The disclaimer is that most of this are just first impressions and could be extremely inaccurate. I just wrote what I was thinking and didn’t really revise it that much so there could be many incorrect observations and grammatical errors. 

Well, it started off as a first week review, but it took me over 2 weeks to put online… but anywhere… here it is… It starts off with a day to day summary of what was interesting and then there is some general information at the end.

Enjoy!



Sunday:
I went to breakfast with my family and saw 2 of my elementary school teachers at the same restaurant. One of them actually remembered my name so I was quite impressed. In addition, one of them will be in thailand for the month of july so I got his email address since he is a frequent visitor to thailand and probably knows the country pretty well.

Then at LAX in the international terminal when I was about to check in, I ran into Theresa who is a friend of mine from Spain. It turned out she was on my flight and heading to Southern India to teach for a month. When she returns she will have a full-day layover in Bangkok so I think we are planning on meeting up then.

The flight wasn't too bad, the guy sitting next to me was going to high school in Rancho Cucamungo and was from Thailand so I got to ask him some questions and he tried to helped me out with some of my thai pronunciation.

Monday (night):
Nothing too much since I landed at 11am at night. There were some people to pick me up who took me to spend the night at the King Monkut University dorms.

Tuesday:
I was told that that people here are pretty on time, but my employer's assistant was about 45 minutes late to pick me up to take me to work. It wasn't too bad since I was about 15 minutes late and passed the time talking to a portuguese girl who was also with the same progam that arranged my exchange. It turns out that the program that aranged this, IAESTE (part of AIPT - www.aipt.org), is actually a fairly big
international internship exchange program because I am one of the few americans in the program here. So far the other people I have met in the program are from Iceland, Poland, Mongolia, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, Norway, and Germany. There is another student coming to work with me in about a month who is from Oman as well.

I met my boss for a bit and then he took me out for lunch before we headed back to the office. He gave me some manuals and documentation to read for training.

Since I am staying with him, he took me home after work. He seems like a pretty wealthy guy. He owns 70% of the business, drives a Volvo S80, owns 3 homes in bangkok and 1 outside of bangkok.

He took me out for some Thai dinner which consisted of a soup that we made with stuff that we orderred (kinda like korean hotpot I think...) and it came with some really good japanese sauce (suki-yaki). Along with the food we had some local beer (Leo).

Wednesday:
Nothing that interesting happened today. I just went to work and went to a local department store to see what was wrong with the charger and battery that i bought for my cell phone (+66 - 6-069-5033).

Thursday:
According to Thai tradition every year they have a ceremony where all the students pay their respects to the teachers for helping them learn. They all make very intricately decorated objects from flowers. They end up being about square foot big, but they are really amazing looking. Because the local office of the program that I am in is based at the King Mongkut University they arranged for us to come to watch the ceremony. They start with some prayers to buddha, national songs, school songs, speeches, etc. and then the students each leave in groups to go get their individual objects. Then they go up on stage in a line where the teachers are sitting in chairs and walk on their knees as they present their object to one of the teachers. Then they have some more speeches, present awards for the most unique designs and most beautiful desgns, and finish it off with some other songs. I asked one of thai students there and he said it takes about 5 hours or so to make them.
After that we had a luncheon with all the other students working here in the same program which gave me us a good chance for all of us to meet. After lunch I called my boss and asked if I could have the rest of the day off to go see downtown (I had yet to actually see any of bangkok because I work about 30 minutes from downtown and live about 30 more minutes away). I went with about 11 other students to Wat Pho, one of the major temples downtown. It also contains a giant reclining depiction of Buddha. We then went next door to the Wat Pho School of Massage, which was highly reccomended to us. It was about 300 baht ($7.50) for a full hour massage. If you are not familiar with a Thai massage, you end up feeling a bit like a pretzel. At times you wonder why you paid to be tortured like that, but afterwards its amazing how light you feel.
We then took a public boat bus up the river for 8 baht (17 cents) and walked around the backpacker's hangout in Bangkok on a street called Khao San Road. Its amazing how many foreigners and how few Thai people I saw there. It was a bit overwhelming, but it was interesting nonetheless. I don’t think I’ll go there too often though. I managed to convince the entire group to go get Indian food for dinner as well. None of them knew what anything was so I just ordered for everyone. It wasn't too bad, but for the price of 110 baht ($2.75) per person for food, drinks, and tip I can't really complain.
We then walked around Khao San Road and went to Silk Bar and hung out for a bit.

