Kings Royal Projects

8/1/2015

Today not much occurred sadly.  Though we left the apartment at 7.30 am and again didn’t have food until lunch time (though this time I was prepared) and have only just arrived back to the apartment at 6pm I can honestly say not much happened. We spent about 2 hours getting to our destination today due to traffic and then nearly 2 hours getting home, again due to traffic :( 

Today we went to see the Kings Royal Project. I found it really interesting to see how much the king has done for Thailand and how much he produces on his own land. They have candle making from beeswax, honey making, spirilina making, paper making, they make so many different things with milk from chocolate to milk purchased at a discounted price (due to the king wanting Thai people to drink more milk) to milk produced only for the purchase of the government to then distribute between school students. They are also making chocolate chips for children who don’t drink milk as the king thinks intake of milk is very important. The king has also got rice fields on his land which he helped to plow using Thailand first ever tractor.

All these ‘projects’ that occur on the kings land was started by him and tended to be around the 1960’s. I really like how the king funded the research with his own money and has done it for the goodness of his country. Take the rice fields for example, he got one grain of rice, tried multiple ways of planting it, planted them himself, plowed them himself and now the Kings Royal Project has over 40 different kinds of rice. Another thing I learnt that was really interesting was how conservative the king is. He doesn’t like to waste things so with rice he then researched ways to optimise every part of it and the husk/stalks of rice is ground up and used as fuel instead of coal and wood. He also researched how to make his own fuel using sugar canes (that may be why fuel is ridiculously cheap over here it’s just over $1 NZD per litre).

It was really disappointing though when the girls weren’t allowed to see the kings royal elephants as we weren’t wearing collars. All the guys saw it and said there was nothing to see but I think it would have been really good to see because the other day at Samphran Elephant Ground and Zoo we learnt that all white elephants found in Thailand are deemed to be property of the King, I have never seen a white elephant, I wonder how rare they are?!?!

They even grow their own mushrooms!

After the morning at the Kings Royal Project we went shopping at downtown Bangkok. There are some HUGE malls right beside each other but my favourite places is where Frances (our group leader) takes me as she’s been to that area of Bangkok quite a few times and shows me all the good places. Today I wasn’t in the mood for shopping at all, I mean after all we have shops in New Zealand plus I’ve never liked shopping I leave that up to my mum and my brother. Instead of shopping I went for a two and a half hour pamper session. I had a full body Thai massage and a manicure. It was so relaxing and amazing, I can never get enough.

Oh well  we are heading out to dinner shortly and then to this AMAZING gelato shop. They sell beer ice cream and vodka and redbull ice cream. These ice creams are really good and taste just like really chilled alcohol, the ice cream also comes with dry ice, which is always fun to play around with while pretty much having a beer. It’ll be a good way to end the day.

Tomorrow believe it or not we are going to ANOTHER palace, that’s three days in a row.

Anna xx

Best day in Thailand!!

7/1/2015 Sorry I didn’t blog yesterday but it was so hectic I hardly had the time.

Yesterday started at 7am on a bus and heading to the Kings Royal Summer Palace. Here we met with an amazing historian who showed us around. It was beautiful to see the palace and to hear how the movie ‘The King and I’ was based on a true story and the Young Prince in the movie is actually the current King of Thailand's grandfather (or was it great grandfather?). This fact I found really interesting as I love the movie though the Thai’s believe that Mrs. Anna (the English governess) fabricated a lot of the story as in their stories the King wouldn’t stomp around bellowing out “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”. We got to see where the Kings favourite wives lived                             as back in King Rama the 4^th he had a lot of wives and apparently over 50 children.

After the Royal Summer Palace we made our way to a museum where we could learn all about the Dutch trading with Thailand, how it came about, why it came about and why it continued. This I did find interesting though not nearly as interesting as the Summer Palace. The fact that it was nearing on 11am and we hadn’t had a chance to have breakfast yet may have contributed to the fact I was more interested in finding coffee. I also took this time to contact my parents to see how they are and that they’re enjoying a nice holiday where dad is managing to catch fish (if you know my family you’ll know this is a rare occasion).

