Peace Out Thailand...What's Up Indonesia!

Although my group and I never thought it would happen, our time in Thailand is officially over. :'-( 

Our 3 long months spent living, learning, and working together have came to an end. Thailand was incredible and I am so grateful to have met all the people that I did and have had all the experiences I had to keep with me for the rest of my life. 

I couldn't have imagined a better group. (Well obviously my friends and family would have been a nice treat!) We were all 7 incredibly different people that, under normal circumstances would have never been friends. 

He may have be trying to drown himself

Our day/night all together was perfect in every way. Many people were busy doing things during the day, so Chad, Ben and I visited the Dusit Zoo in Bangkok. I'm not sure if there is animal laws or anything done to protect the animals, but it was kind of sad.

They also tried to fit all of Africa in their small "Africa" Exhibit

Following suit with the rest of Thailand the zoo was covered in litter. Simply having trash cans in convenient areas would help solve a lot of these problems, I swear!  The monkeys were kept in these tiny cages as you can see, and the tanks for the hippos were dirty and very small for 2 large hippos! Moving past the condition of the animal's habitats was hard but some of the animals were very cute.

We managed to walk around the whole zoo and have some fun too though!

I love dinosaurs

Pretty soon I'll be back home in "Nouth America"

That night the 3 of us met up with the rest of our group including Rosie's dad who was coming to visit/pick up Rosie! It was very nice to meet another one of the group's rents who was awesome and treated us to dinner and ice cream! Rosie and her dad (Mike Jones), and us decided to split ways so she could show her dad around Bangkok. It was then that we took our last group shot in Thailand :(

Also the last Thai Tuk-Tuk ride!

Ben's friend from his internship in Chumporn was in Bangkok and asked us to meet him, so we went to a restaurant called Seasonings and had some snacks with them. Then we met back up with Rosie and her dad at a jazz pub called Saxophone. They had a live band there with an amazing lead singer. For such a small girl, she had a huge set of pipes! It was a very relaxing and awesome way to end our time in Bangkok!

Saying "good-bye" to our Thai friends Pi Paew, Pi Nat, Pi Nai, and Pi Yudy was definitely hard. I don't want to call it "good-bye" though, because that is permanent. They were the nicest and most helpful people I have ever met and I probably would be lost somewhere in Thailand right now if it wasn't for them. <3
                                                                                                                                                          

Indonesia

Sarah and I left for the airport at an early 4:30 in the morning for our flight at 8am. After many lines and waiting we were on our way to Jakarta, Indonesia! We arrived around 11:30ish but after standing in more lines and being exhausted and hot we were really out of it. After exiting customs it was a complete zoo. Taxi drivers everywhere asking you if you need a ride, currency exchangers yelling at you. Our heads were a mess. We ended up going with the peppiest driver we saw who actually ended up over charging us (A whopping $40. Ugh.) to take us to our hotel. After looking through some information it should have costed us $20 to get to our hotel. Live and learn I suppose. There were some immediate differences driving through the city of Jakarta (22 million people. More than double that of Bangkok). It was sooo much cleaner! There were not piles of litter on the sides of the roads. We saw huge lawns without a speck of trash! It was so lovely! The city itself also had more trees and plants which was also nice to see. While our driver did overcharge us, he was very good at English, funny, taught us some Indonesian (I think that's the name of the language), gave us a map, and got us right to our destination without any trouble. I guess that is the price you must pay. Our hotel was nice for many reasons. 
Most importantly A)  HOT SHOWERS.
B)Comfy bed with blankets
C)Wireless internet.
After settling in quickly, we made our way to our first Indonesian meal!

Sarah enjoying some yummy BBQ chicken of some sort

I got chicken curry and rice

The 15 minutes that followed is the definition of happiness

The grand total for 2 waters, 1 rice, 1 chicken curry, and 1 chicken BBQ? A little over 50,000 rupiah. $6. Score. Since it IS a vacation we also made an executive decision to indulge a little... Cheesecake Factory anyone?? I don't think I have smiled so much while eating something. I am SO happy there is not one of those in East Lansing.

