So I've been in Bangkok now for almost two weeks and I'm finally starting to get this blog rolling. I've moved into my apartment and have finally gotten settled. My flight over on Thai Airways was great. I took the non-stop flight from LAX to Bangkok. I left LA at 9:30 pm on January 1st and arrived in Bangkok on January 3rd at 6:30 am. The flight was about 17 hours long and it really wasn't that bad. I even ate lobster on the flight! The food was great. The service was impeccable. They really make 17 hours at 40,000 feet easy (so to speak).
When I arrived in Bangkok, I was met by Momma Pam. She is our international liaison through Thammasat University. She is great! She takes care of so much stuff for us to make our time here as easy as possible. As we were driving, I was in the zone for about 30 minutes before I realized they were driving on the opposite side of the road and the driver sits on the other side of the car.
And on a side note, driving here is insane. Far worse than Los Angeles. They have lines on the road - but that was just a waste of paint. No one uses their signalers - and it's basically just a free-for-all with taxis and tuk tuks going everywhere. But for the traffic being so bad, I haven't seen any accidents on the roads.
She drove me to the hotel where all the international kids were planning on staying until we found our apartment. When I got to the Rambuttri House, I was met by jet-lagged Abby (from U Texas). I freshened up and we went off to explore the city. Bangkok was quite the shock when I first arrived. It was dirty, polluted, crowded, noisy... I though "how am I going to live here for five months?" But after a couple of hours, I had grown to love the city. The people here are extremely polite and friendly. The hospitality of Thailand cannot be matched. And, as it is January here, this is Thailand's winter. But don't worry - I will never say "brrr." The temperature is about 85-90 degrees everyday! And this is winter?! They think this is cold. I actually saw a guy wearing a down jacket one day. While exploring, we took a boat tour down the river for an hour. But we didn't last long - the jet lag plus the heat of Bangkok took it's toll on us.
Soon everyone else arrived in Thailand and our group was formed.
The next day we went to try and find apartments. We wandered around Bangkok for about an hour before stumbling upon the Ratanakosin Island Condominiums. This place is so nice! It's a 38 story, two tower condominium. On the floor level, there is a beautiful pool that stretches around two sides of the building with a jacuzzi at one end. There's also a gym and a restaurant/bar on the ground floor. The building has 24 hour security and they'll call a taxi for you from the front desk. Also, our manager does our laundry for us. I had him press my uniform shirts for me yesterday. It only took about a day. I left and when I came back they were hanging in my closet. I didn't even have to go pick up my dry cleaning! All the rooms come fully furnished and they are very comfortable to live in.
This is the second week of classes and it definitely took some time getting used to the Thai style. One thing that still drives me nuts is this thing called "thai time." For a punctual person, it's a sin. The students show up to class about 15 minutes late and don't think anything of it. Even the professors don't show up on time. The whole campus, for that matter, runs about 15 minutes late. All the classes are three hours long. But, that said, when they start 15 minutes late, that cuts down on some of the class time. Also, the professor usually takes a 15 minute break halfway through the course. But, with "thai time," that turns into about a 35-40 minute break. All the business school students have to wear a uniform - for guys it's a white button shirt, black pants, and a thammasat belt, for girls it's a black skirt, a white button shirt, and a thammasat belt. It really isn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. The worst part is the heat. Wearing black pants in Bangkok can get to be pretty hot. It's nice, however, to wear the uniforms because we don't look like white tourists. Because of the prestige of Thammasat, when we are wearing our uniforms, we tend to get more respect around town and it keeps us from getting ripped off.
The food on campus is cheap and good. However, it's really small portions. So I usually eat about 4 meals on campus. And all the meals are the same - breakfast, lunch, or dinner - they eat the same thing. Rice with everything. Every meal is spicy. And everything is fried. everything. I don't understand how they can weigh 80 lbs soaking wet and deep fry everything. On campus, a meal will cost about 20 baht (less than a dollar). A bottle of water costs 6 baht (pennies). But, one bad thing about campus - there's no diet coke. Actually, it's hard to find sugar free anything anywhere. I usually take a taxi to campus in the morning costing about 45 baht (a little over one dollar) and walk back - taking the ferry across the river (which costs 3 baht - pennies).
So I think I'm about to the point where I can call Bangkok home. Having been here and explored other parts of town, I'm really pleased with our location. Most of the nightlife is in the really touristy areas (Sukhimvit, Silom, etc.). It's fairly expensive, however. And it's very easy to rip tourists off because they don't notice it. We notice though. But there's nothing we can do but realize our losses. When we go out, we are never ID'd. A drink costs about 150 baht (around 4 dollars). Then we'll usually get street food on the way home costing about 20-30 baht (about a dollar).
Last wednesday, two of my friends from USC (Anandita and Saran) that live in Bangkok invited us to come to a bar called the Londoner. It's a really good time - they have a GREAT cover band and it's 2-4-1 everything all night long. So last night we decided to go back. But we wanted to get Mexican food before going to the bar. BAD DECISION. On the way there, our taxi had to drive through a checkpoint. And to our luck, we were hailed over by the Thai Police. Now here's where the language barrier gets really scary. We didn't understand why we were pulled over. But after a couple of minutes we realized that in Thailand, you have to wear a seatbelt when sitting in the front seat of the taxi. (They don't even have seatbelts in the back - another annoyance with thailand.) So the police kept asking for our passports - which we don't carry with us. Eventually he started saying 500 baht, 500 baht. So the five of us ended up giving 100 baht each to pay off the police. Later we found out that the actual fine for not wearing your seatbelt is 2,000 baht. So we figured that the police just pocketed our 500 baht. Ahhhhh the corruption of Thailand.
So we finally make our way Patty's Fiesta - a Mexican Pub. I must say, this was the first Mexican Pub I had ever been to. No, correction, the first Mexican Pub I had EVER HEARD OF! Our Hostess was a lady-boy. The food was bad - and expensive. Our meal cost each of us 620 baht (almost 20 dollars - which is really really expensive for Thailand, considering a meal on campus is 20 baht). I ordered beef tacos. But it should have been called curry tacos. The beef tasted like it was cooked in the same bowl as the curry. Overall, bad food - but good margaritas.
Then we made our way to The Londoner and forgot about the food we consumed.
Well I hope you all made it through this. Sorry for the length. I need to start writing more frequently to cut down on the length.
I'll have a post coming up soon about our trip last weekend to the Dusit Resort in Cha-Am, Hua Hin and Prachuap Khiri Khan.
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