Friday:
After work I went downstairs and shared some beers with my co-workers on the sidewalk right in front of the office. They are quite the funny bunch (pictures to come...? I am not sure...). Afterwards they dropped me off downtown where I was meeting the other students at a club. I luckily managed to get in for free and we stayed there for a bit. It was a bit expensive though... 140 baht for a beer and 200+ for a cocktail. It had decent music; it was mostly techno-type stuff with a bit of salsa and some other stuff thrown in there. Afterwards we moved on to another place in which we were the only foreigners which was quite nice. They all played all hiphop and r&b. Oddly enough, i actually enjoyed it... maybe because I haven't heard any in a while and I was tired of Thai music. We were there until about 2am when it closed.

It was really funny to see all these european people (most of the other people in the program are from europe) trying to dance because they really really cannot. I probably look like a moron when i try to dance too, but they really looked silly. Some of them actually looked like the guy from American Pie... It was really amusing watching them dance to techno, but it was even better watching them dance to hip hop. Oh well, as long as they are having fun...

Saturday:
I went to my boss's hometown where his parents and some others of his family live. They have quite an impressive home. They also have a river in their backyard where they caught fish the same day for dinner and a garden where they got the vegetables for dinner as well. Its nice to actually have real fresh food. The food was amazingly tasty. We had fresh fish fried in fish oil (never knew that existed), salted and dried fish (really really good) fried in fish oil, fish soup, pork soup, and fried chicken wings (kind of out of place, but still really good). I spent most of that day just relaxing and eating. I walked around along the river for a bit which was beautifully calm and serene. If I stopped moving I couldn’t hear anything besides the sound of my breathing. It was really relaxing and peaceful. I could imagine Thoreau at Walden Pond experiencing something like that. After dinner we went to a local gathering of people who were celebrating because the next day some of guys were going to be monks. Since they can’t eat in the evening or drink after they become monks, they had a party the night before to indulge. Kind of like a bachelor party. We just went there to get one of my boss’s friends. After we picked him up we went to another restaurant and I hung out with my boss and some of his friends for a few hours eating food and comparing Singha vs. Leo, we concluded on Leo.

Sunday:
Now today was quite an interesting day. I went to a city about an hour or so outside of Bangkok called Ayuthaya (75 cents roundtrip). It was the former capital of Siam (from about 1300 to the late 1700’s when the Burmese came in and took over) and it was full of ruins. I arrived there before the rest of the group came and had a few hours in the morning to walk around the ruins before most of the other tourists came. It was once again very calming and tranquil to walk around the old Buddhist temples and monuments in completely silence. Well, not completely silent because the ruins are spread out throughout the modern city and there is always the buzz of cars in the background. It is quite a sight to see an 700 year old monument still standing next to a modern day building which looks like it about to collapse. I met with the others in the afternoon and rented a bike for they day since they all did as well. Now that was a whole different experience: trying to ride a bike alongside crazy Thai drivers without killing ourselves. To make things even more confusing, they drive on the left side of the road here… That was quite an experience. It was definitely not the safest thing to do, but I managed to make it out alive and it was nonetheless quite a lot of fun.

I also managed to meet a girl for Ecuador, a guy from Spain, and a girl for Brazil (that also speaks Spanish), so I will be able to practice my Spanish as well while I am here.

Monday:
Work was pretty low-key, but for lunch one of girls at work brought in some chicken panang for me that she made the day before. Now I just gotta get her to teach me how to make it. If not, my boss said his mom could teach me too next time I go out to his hometown. Anyhow, the people at the office found out that I can use photoshop, so they had me design a cd label for them that they are going to get printed to give to their clients.
After work I went with my boss to a dinner with some of his clients at a really nice golf course in the outskirts of Bangkok. It is called Alpine Golf Course and they usually host the Johnny Walker Classic every year. It looked like a hotel when you walked in and the course itself looked gorgeous. They had a bunch of pictures up of a bunch of American golfers that had golfed there. I didn’t really know any of them except for Tiger Woods. After stuffing myself with the great food there, I went with my boss to hang out with his clients at some other restaurants where we proceded to eat even more food. Its very impolite to refuse so I had to join in even though I was quite full.