After walking around a huge city for a while our feet were tired and decided it would be good just to relax at the hotel. After riding an Indonesian style tuk-tuk of course! It is called a banjai. While Sarah and I were thinking of offering 10,000 rupiahs at first so we could pay 16,000 total ($2), we asked him how much it would be and he said 2,000! Deal! It worked out quite nicely!

Somehow more chintzy than a Bangkok tuk-tuk!

Personally, I love what he's done with it

Well that was my first day in Jakarta! Our tour of Indonesia starts tomorrow, so I'll try to keep you posted! 16 more days until I'm Michigan-bound! <3

Random photos

Trash in Pattaya on the beach. Gross

Pattaya Internation Music Festival! Reggae band playing Jason Mraz<3

Of course I met the lead singer!

Uhh....

Having some fun at Chelsea's work! haha Cabbages and Condoms

My boss giving me a certificate from FORDEC on my last day! Went by SO fast!

Absence

Terribly sorry for my long absence, but I have been SO busy with all this school stuff. Yuck. Luckily I am so close to finishing I can see the end!
2 weekends ago I went to the Rayong Province with my work. There was a large Collaboration there called The For Hopeful Children Project (FHCP). It was a lot of fun, but so exhausting. It was a campout at a Thai Army training camp. Kids from all over Thailand and volunteers from all over the world were there. There was swimming, games, food, performances from the children, and activities all for free!
The early morning wake up (5:30am) was rough, but after getting up and around it got a little better.
One of the kids, whose nickname is Donut (LOL!) helped me out a lot! He was 14 and spoke some English, so he was able to be my little translator and help me order food and play games.
The other staff members of FORDEC and I also made friends with the Thai army!
It was a lot of fun and I am so happy that I got to be a part of it.

One of my kids modeling her new hat!

Kids swimming in the sea

Got to tour a Thai navy ship too!

Sato one of the Japanese volunteers. So nice to volunteer even after the tragedy in Japan

I am an expert paper crane maker.

Some of my army friends

Bew. I might sneak him home with me and keep him in my pocket

Som Tam. Yummm (Papaya salad)

FORDEC ladies with our army men

Donut and Beel. They got my back

Our FORDEC kids performing! Wan jai<3

Ladies and Gentlemen. May I present: Saggy Maggie

The sag only a mother could love

 Meet our favorite neighborhood stray dog. Everyone has one, right? Maybe just in Thailand. Stray animals are a huge problem in Thailand. It is literally impossible to walk down a street and not see a mangy mutt sleeping on a sidewalk or running into crazy traffic. Saggy Maggie or just Maggie, as we like to call her, showed up outside our rooms the very first night we got here. We were scared at first because we thought she was rabid, but it turns out she's just an ugly dog. She is completely harmless...unless you are a rat. Yes, I have witnessed her kill and eat a live rat once. The Thais on campus here call her "Crispy Pork". I think both names have a nice ring to them. I am just showing you her because she is a huge inside joke within our group that I think everyone should be a part of. Enjoy!

Infamous Saggy Maggie. A.K.A. Crispy Pork

Trips for work can be so stressful...

My two bosses, Dr. Amporn and Julie invited me to go South to Hua Hin with them, while Dr. Amporn met with his friends that are writing his biography. We left FORDEC on Thursday afternoon and Tony, Dr. Amporn's other friend came with us. He is an older ex-pat from Chicago who has lived in Bangkok for 50 years! We had dinner at Chantal and Bill's condo on the beach. They are a couple writing his biography from Philadelphia that live in Hua Hin from January to May. Bill is the retired President of Western Union, so I guess they can afford to do that.  Friday I spent the day on the beach/pool with Julie and left later that afternoon. It was a nice mini-vacation.

Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand

Hot soy milk with jelly's. Yum

Paradise

My boss, Julie

Julie and I

Relaxing poolside

South Trippin'

Hello Blog land! I realize my absence has been a little long, but I have been in the South of Thailand for a week :-P .

Our Trip was amazing. A much needed break from our busy and exhausting internships!

Our first stop was at a home-stay on an Island

We had to wade out to our boat!