After lunch my mood picked up and again became extremely interested in Elephant Riding which was our next activity. There isn’t much to say about elephant riding, apart from elephants are large, walk slow, like to spay water on themselves and us on top of them and are very fun to ride :D

After the elephants we went off to Ayutthaya: The Ancient City of Thailand. It was stunning to see all the different ruins to see how the Burmese came through Thailand and destroyed it. The main things they destroyed apart from the buildings were all the Buddhas. Ayutthaya had so many Buddhas which are now headless as the Burmese would storm through and decapitate majority of them. The only ones I personally saw with heads still one were really big and the Burmese probably couldn’t decapitate them. Our amazing Historian tour guide (I’m sorry I cannot remember his name) was still with us at this point and was able to tell us some really intriguing stories of Ayutthaya.

This brought us to what I thought was the end of a long day as we got back to Mahidol Campus at about 6pm but that I found was where my really true experience of Thailand started. I strongly believe that sometimes the best experiences are the most spontaneous ones, this was the truth last night!

We couldn’t decide on a place for dinner so Prem came up with a plan to go to his friends parents restaurant. Prem is a student at Mahidol University and came to UC last year as part of an exchange program, he has been with us majority of the week and is extremely nice.  At first I was a bit sceptical as Prem took us down ally ways, around corners and down some more ally ways just to come to this really small place where he smiled and said “here we are”. The saying don’t judge a book by it’s cover was this place to a t. It looked small and not very interesting but when we got inside (a few of us decided to be really authentic and eat dinner on the floor) it was such an amazing place. It is hard to describe a place like this, it felt like home cooking with Prems friends mother running around giving us salads and cooking from a portable gas cooker out the front of the room. After my amazing teriyaki chicken and trying a little bit of my friends grilled lemongrass chicken (both were aroy mak mak!!) I went out with Birian to help/observe the cooking. The food at this place was delicious (aroy!!) but I don’t think that was the highlight for me, the hospitality at Thai Grill (that’s the name of the place) was the best. Prems friends mother (I really need to get her name) was so lovely and nice, she was easy to talk to and taught me how to cook a few really good meals just by a running commentary while cooking. She offered me to stay to learn more but sadly I couldn’t but her hug as we were leaving was so nice that I really want to go back and see her again which makes me think I have to come back to Thailand (not just for her though).

I know this blog is long but Thai Grill is an absolute must if you come over here. The authentic experience is way better than any touristy attraction I think. To top a now wonderful day off a few of us stopped by a gelato shop on the way home where we had some amazing ice cream with alcohol in it.

If you’re still reading this blog then thank you, I promise this will be the longest blog (hopefully)

Anna xx

Weather, Money and Scams

5/1/2014

Hi All,

I understand that this is a day late but last night for dinner we had extremely spicy Thai seafood Bolognese, so hot that our Thai chaperone, Chan, was unable to eat it at all. Due to this I spent the night in bed and was unable to write a blog.

I'm lucky that this was in the evening as my day was jam packed full of exciting adventures.

We started the morning off with breakfast at the College of Music. The place is so amazing, wall length glass windows all around over looking amazing green trees, we have come to a conclusion that the room reminds us of the Cullens house off Twilight. Having breakfast there the last two days and then a 'fancy' al e carte dinner there tonight is the best way to start and then finish a fantastic day.



After breakfast we had a very brief Thai language lesson. This was tricky sometimes as they pronounce their 'c' as a 'j' and their 'b' as a 'd'. I personally think I found it a little easier than others as I translated the words into Māori due to them having very similar pronunciation to each other and some words are actually the same just different meanings. Some sayings I learnt are Khor Tod = sorry or please depending on the situation and I learnt Hong Nam = Toilet, which is very useful. One added note about Thailand which I did not expect and not sure if I like it is that public toilets do not have toilet paper, you are to take your own, borrow or wait until your home. Even in the hostel I'm staying in the cleaners come around every second day and they give you one roll of toilet paper then, so it's 1 roll every 2 days, I'm learning to be conservative that's for sure.