Tuesday:
The girl brought panang for me again! Mmmm…. Anyhow, I needed some more clothes so I went to their version of a mall which was a large Macy’s-style department store on top with a giant asian-style food court & market underneath. I overpaid a little bit for Thai standards but in dollars its negligible and since I can wear these clothes again in the states its all good. While they were tailoring my pants to my length I grabbed some Japanese teppenyaki in the food court.

Wednesday:
After work I went to meet up some of the students who were living at the dorms at King Monkut University at their place since my boss was going there anyhow for a meeting. There we all decided to go to Chinatown for dinner, but we got there late so it was just the street food and bad tourist Chinese food that was open. I want to go back a bit earlier and give it a second chance because I am sure they have better food there.

Thursday:
I actually had some real work! We went to a factory where some of our products are installed and I had check to make sure everything was connected properly or if it wasn’t what was wrong. Then I had to do some sort of programming. I am a little disappointed with the work so far, because it seems to be more of a technician’s job than an engineer’s, but we will see how it goes. On the way back we stopped by at this huge market place where they sold anything that could be eaten. I picked up some coconuts to drink and the other guys picked up some different types of fruits that we shared.
When I got back to the office, I checked my email and found out that plans had changed and I was leaving with my friends the island of Koh Chang tonight instead of Friday night. So I had to move my day off from Monday to Friday. I also had to navigate myself home alone for the first time and then back to the bus station which was a bit of an experience, but it was a good way to force myself to learn the bus system here which is quite confusing (but extremely cheap).
Regardless, I made it to the main bus station with about an hour to spare so it was okay. After the 5 hour overnight bus, we were in a city called Trad which is known for their night market at the height of the activity around 4:30 am. It was amazing how much fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood they were selling in the middle of the night. They were of course selling some snacks ready to eat as well to fill your stomach while you shopped. I just picked up some pork skewers and a couple coconuts to drink before heading back to take the pickup-truck taxi to the pier about 30 minutes away to take the ferry to the island. Along the way we met a Korean girl who was traveling by herself and she ended up coming along with us.
After we found a place to stay we just lied around on the beach, went in the water (which was amazingly warm), and played frisbee. Me and this German guy decided to go for a hike, but of course we didn’t think to bring our shoes. So we ended up hiking along the beach on black (and consequently extremely hot) boulders barefoot. Then in addition to the burning sensation we felt tiny sharp things jabbing into our feet. It turned out there were tiny sharp sea shells that were big enough to hurt, but small enough to be difficult to see. Then the rocks got quite jagged so it just hurt no matter where you stepped. But of course were being guys and had to go out and conquer something so we kept going. The only relief our feet got where when there patches of leaves and grass, but then we didn’t really know what funky tropical insects we were stepping on. We eventually stopped at a point that were near a bunch of crashing waves and savored the view while our feet relaxed. The way back was even more fun because now we were looking down instead of looking up. We eventually made it back to the hotel.
At night we went to a place for dinner where our table was literally on the sand. The tide almost came up to the table… Afterwards we walked a little further and went to a beach-side bar for a couple hours where we hung out for a bit on the sand.

Saturday & Sunday:
Saturday we all rented motorcycles (well, they were only 100cc so I guess its more of a scooter) to ride around the island on so we could get to some of the trailheads to go hiking to the waterfalls. I was a little hesitant because I had never driven a motorized bike before, but since it was such a small engine I figured I couldn’t really go that fast anyhow it would just be like a bicycle that I don’t have to pedal. After a few minutes I was getting used to it and I felt pretty comfortable. Unfortunately one of the other girls who was on it for the first time did not feel that comfortable and crashed into the ditch on the side of the road when a car was passing. We were pretty far apart so none of us actually saw it happen, but after I didn’t see anyone catch up for a while I knew something was wrong. A local took her to the clinic on the island where they gave her some first aid which is where we eventually found her. There was 3 of us and her so we wall went in the ambulance together back to the mainland and back to Trad to the emergency room there. It turned out she had broken her nose and had a deep cut in her arm, but besides that the rest were mostly minor cuts and bruises. Regardless, she was kinda in and out for most of the day so we ended up just staying in the hospital all of Saturday and most of Sunday until she was released. The hospital was pretty nice though. They gave us some couches to sleep on in the room, bathroom kits, blankets, towels, food, and a room that had a balcony, shower, and satellite TV. It was a bit annoying spending over 24 hours in a hospital in my beachwear but it was a bit of an experience. Eventually some of the others came back on Sunday with all our backpacks so we could change and get ready to go back home to Bangkok.
Luckily, through the whole hospital experience I got out of playing this Finnish Youkah game which has something to do with throwing knives that the 4 Finnish guys we all insisted we played to experience some Finnish culture. It was the Finnish Midsummer holiday that weekend and apparently they traditionally play this game every year at this time, but I had no intentions of joining. 