The home-stay was a lot of fun because we get to see how people actually live and they take really good care of us. Including feeding us meals like the one above. They also took us squid fishing that night. About half of us got seasick (yours truly included) so we laid down and watched our better half catch the squid. We had to do it at night because they are attracted to a large green light the fishermen have on their boats. It made for some creepy/cool pictures.

The night's catch!

Cabin 6: We may never actually know

The rest of the week was comprised of two nights in a cabin at a National Park with our own private beach. The local rumor was that the Park we were staying at was haunted by victims of the Tsunami. Some spooky stuff was going on there too, so I think I believe it! The locals were shocked when they found out that we were staying there for 2 nights, let alone 1! Weird.

On the bright side it came with an awesome private beach!

We went on an extreme (In my opinion. It was my first time hiking so cut me some slack.) hike up through the woods along the beach. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery that was worth all the bug bites and gallons of sweat!

Our fearless leader

Chelsea living on the edge

After more hiking, we hit the jackpot.

Isn't that a sight for sore eyes? More private beaches!

We only had a quick jump in, because we had more hiking to do! Which also led us to this little gem.

I'm not makin' this stuff up!

A private waterfall. Really? The water was so cool and refreshing. We had time to whip up some classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches too!

Hermit crab holes. Even those are beautiful.

Notice almost naked man. Vom in my mouth

Our next day was spent in the infamous Phuket. This was a part of the trip I was really looking forward to. I have heard so many wonderful things blah, blah, blah. It turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of my life. It was completely overrun with farang. Old, fat, leather-skinned Europeans covered the shoreline. If it wasn't covered with them, then it was covered in trash. You could literally smell the stench. I didn't even dare go swimming in the water. It was unfortunate we had to waste an entire day there. I would have rather just visited to see what tourism can do to a place and head back to one of beautiful private beaches! ;-)

Group photo of course!

So trippy!

That night we went to a place called "Phuket Fantasea". It's hard to describe this place. It was a mix of Chuck E. Cheese's without games, a county fair, and Ponderosa. We had a delicious buffet and got to walk around to check everything out. There is a big performance at 9 that we went to see which was amazing. It told the story of the Good King beating the Evil King for the Princess.







Visiting a rubber tree farm/handicraft center was next on the agenda.

Sap

The rubber is ultimately smoked

Chelsea becoming a master basket-weaver!

Another home-stay followed! This one happened to house one of the cutest old ladies I've ever seen!!

So much willpower to stop from stealing her

We did a lot of fun things at this homestay, like take a river tour in the daylight, a Thai cooking class, and a firefly cruise at night. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

The river cruise
took us to a local fisherman village, where we met an interesting bunch.

This was mid- "Dance Battle". They performed for us, so we tried to One-Up them with the macarena.

The women here plant mushrooms, small plants, and farm catfish for extra money. They're also fans of hula-hooping. They kept hugging us and holding our hands, it was over-whelming but in a good way. We kept making jokes that they were going to steal us. Then one woman went up to Jordan and hugged him for 5 minutes saying "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!" Then the possibility of being stolen seemed to get more real. Just kidding. But we did later find out that we were their first group of farang to visit, so they were excited and wanted to make a good impression on us. They also took a ton of photos of us, so who knows where you'll end up seeing my face. Roadside billboards perhaps? Haha.
The cooking class was a lot of fun. We ended up making Green Curry (I'm not a huge fan of eating it, but cooking it is fun!), and a clam dish. Thanks to Pi Nat's awesome translating skills the cooking got turned into our own little cooking show. We all got to do something to help and then chowed down on it!
The firefly cruise was incredible. There is a certain tree along the shore that fireflies like, so all we had to do was get on a boat, sit quite, and watch. Looking at them was surreal, like I wasn't looking at something that could naturally be that beautiful. Thousands of them would sit in a tree blinking their "family light pattern" at the same time over and over. Unfortunately, it wasn't something I could capture on camera. First of all, there is NO way a picture would do any justice. Secondly, a camera's flash actually sterilizes a female firefly. Interesting right?
Our last day we went to Ben's internship in the Chumporn province. Let me tell ya, he has it rough.

He works at a resort. The work days are actually long and demanding, but he totally loves it

they're also self-proclaimed "Plearners"