Picture Time

So I haven't had a chance to update lately, but also not much has been going on. So I figure it's time for a picture update!

This is on the boat over to Koh Phangan! What a beautiful boat ride!

While we were at Koh Phangan Maria and I took a boat tour around the Island!

View from the boat!

We found a pony on the beach! I thought that I was seeing things!

Bangkok can be soooo beautiful when it wants to be.

The dark grey backdrop and the contrast from the water is sooo pretty!

SOOOO MANY STAIRS!

Ummm this is the fattest dog I have ever seen!

Good ol' Tobs getting ready to work out :D

Midterm Week

Hi Everyone,
Just doing a quick check in! Most because I don't feel like studying or working on projects any more for a little while. This week is midterm week! Which seems so crazy because I know that most of my friends at home just started classes on Monday! The day that I had my first midterm! Good thing for me, it was an easy test and I was actually the first one done! I really hate that, so I sat there for an extra 20 minutes waiting for someone else to finish but unfortunately no one else did. SUCKS!

Anyways, once this week is over we will be planning out last two trips while we are here! To Laos and Chiang Mai. It is crazy to think that I am about at the half way point! I can't believe that I have been here this long! It has been such an amazing journey so far and there are so many more memories to create!

I had an amazing birthday! thanks to everyone here in Bangkok and all my friends and family back home. On the 24th we went wine tasting for our Current Issues in Finance class! what an interesting day.  sudden back in Bangkok!

On my actual birthday here in Bangkok, me and 7 of my friends decided we were going to go to the State Tower for brunch. It is the restaurant featured in the Hangover 2 movie. Only I guess you can't really eat breakfast outside but up on the 40th floor or something like that. Either way it was the most delicious food ever and buffet style so all of us consumed enough food to last us the rest of the day! Seriously though... I don't think I ate until dinner around 8pm. After that Maria and I got manicures and pedicures then joined a Thai friend of ours, Marisa for desert.

Overall it was a pretty nice birthday! One nice thing about having your birthday in a different country, is that people's birthday cards are still coming! so technically it's still my birthday! :D

Anyways enough procrastinating for midterms. Back to the Grind!

Dani

Kanchanaburi

PART I:

WOW! What an adventure Maria and I have ALREADY had! Thursday night we decided we wanted to take a weekend to trip somewhere. So Maria went right to work figuring out where we should go. We were trying to decide if we wanted to take two, one day trips or just one, two day trip. After a little bit of research we chose the city of Kanchanaburi. I had no idea what this city was about but Maria said it’s a quaint little river city with loads of history! In 1942 it was under Japanese control and was a strategic location for both sides of war. It also connected Siam (Thailand) with Myanmar (Burma). One of the most famous monuments is the Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway. It was built by the prisoners of war and ultimately caused the death of over 200,000 people. Very surreal.

Anyways so besides the war memorials and history, there is an elephant sanctuary and amazing waterfalls that we wanted to visit. So we said, alright! Let’s do it! On Friday morning, I woke up at 730am (our plan was to leave the apartment by 8 so that we could be on a bus by 830am). Maria wasn’t quite up yet so we actually didn’t end up leaving until 830am. Oh well no worries! We are on our way! We jumped on the BTS to go to the Ekemai bus station. Maria had told me we needed to go to the Southern bus station. Well, silly stubborn me, I thought they were the same thing. Oops. After a 30 min BTS ride we arrived at the Ekemai bus station only to be told, no you need to go to the Southern Bus station. Well eff, Dani should have listened but oh well. Let’s grab a cab and get there so we can catch an earlier bus. We found a very nice taxi man outside of the bus station who said he would be willing to take us to the Southern bus station or Chatchachuk bus station. Ok! Little mistake but let’s do it. We hop in the cab and about 40 mins later, we arrive at the Southern bus station. We walk into the building to find our tickets and ask another man where to get tickets to Kanchanaburi. He points us to a ticket booth and we are on our way. We ask the ticket lady what time the next bus leaves and she says “oh! 12:30”. Well wait, it said on the website that the buses leave every 15 mins! How can the next one leave at 12:30?! Its 9:30!! “oh” she says, “that’s at the Southern Bus station, you’re at the Eastern one”. WELL DOUBLE EFF!!! How did we get here?! We have no clue because we thought FOR SURE this nice man was taking us to the correct place! Well I’m not going to sit around for 3 hours and wait for a bus when it only takes 2 hours to get to where we want to go! We hopped in another taxi to take us to the SOUTHERN BUS STATION!! We said this VERY clearly to him. So he knew exactly where to go. After another 40 min taxi ride we FINALLY arrived at the southern bus station. We had 10 mins to spare so we grabbed some food, went to the bathroom and hopped on the minibus. Only to wait for the thai version of 10 mins  which is actually 40 mins. Should have known… As we expected it took us 2 hours to get there and once we did, we realized all of our troubles were worth it. This place is amazing. The first thing we did was check into our hotel (an awesome room right on the river) and grab some food. Afterwards we rented bicycles and decided to explore the town. First on the list was the Death Railway bridge. Only about 1 km away from our guesthouse so no big deal. We spent 30 mins walking along the bridge and taking pictures.