With being in an air conditioned room all morning we were unable to get an understanding of the 33 degree Celsius heat that was occurring outside the room. This heat did hit us full on when we went to visit the Elephant Ground and Zoo. I have to be honest I did not like how the zoo keepers treated the crocodiles, kicking them, dragging them around by their tail and poking them with sticks. On top of that their show of 'crocodile wrestling' wasn't that good but I have to admit I was comparing it to Steve Irwins live show I saw a good couple of years ago.

Seeing the elephants were amazing, my friend Matt and I tried to get a photo with the elephants, we went through the ordeal of having the trunk wrapped around us and on our heads to finish with the Thai saying constantly "tip, tip, tip for the elephant" so Matt and I handed over 20baht each later to find no photos at all were taken.

We put the experience down to something we will always remember and 'you live and you learn'.

Talking about money it is so cheap here. To give you an understanding the other night we went out to what we were told was 'the best pad Thai in Bangkok', we got there and a full meal was 80baht each. $1NZD = 25baht so 80bath = $3.20.

Today 6/1/2014 was another amazing breakfast at the College of Music.

After breakfast we got straight onto a bus and headed to Mahasawat Canal. Here we went up and down the river stopping off at Orchid Farms, Lotus Farms, Rice Cracker Making and making our own traditional Thai lunch.

The Canal was not what I expected at all. I expected a nice quiet peaceful experience and though this canal trip was still amazing it wasn't like from the films where in Italy it's nice and quiet, we had an extremely loud motor going full speed at the back which you could hardly talk over and the water was so dirty there were bottles and plastic wrappers clearly littered throughout it but all in all it was still one of the best times of my life. While waiting for lunch we went on the craziest tractor ever where the man actually has to jump off and run beside it to turn sharp corners. Lunch was the best part of the day for me as I learnt so much from the Thai students with us. Aroy Mak = Very delicious, and Em Low Kha (not sure of spelling on that sorry) = I'm full.

It is currently 2.37pm and we have free time until 6pm when we have our 'Fancy Dinner'. Keep and eye on Facebook as I'll be posting photos constantly now.

See you Tomorrow
Anna xx

Thailand's Largest Outdoor Market

4/1/2014

Hi All,

Today we all went to the worlds largest outdoor market called Jatujak.

It's really really nice here, boiling hot and my feet are killing me from yesterdays 9 hour shopping spree that occurred while I was wearing completely inappropriate shoes, but apart from that this must be one of the best places I've been to. I'm having so much fun I forgot to eat breakfast today, as I'm just too impatient and want to start exploring what's out there.

Luckily here they are so organised here and we know what is planned for us this week.

The market was amazing, I managed to get really nice gifts for my family though bartering for me was the most challenging part as I would just give in. It was a good experience though and I loved watching Harriet as she was by far one of the best at catering I've seen.

Jatujak was extremely large and hard to find your way around with very little heat so it was good there were lots of drink stands to get fresh fruit smoothies from. I think Thailand have their smoothies sorted, a whole lot of fruit in a blender and use their natural liquids as the liquid, I had too many watermelon smoothies to count today, I did learn a valuable word today, cob corn carr (not sure of spelling sorry) which means 'thank you'.

Apart from the heat and constantly needing liquid to refresh I had an amazing day at the market and even better time at a park afterwards where they have this bike track in the centre so we all were able to hire a bike out for a couple of hours and bike around.

Tomorrow is going to be an amazing day with visiting elephants and having Thai language lessons so hopefully I can come on here with more words I know.

I hope you all are having a lovely new year :D

Anna xx

I Arrived

4/1/2015 Just a little note at the start I'm sorry this is late I have only just got Internet.

