Sunday, January 15, 2006
BEN'S THAILAND ADVENTURE
My China adventure has been put on hold temporarily while I got to Thailand for a 10 day vacation. The plane ticket cost $120 to get from Kunming to Bangkok and took 2 hours. Although I had to get up at 5am for my 8am flight, it was quite a nice change being able to get to Thailand without a 16 hour flight.
I am staying on Khaosan Road, the "backpacker mecca" of Bangkok. It's odd, while I didn't really have any culture shock when I went to America, I most certainly have some here. It is not however, the shock of Thai culture that so confounds me. It is the backpacker culture. I am staying in a $12/night guesthouse with air conditioning (it is 85 degrees here and humid) and am down the street from a McDonalds, a Burger King, five 7-11's (I did have a Slurpee today though, and it was great,) hundreds of internet cafes and bars and upwards of 5000 foreigners all on one street. This coupled with the Thai people here to sell bootleg cds, tshirts, knick knacks and food makes Khaosan Road quite an intense place to stay. If it gets to be too much, I can always move a few streets over.
Thailand is an interesting place. Taking Bangkok out of the equation, it might be one of my favorite countries. Thai people are a stark contrast to Chinese people. Here, everyone is friendly, can speak some English and are generally easy to deal with. And no one litters. That might be the most amazing difference to me. In China you have some trash, you toss it on the ground. Here the streets seem comparatively pristine. I've already met a half-dozen Thai who speak Chinese (because one of both of their parents was from China) so I've been able to practice my Chinese, while regaining my Thai (the more Chinese I learn, the less Thai I remember.)
After my few days in Bangkok I'll be going down south to the beaches for a few days of diving. I can't decide if I want to go to the Andaman side of the Gulf of Thailand side (read: tsunami side or not.) The diving is better on the Andaman side near Phuket and I am curious to see how much it has been rebuilt after the tsunami. OK, at the beginning of the paragraph I dodn't know what I would do. Now having typed out my reasoning, I think I'll be going to Phuket.
As many of you know, before a last minute change to China, I had been planning a year long study abroad program in Bangkok. In fact, I'm pretty sure my university thinks that's where I am. I would've been studying at Thammasat University in Bangkok, doing a Thai Studies program and learning more Thai. That having been said, I think I made the right choice. China is way less hectic and Chinese is much more useful. I also don't think I would've been happy in Bangkok for that long of a time.
My China adventure has been put on hold temporarily while I got to Thailand for a 10 day vacation. The plane ticket cost $120 to get from Kunming to Bangkok and took 2 hours. Although I had to get up at 5am for my 8am flight, it was quite a nice change being able to get to Thailand without a 16 hour flight.
I am staying on Khaosan Road, the "backpacker mecca" of Bangkok. It's odd, while I didn't really have any culture shock when I went to America, I most certainly have some here. It is not however, the shock of Thai culture that so confounds me. It is the backpacker culture. I am staying in a $12/night guesthouse with air conditioning (it is 85 degrees here and humid) and am down the street from a McDonalds, a Burger King, five 7-11's (I did have a Slurpee today though, and it was great,) hundreds of internet cafes and bars and upwards of 5000 foreigners all on one street. This coupled with the Thai people here to sell bootleg cds, tshirts, knick knacks and food makes Khaosan Road quite an intense place to stay. If it gets to be too much, I can always move a few streets over.
Thailand is an interesting place. Taking Bangkok out of the equation, it might be one of my favorite countries. Thai people are a stark contrast to Chinese people. Here, everyone is friendly, can speak some English and are generally easy to deal with. And no one litters. That might be the most amazing difference to me. In China you have some trash, you toss it on the ground. Here the streets seem comparatively pristine. I've already met a half-dozen Thai who speak Chinese (because one of both of their parents was from China) so I've been able to practice my Chinese, while regaining my Thai (the more Chinese I learn, the less Thai I remember.)
After my few days in Bangkok I'll be going down south to the beaches for a few days of diving. I can't decide if I want to go to the Andaman side of the Gulf of Thailand side (read: tsunami side or not.) The diving is better on the Andaman side near Phuket and I am curious to see how much it has been rebuilt after the tsunami. OK, at the beginning of the paragraph I dodn't know what I would do. Now having typed out my reasoning, I think I'll be going to Phuket.
As many of you know, before a last minute change to China, I had been planning a year long study abroad program in Bangkok. In fact, I'm pretty sure my university thinks that's where I am. I would've been studying at Thammasat University in Bangkok, doing a Thai Studies program and learning more Thai. That having been said, I think I made the right choice. China is way less hectic and Chinese is much more useful. I also don't think I would've been happy in Bangkok for that long of a time.