Monday:
I woke up Monday morning at 7:30am and my boss had already left the house which was quite a surprise because we usually leave around 8:30am or 9am. I found out he had to go to a meeting outside Bangkok and I had to figure out how to get to work on my own. This experience once again proved I still need to figure out how the bus system really works because I ended up kinda lost and I ended up just taking a motorcycle taxi the last distance to work.
I met up with three Finnish guys after work downtown at this place that really reminded me of a Munich beer garden. Then we went to a hamburger place because they were craving a good burger for some reason. It was something different after two weeks of thai food. At night I took a bus home that runs 24 hours a day (a new discovery!) to the nearby mall and then a motorcycle taxi home. I think that will be the last time I take a motorcycle taxi though because they never have an extra helmet; and riding on wrong side of the road (which is normal for motorcycle taxis) without a helmet while wearing khakis and t-shirt just doesn’t seem like a very safe idea. I can just spend 35 extra baht and take a real taxi. The bus ride home was interesting though. The bus had planks of wood (2x4’s) for the floor and on the way I saw an elephant (picture to come) on the sidewalk! It was quite an odd sight in the middle of the big city of Bangkok.





General Things:

Living Situation:
I live with my boss wayyyy outside downtown. Its nice because its fairly clean, quiet, nice, and safe, but it is a little difficult to really go anywhere because there are not many busses go out there. There are a few though and I am working on trying to find out how late they run. Regardless of what bus I take, I always just end up at mall called Fashion Island where I have to take a regular taxi or motorcycle taxi home. If I am lazy and I am coming from downtown I just take a regular taxi and it ends up being about 200 baht , which is extremely expensive for thai standards, but it translates to only $5.
I end up hanging out with my boss most of the weekdays because it is just more convenient to go home with him and I always get free food and drinks out of it. And he usually goes to places that have pretty good food too so I have not be disappointed yet. He is single so he usually hangs out with friends or clients at a restaurant or bar after work.

Friends:
So far my traveling companions seem to be the other students in my program. They are several Norwegians, a few Finnish guys, a couple Germans, a Swiss, a Serbian, a Spaniard (it was wonderful to hear some Castellano!), a guy from Iceland, an Ecuadorian girl, a Brazilian girl, some girls from the UK, and some others that I can’t remember right now.
At first, they didn’t seem that cool because they just seemed like the typical tourists that run through a few places of interest without really seeing it and then head to the nearest bar or restaurant. But after getting to know them a little better I think they are pretty cool. A couple of the guys are avid photographers so we have something in common. In addition, with some of the others I can practice my Spanish while I am here. And overall, I think they will be pretty cool to travel with.
Most of us live pretty far away from downtown Bangkok (1 to 2 hours) and most of us work from 9 to 5 so I think we will mostly be hanging out on the weekends and only occasionally on the weekdays but it should be fun anyhow. I think we are planning on going to a Thai boxing match soon.

Co-workers:
A few of them speak English pretty fluently and most of the others can say a few words here and there. They are all very nice and helpful in whatever way they can be. We all usually have lunch together in a small lounge area in the office from 12 to 1. One of them just usually goes to the place next door and picks up food for everyone else. On Friday’s some of the guys usually share a few beers after work outside the office.