3/1/2015

So I have just arrived into Thailand.

The time is currently 4.03 am and I’m wide-awake.

The flight to Sydney wasn’t that bad but that flight from Sydney to Thailand was never ending.

The flight lasted 9 hours and I was unable to sleep a wink, though I did try my hardest. I put Phantom of the Opera on, an eye mask and listened to an hour before giving up, next time I tried was no headphones…. That was a fail too, so here I am, in Thailand and not having slept for approximately 24hours.

We arrived in Thailand at 1am, then went through customs (which took an hour) and then had a lovely 1.5 hour buss ride to a massive university called Mahidol University which is home to currently about 30,000 students.

I am one of the few lucky students to get a room to myself so it’ll be nice to come back to  a quiet room after spending all day out and about.

The bus trip through Bangkok center was so nice at 3am. There were two things that surprised me:

1) The amount of traffic on the roads (I don’t’ want to see rush hour, that’s for sure)

2) The traffic lights have  a countdown (sorry about blurry photos, not easy on a bus)

Oh well I’d better leave it here for tonight so goodnight/morning from Thailand.

See you later tonight

Anna xx

New Years Eve/ Thailand Update

Hi all,

So today is the very last day of 2014!! I hope everyone reading this will have a great night tonight and a very special New Years Eve.

Today I got some really good news about Thailand.

I found out that I'll be staying in an apartment with another girl going over with me. Our apartment is apparently walking distance from the school we will be teaching at. I have not yet been able to get a physical address and was told that may come during my first week in Bangkok.

I also found out that since I'm not with a host family (only one group was put with a host family, the other 10 people are in apartments) the school is going to organise some weekend activities.

The activities that I'll be experiencing, apart from my 15 hours a week work in the classroom, will be things like learning how to cook Thai food (this one I'm really excited for as I love cooking), learning how to do Thai dances, and learning about the Thai culture.

Since there are 8 of us in Rayong we will be able to use our free time to go and explore on our own, who cares if we get lost a little bit it's part of the fun and adventure.

I probably won't blog again until I leave so Happy New Year everyone and I hope you stay safe tonight :D

Anna xx

Pluakdaengpittayakom School, Rayong... Where is that?

Hello again,

I understand that I've already blogged once today but I got some amazing news and had to share it.

I have finally found out where I'll be staying for 4 weeks while I'm in Thailand.

The first week I'm in Bangkok with the 11 other students going too, but after that was a mystery. Needless to say my mum was getting very upset with me going to a country I've never been to before and not knowing where I'm staying, well now I can somewhat calm her nerves.

So now I know that as of the 12/1/2015 (wow 2015 looks weird as a date) I'm going to be in Rayong.

Rayong is a really nice village on the sea front. It looks beautiful and has so many different tourist attractions. I like how I'm not spending my entire time in Bangkok or Phuket which are the main tourist destinations, this way I'm able to experience the traditional Thailand filled with culture. There will be 8 of us (including myself) in Rayong and 4 in Chonburi which is the neighbouring province.

The school I'll be at is called Pluakdaeng Pittayakom School. I cannot find much information on it apart from a blog created back in march 2013 for what looks like a conference, due to this I'm not sure where in Rayong I'll exactly be staying so I'll have to keep you updated.

At least this way (hopefully) when someone searches this school in future they may get more information.

As for accommodation that is still sadly unknown. As I mentioned in a previous blog I leave on Friday 2nd January 2015 (again that looks weird). There are two accommodation types I could possibly be in.

The first is home stay with a family ,which I think will be the best option, as they can take me sightseeing to all the best places and I personally believe the best way to learn/experience and new language/culture is by surrounding yourself with it. The next accommodation option is in an apartment where me and one other student will be in an apartment just us two and we are to find our own experiences in the weekends and after school.

Which option do you think will be the best? They both have ups and downs as the apartment living will allow for more free time to go where I wish when I wish.

See you with more information later

Anna