Day 5: Bangkok & the "160 baht" picture

ONE NIGHT in Bangkok (23 hours to be exact)
We arrived in Bangkok and the first thing I noticed was how polluted the air was.  It was such a drastic difference from the air quality of Northern Thailand.  Our first adventure was to the Temple of Dawn.  It was a beautiful, large temple a few stops up the Chao Phyra River.  What was unique about Bangkok is their mass public transportation system consisted of several express long boats with color coated for flags representing their route.

The “160 baht” Picture
We exit the boat and arrive at the Temple of Dawn, as we walked across the lawn around to the entrance we see one of those cheesy touristy life-size pictures where you stick your head through the hole and walla you’re a monk standing next to your best friend who is now an elephant ready for your picture to be taken.  So of course we threw our cameras to some European tourist standing near by and the 4 of us stuck our face through the cutout holes for a picture.  As we left to collect our camera some Thai women ran out from behind the temple demanding 40 baht from each of us for the picture (that she didn’t take), we questioned her and she pointed out the tiny “40” at the bottom of the picture.  Later we saw that the women had a little lawn chair inside the temple within distance of her cheesy photo-opp where she can spy on who puts there head in the cutout and charge them 40 baht.
After accepting the loss of our 40 baht, we gathered ourselves and walked around to the entrance of the actual Temple of Dawn.  We expected to pay the standard 20 baht to visit the temple, but when I went to pay the women working informed me it was 40 baht, I wasn’t dressed appropriately so that would be an additional 60 baht to rent “cover-ups” and finally another 100 baht deposit for the “cover-ups.”  Exhausted from arguing over baht, we paid and prepared to walk up the steep temple.  That’s when we looked around and no one else required “cover-ups” and as if we didn’t already standout before, we now looked straight ridiculous, but ready for this temple!

After being scammed into overpaying for a few more temples we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. I had been feeling a bit unwell all day, but now I felt extremely ill and had chills. Swine flu-like symptoms and a 13 hours nap concluded my trip to Bangkok.

13 Reasons Why I LOVE THAILAND:

Fall Recess: Thailand

1. Thai food
2. Friendly culture
3. Less humid than Singapore
4. 1-hour Thai massages for $4 US
5. Most beautiful beaches in the world
6. USD$1 = 33.51 Thai Baht
7. Long boats are a common source of public transportation
8. Asian elephants
9. Gorgeous temples
10. Monks with iPhones
11. Worlds largest reclining Buddha 
12. Snorkeling so incredible it makes you bitter you live on land
13. More Thai food =)

Day 1-3: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thursday: Flight from Singapore to Bangkok, then an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (Thursday night)

I wish I could say fall recess began smoothly but in all honesty it was the complete opposite. About 2 minutes into the bus ride to the airport I realized I never booked my plane ticket OUT of Chiang Mai, I completely forgot the 100ml carry-on container policy (goodbye bathroom products), was reported as a missing person (while seated in my assigned seat… long story), but things looked up as we departed from Singapore.

We arrived in Bangkok (1½hr flight from Singapore) and immediately took a cab to the train station where we boarded an overnight train to Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). The train was surprisingly more pleasant than I had expected and actually significantly more comfortable than my NTU dorm bed. The train trip was about 15hours long, we slept for the first 9hours and had a beautiful view of the country all morning until we arrived in Chiang Mai early afternoon.

Chiang Mai is definitely one of my FAVORITE cities so far it’s located in the beautiful green countryside of Northern Thailand. All the people we met in Chiang Mai were so friendly, helpful, and happy. This was also the only city we visited that didn’t have people constantly trying to sell us something we didn’t need.

Day 3: Our first official full day in Thailand

We signed up for an “Adventure Tour” that begun with a minibus picking us up at 8:30am and driving us an hour out of town to an elephant camp. Seeing an Asian elephant was my number one goal for Thailand, I was so excited! Alexa, Manone, and I all sat on top of a very hungry elephant for a bumpy ride through the jungle. Our elephant snatched the 3 bouquets of bananas we bought to feed it right from our hands, then stopped every few minutes to eat the plants and again would reach its trunk back to us just to make sure we didn’t have any more food. It was cute at first until the elephant exhaled through its trunk into our faces.

After the elephant riding was over we hopped back into the minibus and were taken to a river where we rode bamboo rafts downstream, then a 2hour trek through the jungle to waterfall. During the trek we visited 2 tribes and saw rice fields until it started to pour rain (which made for a VERY muddy adventure back).

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The midnight meals with Malaysian students inspired me to plan a weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), the capitol of Malaysia. Traveling to KL consisted of bus, to MRT station (4 stops, then another 4 stops on a different MRT line) then a bus to the Singapore border, bus across the bridge to the Malaysian border, and finally a 4-hour bus ride to the city of Kuala Lumpur.  Upon arrival we immediately dropped our bags off and proceeded to find dinner.  I am embarrassed to admit, but instead of getting adventurous with some nice Malaysian cuisine we decided to play it safe with pizza from a reggae themed restaurant down the street from our hostel.  

We began Saturday off to an early start by taking the city bus to the Batu Caves Temple, a Hindu temple built inside a cave that sits 1000 ft above ground level, built in 1891.  I found the entrance to the Batu Caves Temple to be slightly intimidating due to the enormous (approx. 1000ft tall) gold statue standing guard nearthe first step and the fearless wild monkeys who literally grabbed food from visitors’ bags as they hiked 300 stairs to the top. 

The top of the steps made for a beautiful view of KL and further revealed how different Malaysia is from Singapore.  The city of KL appears generously dispersed over miles of flat land, opposite of its neighbor Singapore (the most densely populated country in the world).  Inside the cave we found additional Hindu figures and fearless monkeys.
 
On Sunday we visited the Petronas towers before heading back home to Singapore.  Overall this adventure was a peaceful, air-conditioned nights sleep and escape from our extremely humid campus life in Singapore. 

Six Suppers Across Singapore!!!

A friend of mine from Organizational Behavior class invited me to attend “NTU MSA Supper Hop.”  I tried to ask more information regarding what exactly that was, but he responded in a thick Malaysian accent making his English difficult to comprehend.  Basically I was able to piece together that I needed to meet at 10:30PM near the bus stop and we would be traveling around the country all night eating 6 “suppers” at 6 different signature Singaporean locations until 6:00AM.  I invited my Swedish friend Machala and my friend Emily from San Diego.  We walked to the bus stop around 10:30PM assuming there would be a collection of different NTU students from Singapore and exchange students.  Instead I learned my friend from class was also the president of the NTU Malaysia Student Association (MSA) and we would be joining MSA for supper!  

Initially, it felt a little awkward being on a charter bus filled with 50 Malaysian students who were curious about who we were, where we came from, and what we were doing here (since we obviously we were the only non-Malaysian students with the Malaysian student association.)  All awkwardness was soon gone and replaced with several new friendships.  This was definitely one of my favorite experiences because I truly got to experience a different culture. 

Meals in Singapore have always been a bit of an adventure.  Despite the fact the country’s primary language is English, their culture is a melting pot of Chinese, Malaysian, and Indonesian, so most of the food available in Singapore fall under one of those three cultures.  I am usually not one to shy away from trying new foods because normally (well in America) you can’t go too wrong, I have decided that it is possible here.  By “too wrong” I mean pig organs with a side of rice, fish ball soup, and chicken feet.  I felt a bit better about trying new food, knowing that my new Malaysian friends are recommending them.  My favorite dish was the BBQ stingray and squid.      

My favorite: BBQ Stingray