Food:
The typical lunch is a type of noodle soup with a bunch of different spices, veggies, and either duck, pork, or chicken. At some places they also have seafood in there. Its usually about 20-30 baht so its pretty cheap. Then they toss into it a bunch of spices to your own individual taste. They use crushed red pepper flakes like its nothing… It’s a little crazy how spicy they make it. I still can’t put as much chili flakes as they do in their soups. We also have a lot of what we would consider Chinese stir-fry with rice in the states, but it has a more Thai flavor to it.
Dinner varies, but everything is very good. Its usually a various collection of seafood, chicken, pork, or duck. If you are in the countryside away from a major city the seafood is guaranteed to be fresh from the local river or lake. And the rest of the ingredients are usually gathered that same day as well.
If you need some quick cheap food, there are usually tons of street vendors selling food from their carts. It looks a little sketchy but everyone buys food from them and I have yet to get sick so it must be safe. There are probably more street vendors in Bangkok than bar in Madrid, and if you don’t know... there are quite a bit.

Drinks:
The drinks of choice here are definitely beer and whisky. But most people just drink beer because its cheaper. Even at the fancy golf course dinner I went to everyone had beer. So unfortunately, my healthy habit in Spain of drinking wine with my meal has been replaced with drinking beer with my meal. And your glass is always refilled before you finish it so you don’t really know how much you had. In addition, its impolite to refuse when offered food or drink so I end up continuously eating and consuming in the evening. The conclusion, I will probably come back looking like my boss (like the Chinese Buddha).

The Language:
So I have picking up a little bit of the language as my time here increases. I don’t think I will really be able to make up my own sentences and hold a good conversation by the time I leave, but I think I should be able to get around fairly well. So far I can do the basic greeting stuff (hello, how are you, my name is…, numbers, food, etc…). My pronunciation is probably totally off though.
Interestingly enough, in Thai there are no verb conjugations, articles (a, an, the, etc.), plural adjectives or nouns, or subjects (sometimes). So “I saw a car and two trucks yesterday” would along the line of “yesterday, see car and two truck”. These rules of speaking Thai of course end up carrying over to when they to speak/understand English so its quite interesting to hear them speak English.

The Weather:
It is monsoon season and it pretty humid and rainy, but I was expecting much worse so its all good. I also spend most of my time in AC’ed places since the office, most indoor stores, and most people’s cars all have AC. Some busses do, but most don’t.

Money:
As you can probably tell what I have written above, things are generally pretty cheap here. I think if I just went to work and at lunch and dinner out every day I could live on less than $4 a day. Its when I start being a tourist and start to pay admission fees, check out nightlife, and try interesting foods when it starts to get expensive. Nevertheless, my entire weekend expense for my trip to Ko Chang cost about $45 including transportation, lodging, food, and drinks so even then its not too bad.

Local Transportation:
People seem to drive here like they do in India. The biggest car always have the right of way and motorcycles can pretty much go wherever they want as long as they can fit. Buses only stop when they absolutely have to, which only means when the vehicle in front of them stops… not when people are getting on and off. I have yet to get on or off a bus when it is actually fully stopped. Taxi drivers don’t seem to really know where they are going most of the time even if you have the address written in Thai and point to the location on a map. It can be frustrating at times… I have yet to take a tuk-tuk (similar to an indian rikshaw), but I will let you know how it is when I do. The bus system is a bit confusing to me as most bus systems are. I am a bigger fan of subway systems (which opens July 3rd here!) or other rail systems that don’t depend on traffic. Nevertheless, I am slowly starting to figure it out now.

Random things:
I finally learned why its good to have that third prong on the electrical outlets. Here, we don’t have one and every time I touch an unpainted part of the computer or my camera when I connect it to the computer I get a nice 220V zap. Sure beats coffee to get you going in the morning!

I guess toilette paper is kinda optional since they used to just have the Indian-style toilettes and a bowl of water nearby so we have to bring our own paper in to the office. Oh well, at least its not just a hole in the ground.

I really like how the setup of the asian marketplace carried over to the organization of the food courts in the malls here which look exactly the same way.

They are crazy about European Football (ie: soccer) here, especially the Euro 2004 championship which is based in Portugal this year.

Its kinda sad that I can read a map and know where I am better than a local. I guess they just don’t teach people how to read maps or something because no one I have asked directions for on the street can understand a map. Someone last night insisted I take a right even after I pointed out I should go left. I just ignored her and found the bus stop on my own…