Next on our list was a cave temple called Koah Poon (I remember it because it sounds like cow porn without an “r”). Someone told us that it was about 10 km away which I know from the Shamrock run is about 6 miles away! That’s no big deal! We can do that! So we jumped on our bikes and headed out. We saw sooooo many animals today!! I was sooo happy! The first ones we saw where two jaguar cubs in town!! They were soooo cute and from the local zoo in town. We got to pet them and good thing they were de-clawed because one smacked me right in the face…. Oops. Anyways along our right we saw these BUNNY COWS!! I don’t know how else to explain it, but you can see in the pictures. After about an hour of riding, we arrived at our destination! This temple was beautiful! We climbed down stairs into the caves to see the buddhas and the temple itself. There are no words to describe the immense sense of wonder sitting in front of a huge golden Buddha 20 meters down into the earth. It was beautiful. Be we got out of there pretty fast cause there were bats flying around. I don’t really like those things :D haha. We continued on our way back to the guesthouse but stopped at the war memorial to take some pictures and pay our respects. Standing in front of a beautiful memorial realizing how many people died in the war you realize that most of the things you think are important, like GPA, getting good grades, or always wearing make-up just isn’t really that high up there in the grand scheme of things. It made me realize how lucky I am to have been born in the United States and have the amazing people I have in my life. I am one lucky girl.

After our stop at the memorial we traveled back home and realized the way we took to the temple and the memorial was just about the hugest detour we could have taken! Oh well it’s an adventure right?! We are now off to get 150 Baht hour massages and drink a cocktail! More to come on elephants tomorrow!!

PART II:

Today was absolutely amazing!! We started off the morning getting the Elephant’s world by feeding the elephants with our bananas that we brought along with us. There were all 6 of the elephants just standing there waiting for us to put the bananas into their greedy little trunks :D. They were soooo cute! We spent the day cutting bamboo trees for them, making sticky rice balls for the elephants with no teeth, and cutting up vegetables for them. Basically a whole day based on what we can feed elephants. But it was super fun. After doing all that, we got a chance to swim with the elephants! A super cool experience! We sat on their necks (which is actually the strongest part of the elephant, not their back) and went in the water with them. For future reference, if you have an opportunity to go “elephant trekking” please please please don’t go. These are camps that mahouts (elephant owners) create so that they can just earn money. They don’t care about the health of their elephants or do they make sure they get the food and care they need. They work them until they are too old to work anymore and then they don’t care. That’s when the lucky elephants get taken in by places like elephants world so they can live a part of their life happy and cared for. This was an amazing experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to interact with elephants that I know are treated right and with love. If you want any more information about them you can go to www.elephantsworld.org!

Full Moon and Koh Phangan!

Oh my gosh! What a weekend! It is difficult to explain in words what this weekend was all about. It was crazy, unbelievable, and probably one of the most non-relaxing weekends of my life! (comparable to Shasta weekend for those of you who know. On Thursday morning, bright and early (no really, we got up at left the hotel at 5am) My German friend, Dominik and I boarded a plane destined for the Island of Koh Phangan. Well actually technically the city of Surat Thani where I would then get on a bus for a hour and a half, jump on a ferry for 2 and a half hours and THEN finally arrive at the island. Let me tell you I was so happy that I bought an airplane ticket instead of a 15 hour train ticket.

The day started good, got down there in about 5 hours, then headed to the beach to catch some rays and explore the island. We stayed at a hotel called Same Same which is owned by two Danish girls who came down for a full moon party about 5 years ago (I think) and ended up staying. How they did that I have no idea because believe you me, when Sunday rolled around I was real ready to get back to the city. Anyways, Hannah made all the arrangements for our stay and we were going to be staying in a 16 person, dorm room style accommodation. Alright, cool enough. I've lived in a sorority for 2 years so I know I can handle that. I mean isn't that a 50 person accommodation anyways? I'm ready. Well what I wasn't ready for was 3 straight nights of crazy partying and staying up to God knows how late. I never carried my phone around because our hotel was so close to the beach, and it wasn't worth loosing it or even worse forgetting I had it and jumping in the ocean. By the time Dominik and I reached the island, I found out that my roommate Maria and our other friend Tyson were only 30 minutes behind us. So we got on our bathing suits and decided to play some pool while we waited. Once they got there, it was off to grab some beers and head to the beach. Little did we know that one beer would lead to another which would then lead to a bucket (of alcohol) then lead to a huge party on the beach. (when I say little did I know, lets be honest. I knew :D)

By the time that Hannah and Lizette show up we were quite.... how should I say it, happy. The party was great! Running up and down the beach going from one show to the other. There were fire dancers and fire jump ropers. There was a foam party on one end of the beach and a dance party on the other. We decided to play in the foam all night running from the foam to the water and back again all night long. It was a lot of fun.

The next day, we woke up kinda early (my fault woops) and decided to grab some breakfast and head to the beach. It was a beautiful day and I was happy to get out in the sun. We laid out in the sun for a while and then decided to explore the town some more. My friend Jan-Maarten and I decided to rent some motorbikes and ride around for a little bit. After about an hour, I got tired went back home while he rode around some more. I slept for a little bit then decided to go out and find the others. The rest of the nights are all about the same thing. Once it started getting dark, we would go find ourselves a bucket and paint ourselves in highlighter color paint.

The next day, Maria and I decided to go on a boat tour around the island. We say many beautiful beaches and destinations, but unfortunately it started pouring down rain at the beginning of the trip. We turned our frowns upside and decided we were going to make the most of it anyways. It was a really fun trip and I was really happy to spend time with Maria. She's awesome. On Sunday, Dominik and I headed to the main land (he was my travel buddy cause I don't feel that comfortable traveling alone.) We caught a flight home the next day and made it home just in time for classes. It was an interesting weekend and we really nice to spend time on such a beautiful beach. But I am seriously lacking sleep so I will leave it at that. This weekend Maria and I are thinking about doing a small 2 day trip somewhere close. More to come on that!

Miss you all!

Dani

Life as we know it

Life here in Bangkok is going along fairly steady! Nothing too exciting going on. Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote! Just been living the life! Class are going really well and I'm starting to get ready for midterm exams! It's crazy to think that my time here is almost half way done! (well not really cause I have about 3 1/2 months left). But its close! Last Saturday, our school planned a field trip for us to the ancient capital city of Ayutthaya! It was absolutely beautiful and an amazing way to get out of the city. Only a half and hour away and a great way to get some peace and quiet. I will for sure be going back! I am going to upload some pictures that come from a variety of days. I just haven't gotten the chance to upload them and sit down and write a blog post. The first pictures are from shopping on Khoasan rd, which has the best shopping that we have seen since being here. 

After some very rigorous shopping on Khoasan Rd, we decided it was necessary to get some foot massages! May I add that they were $3 for a half an hour?! haha

We also saw some guy practicing for a Thai boxing match!

This is a rainbow that we saw outside of our room! It was absolutely beautiful and I don't think the picture actually does it justice. 

The pool we swim in everyday after class! It's nice to have a pool to jump in after sweating all day.

Action shot from Hannah!

We saw elephants walking around in the ancient capital city of Ayutthaya!

Just good ol' Tobs

Hannah again in front of a beautiful buddha!

I am not really sure what these are, but they were all over the place at the Wat that we went and visited. (Wat is what they call temples here in Thailand)

This was a HUGE buddha that we saw in one of the temples! As you can see its all gold and probably about 2 stories tall! It was beautiful. 

On Thursday we leave for Koh Phangan for the full moon festival!! Actually technically I won't be attending the actually party (which is on the 12th) but there are parties every day up until the actual party so I will still be getting the same experience, just with not as many people which I like. I will be coming back home on Monday morning just in time for class. I will for sure be missing class, but I think Maria, my roommate, and I will be saving those for our trips up to Chiang Mai and possibly Loas. I am pretty excited for those trips. 

Today I got a care package from one of my best friends, Mattie Sheik!! She is so amazing. She sent me pictures of her and I, one of her and Jer Bear (her amazing boyfriend) and some with me and her absolutely adorable baby nephew Brock!! I love him :D

I will write more when I get back from my travels this weekend and I'm sure that I will have plenty of pictures and stories for the blog!!

Love from Bangkok!!

Dani

Amazing Friends and Family

This is going to be a quick post just to tell you all what amazing friends and family I have!! Today I received a care package from my mom and a letter from my friend Brittany! It means so much to me that I have such thoughtful friends and family back home. It makes being away for so long a lot better! I was starting to hit that 5 week homesickness that I knew was coming. (I knew because thats exactly when it came when I lived in France.)

When I came home from class this morning I had a package, a letter and message from very special people in my life!

These are the letters I got from my amazing brother and sister

From Nixy

From my little brother Jordan. He's awesome

I also took a picture of my picture board that I have made from a pictures frame in my room. I just taped all my pictures over the actual art. 

This makes being away from home a little bit better!!

Love you all!!

Koh Chang!

Oh my gosh! What a weekend! This weekend was the first time in the 3 weeks I've been in Thailand that I got a chance to leave the city! What an amazing trip it was! A bunch of the exchange students decided together that we were going to spend our weekend in Koh Chang. It's a little island off the Eastern Coast of Thailand and only about 6 hours away from Bangkok by bus. So, Thursday morning, we all woke up early, hopped on a bus and headed out of the city. I was sooo excited to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city and finally get to smell some fresh air! The bus ride wasn't too bad, there were 14 of us all together and the bus wasn't sold out so we were able to stretch out and have plenty of room. After about an hour, the bus stopped for a break and we jumped out and grabbed some food. There was a little roadside stand that was serving Thai food and sandwiches. I jumped at the chance to have a sandwich! Normally it is very difficult to find cheese here in Thailand because it's not a part of their traditional diet.

After about 30 minutes, the driver got up and went back on the bus so we all followed. The bus ride went by fairly fast and before we knew it, we were at the Center-Pointe ferry waiting for the ferry to take us to Koh Chang! Almost there! It was about 1pm, we all decided well if we are just going to sit here waiting, we might as well have some beers. Chang beer it was! simple and classic Thai. After about an hour on the ferry we got to the island. When we got off the boat we had to find a taxi to take us to our hotel. Everyone decided to grab the first taxi we saw which ended up charging us 70 Baht each! Now I know your are thinking, hey thats not bad! thats only like $2 each, well that's really expensive when you are used to paying 20 Baht at the most for cabs here in the city. But we had no choice.

Once we got to the hotel, we had a very interesting path to get to the bungalows.

After crossing a very jenky wooden bridge, we had to get across this floating bridge! believe me not that fun when you have gone out and done a bit of drinking on a beach before hand.

After getting settled, we got into our bathing suits, and laid around on the beach! It was sooo nice. It was amazing to just sit and not hear cars honking, or buses going by and to be able to smell fresh air was absolutely amazing. We could look up at the sky at night and actually see the stars! Oh the little things in life that you don't realize are so amazing until you don't have them anymore. 

The first night we all went to grab some dinner in town and went to a club right on the beach. I didn't stay out too late because after traveling all day I was super tired. The next morning I woke up much earlier than everyone else because I had gone home earlier. I went out by my self and walked along the beach and tried to get some good pictures of where we were staying. 

After checking out the beach, we grabbed some food and then got massages! 300 Baht for an hour oil massage! I wasn't passing that up! It was amazing to lay by the sea, listen to the ocean and get a massage. I absolutely loved it! so much that I actually got another one the day after. After our massage, we all got ready and hiked to this waterfall that my friend Maria read about. It was supposed to be about 600 meters to the waterfall, buuuut I believe we walked about 2 miles. Thats alright though because we got to see a bunch of stuff! There were elephant camps, which are actually really sad cause you can tell that they don't treat the elephants right. We also saw these HUGE spiders that are, not even joking, about 10 inches from leg to leg.

Here's a picture!

These suckers are HUGE! don't get too close to them. We really have no idea if they are poisonous or not but I wasn't trying to find out. After walking for about 30 mins or so, we finally reached the entrance to the national park where the waterfall was. With out student cards, it was only 100 baht to get in. We realized that the 600 meters, was from the entrance of the park to the waterfall. So we started on our way. It only took about 20 minutes and we finally reached this beautiful waterfall!

These are the elephant camps that we saw, but we just didn't feel like they were treated well so we decided against riding them. We are going to go elephant trekking when we go up to Chang Mai. 

We found a puppy!!

Hiking up to the waterfall!!

We finally made it!

Lucas trying to do some modeling haha. 

When we got back from the waterfall we just laid by the beach and got some food. That night we decided that we were all going to stay at the hotel and lay by the beach drinking some beer. It made me think of the Zac Brown Band song Knee Deep. It was amazing. 

The next morning we woke up and I got another massage. Hey you can't blame me! It only costs $10!! Then Hannah, Lizette and I decided we were going to spend the day riding scooters around the island. After spending most of our time with everyone else (there were about 20 of us in the group) it was nice to have some time with our small little group. It was really fun being able to ride where we wanted to and for a second I really started to understand why my dad LOVES riding motorcycles so much. While I love riding horses more, I do understand the freedom of being able to go where you want and to have the wind in your hair! 

Part of the motorbike gang!

This is how you buy gasoline on the island!! 

For some reason this little guy kept giving me the dirtiest looks! he was mad at something! 

After riding around all day it was time to go back to the hotel, take showers and get ready for dinner. We went out for dinner and drinking at a local bar which was really fun. The next day we just packed up our stuff and jumped on the ferry to go home. It was an amazing weekend and I am so happy we got a chance to get out of the city. 

More to come on our next adventures later!