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.
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| 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!
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| I love dinosaurs |
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| 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 :(
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| 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!
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| Sarah enjoying some yummy BBQ chicken of some sort |
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| I got chicken curry and rice |
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| The 15 minutes that followed is the definition of happiness |
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!
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| Somehow more chintzy than a Bangkok tuk-tuk! |
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| Personally, I love what he's done with it |
