appreciation better for those who have been there for me. The time difference will be added challenge…

 

New Year, New Me has seriously never been so true.

Special note for Austin Powell, if you’re reading this: Happy 2018!! I miss ya. Can’t wait to make it a good one with you (: