India

I can’t believe I can finally say that I went to India! I flew out last Wednesday evening and just got back this morning! I had an incredible time there, although there were some and ups and downs. I was lucky enough to have time to tour three cities, Delhi, Jaipur and Agra.  I went with two other girls in my program here Amanda and Krystal, and we all had a great time!

We flew into Delhi and toured around the city for one day. We had a great driver who took us all around the city to great sites. We saw the Jama Temple first, which was a giant structure on a hill. We had to take off our shoes (which we are used to by now) but also because it was a mosque we had to wear robes when we went inside. I looked funny but it was fun and different. We then explored Red Fort, a huge fort with many buildings, gardens and paths to walk through. It was here that we started to get asked by an outrageous number of locals to take pictures with them. It was literally every other person, and those who didn’t ask just took pictures of us. This was so strange at first, but we just had to laugh it off.

Jama Temple

We then walked through a crowded market street but didn’t stay long because we realized we were the only women anywhere to be found. Instead we found a place serving naan and ate that for lunch! Then we went to a memorial of Gandhi, Rajghat, that was beautiful. And my favorite thing that we saw this day was the Lotus Temple, a temple over water in the shape of a lotus flower. We were able to go inside and sit for a short service where they read scripture from all the major religions of the world. It was a very neat experience.

Red Fort

Lotus Temple

Next we did some shopping and were able to try on saris, which are the dresses Indian women wear. I didn’t buy one but it was fun to play dress up. Finally we ended the day with a Hindi temple. Our driver gave us a tour and put red dots on our foreheads for good luck! 

Trying on a sari

End of a great day!

The next day we left for Jaipur. I have never experienced a car ride like this in my life and I hope to never again. The driving in India is insane, crazy. People drive like Mario Kart! They don’t pay attention to lanes, so 5 cars are trying to squeeze into two and no one uses turn signals, instead they honk all the time! And on top of everything you throw in tuk tuks, cars, people walking, mopeds, animal driven carts, tractors, buses, trucks, and herds of livestock together, you get a messy road. Somehow we made it to Jaipur where we saw Amber Fort. This fort was surrounded be a huge wall that they called “the great wall of India”. Here we toured other local sites and discovered their culture apart of Delhi.

Amber Fort Wall

Inside Amber Fort

Monkeys!!

Camels on the road!

We made it to Agra the following evening and we saw the sunset on the back of the Taj Mahal. But we got up very early the next morning to see the Taj Mahal at 6 am. This was nice because it wasn’t as crowded and it was cooler. I had been wearing long pants and long sleeves for a couple days now in the hot weather (it’s culturally inappropriate to show too much skin) and was dying from the heat. The Taj Mahal was breathtaking. We had a guide tell us the love story behind it being built and interesting details about it. We stayed and admirer it for sometime until we had to leave to go back to Delhi.  The rest of that day we took it easy because we were all sick. On the second day we had all gotten food poising, 3 girls and 1 bathroom is not a pretty site. We had been pushing ourselves through the sickness to see Jaipur and Agra but now we needed rest.

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal!!

Our last day was in Delhi before we flew home. We did a lot of shopping on this day and wrapped up what we had missed the first day. Even though I did get food poisoning, and still have it, I had an amazing time in India. I saw amazing sites, ate great food, and really got a new feel for the world.  I saw some really rough parts of India and it gave me a great appreciate for the little things I take for granted. This trip meant a lot to me and if you are still reading all the way down here I appreciate it!

Bangkok!

This week I had my midterms, which were very stressful! After a week of studying and not having fun we went to Bangkok! I went with three of my good friends and met up with another girl for one day. We left Friday night on a train out of Chiang Mai that left around 9pm and we arrived in Bangkok about 9am. The train had seats that reclined, but still were not very comfy. Once in Bangkok we took a city bus to a different bus station. On the bus we were able to experience Bangkok traffic! It took us forever to get to where we needed to go. Once we arrived at the bus station, wouldn’t you know, we got on another bus. We took an hour and a half bus ride to the Maeklong railway market. 

This market here has been around for a long time, but the city built a railroad through the middle. Instead of moving the market somewhere else, they kept it in the same place. Now when the train comes through every day, they pack their things up and pull back for the train to come through. Some of the fruit or fish that is on the ground doesn’t get pulled back and the train goes on top of it, dusting it with exhaust. This was very exciting to see and thankfully this is still a hidden gem of Bangkok because there were hardly any foreigners there.  When the train came through we backed up against a wall and it passed by right in front of us. And then the second it was gone the market was back to normal! It was quite a sight and I suggest you look it up on youtube! I definitely want to give a shout out to my Grandpa for showing this market to me after he saw it on TV!

Railroad Market.. you can hardly tell the tracks are even there!

Getting ready for the train

Here it comes!

Next we took another bus to the Amphawa floating market. There are several floating markets all over Bangkok, but we choose this one because it was close to where we were. We walked along the dock where there were shops on one side and then in the water there were vendors in their boats. They were selling everything from food to flowers to clothing off of their boats! I’ve been to a lot of markets, but this was by far the most unique way of selling I have seen. 

Floating Market

Later we went shopping for a while in Bangkok before checking into our hostel. Our hostel was very nice and we shared a room with two girls we didn’t know.  We then went out to experience Bangkok nightlife! We had a so much fun that night enjoying our one night in Bangkok. But this didn’t come without some hiccups.  We were all riding in a tuk tuk and I was on the outside of us all. While in traffic, a motorcyclist came and grabbed my purse out of my lap! BUT! I was wearing a bag my Aunt Lynn had given me that had straps to go around my chest so he did not get away with it. It was a good lesson and wake up call for us all to be very careful with our belongings because thieves are very sneaky!

driving a tuk tuk!

 On Sunday we took a bus to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, one of the most famous temples in all of Thailand. We got there during “lunch hour” so we had some time to kill. We met a Thai man who told us what else to do in our free time and even set us up with a tuk tuk driver to drive us around for extremely cheap. After last night we were skeptical that this was a scam, but he was genuinely helping us! We went to another temple near by where we met another Thai man who helped us go through the motions of how to make a wish, he was there making a wish for his son who was getting married the next week. He too was very nice and pointed us in the direction of more shopping. After buying more than we should have, we went back to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It was a huge campus with pagoda’s and buildings everywhere. Inside the biggest building was a statue of a HUGE gold reclining Buddha.

The four of us at the temple

Giant reclining Buddha

We finished the day with eating on the river and trying to cool off from the heat. We left Bangkok on train around 6pm.  The train we took home was a sleeper train, which meant that we would all get our own bed. I had a top bunk, which was comfy but seemed to wobble a lot.  I had a great time in Bangkok and will update my blog again after I get back from India next Tuesday! 

My top bunk!

Lisu Village, Food & Midterms

This week has been a normal week in Chiang Mai. It's nice to feel like you really live here and are not just a tourist. This past weekend we took a trip to the Lisu village about an hour away. There we got a tour of the village and met the leader and religious leader of the village. While we were there they poured shots of rice and corn whiskey for us.  Yes our teacher was with us and he enjoyed some as well. The boys on the trip took full advantage of the free shots and had a long ride home.

Man who played music for us. Then we danced with the women of the village!

Handmade bags for sale, made by the Lisu women

This week I spent a lot of time going to the markets and working on homework and such. Since I don't have anything crazy exciting to talk about.. how about food! My diet here is a 180 from what I ate at home. I don't eat any of the food from home, and I had never tried the food I eat here everyday until I got here! Its pumpkin season in Thailand and the pumpkin is delicious, but it's very different than pumpkin at home!  I also love to eat nam prik num, which is a green chili dish that you eat with rice. The locals say it is spicy.. but it's not so bad! And I also love to eat sam tom, or papaya salad. This is shredded green papaya, carrots, green beans, tomatoes and peanuts!

I also eat tons of soup, not because I love it but because that is what is most available. Eating hot soup when it is nearly 100 degrees isn't always appealing but when your hungry, your hungry! When I eat soup it is really messy because the noodles are as long as spaghetti noodles and I'm trying to eat with chopsticks! Also when you buy anything here you get it in a plastic bag unless you sit down. Soup in a bag, pumpkin in a bag, chili in a bag, and even smoothies in a bag! I really am taking a liking to the food here but I most definitely miss the food back home!

Thai pumpkin! You eat the skin and all!

 

 

Som Tam!

Nam phrik num!

Noodle soup with mysterious meat balls!

This coming week we have midterms in all of our classes! I am studying a lot because I know they are going to be very hard! We also have some projects to complete as well. But after we finish midterms I am going to Bangkok for the weekend, which will be so much fun!!

Chiang Dao

This week I went to visit a temple in the forest outside Chiang Mai, Wat UMong. It was neat because it was in a forest but also the way the temple was set up. The temple was a series of tunnels leading to different Buddha shrines. It was partially creepy because it was dark and we didn't know which way we were going, but also very cool!

 

Buddha at the end of a tunnel at Wat UMong

I was also able to go to the city of Chiang Dao this weekend. We took a 90 min. bus ride there. The bus was a school bus turned mass transit bus, but it was fun! When we got there the bus dropped us off in the middle of a small town. We wanted to see the caves there, but didn't know how to get to them. After a ten minute game of me playing charades with some locals, we got a taxi to the caves.

First we explored the outside of the caves, which included a Buddhist grave yard, a giant gold Buddha statue and pond! Then we went into the caves. We payed a 40 baht electricity fee to get in and another 25 for a tour guide. The tour guide led us into the caves with one lamp, which was our only light source because the caves did not have any lights running through them. The caves were huge with giant stalagmites and stalactites! Along the way the tour guide would point to one and tell us that it looked like an elephant, a bird or some animal.. and usually it did!

The caves were slippery to get through and we had to crawl through three "doors" to continue into different caves. These doors were small openings and I literally had to get on my hand and knees to get through them. I don't know if I would have gotten through if I was much bigger! They were so small! We had a great time in the caves and took a bus back to Chiang Mai!

The beginning of the cave

The guide told us it was a picture frame so we took a picture of course!

Just crawling through on all fours!

This past week has been a lot of fun hanging out in Chiang Mai. I am still getting used to the weather but this week has been different. It has been getting really foggy all day and night and it seemed off. Maybe it was smog? So a group of us asked our teacher about why the smog had gotten so bad lately. He told us the air wasn’t polluted with smog, but with smoke. There is a thick layer of smoke in the air caused by the farmers outside Chiang Mai, who still practice slash and burn farming. And apparently it is going to get worse. Sometimes it’s not so bad, but other times you can see it and smell it!

smokey morning in Chiang Mai

I also went to see a Thai movie this week called It Get’s Better. It had English subtitles and was really good, and sad. Before the movie we had to stand while they played a song and slideshow about the Thai King. They also do this at the market at 6pm. They play the song over the loud speakers and everyone just stops what they are doing and stands during the song. The first time we were at the market and this happened we had no idea why everyone had stopped moving but figured it out.

I also went to the “big” mall in Chiang Mai. It is really nice and has a lot of stores. We went shopping there because we thought we were more likely to find clothes that fit us there than at the markets. The clothes at the markets are for Thai girls. For that reason nothing could ever fit me. It is all too small and too short!

On Saturday we had a field trip to a Hmong Hill tribe village. We toured where they live and how they farm. It was interesting to see their houses and farms in the mountains. 

Hmong Village

Flower garden at the Hmong Village

Chiang Mai Weekend

This past weekend I had plans to go to Bangkok, but I ended staying in Chiang Mai instead. This week had been busy with booking flights and getting travel arrangements in order for upcoming trips! Me and two of my friends here are planning a trip to New Delhi, India in March. We just booked our flights and now are getting into the details. The hardest part of planning so far has been getting my India Visa... I literally had to run around for it!

I am also starting to plan a trip to Vietnam as well! I want to see so many things while I am here! Will I miss a lot of class? Actually only a few classes, because I am planning around classes that have been cancelled ahead of time, or days I don't have class!

This weekend has been relaxing, hanging out with friends and visiting markets! I hope to have more fun news next week!

Sukhothai

This past week has been really busy with school. But this weekend I had some free time and went on a trip! A group of six of us went to Sukhothai. Sukhothai is the old capitol of Thailand and is in ruins. It is in between Chiang Mai and Bangkok.  We took the 5 hour bus ride there Saturday morning. Once we got there we spent the day exploring New Sukhothai. We discovered that there is nothing to explore, so we hung out and had a fun time at our room.

The next day we headed to the historical park in Old Sokhothai where all the ruins are. It was extremely hot with high humidity; we were sweaty within five minutes. But it was totally worth it! We walked around the park for several hours seeing many ruins.  The ruins are a UNESCO world heritage site and are from the 13^th century.  My favorite by far was a giant Buddha statue. The statue’s hand was as big as me!  I had a lot of fun on this weekend trip and it was also good to get a feel for traveling outside of Chiang Mai since we want to take trips farther away soon.