Refugee Camp

So in Nong Khai there is a detention center for Laotian Hmong refugees who supported the U.S. during the Vietnam War. There's about every age group in this camp - older people, babies, teenages, college students, parents....all these different families. They have been there for over two years, some a shorter amount of time than others. They are only allowed outside two hours a day and for the other 22 hours they are inside their cells, whether it's watching TV, learning english, or just sitting around. Some told us that when they have two hours outside, some don't even come outside at all. Others told me that people try to kill themeselves in there.

I don't even know how to describe my feelings when I went to visit this place.

Before we headed over there we went to Tesco Lotus (kind of like a costco-walmart of Thailand) and bought towels, underwear, toys, noodles, and tons of fruit to bring over (they really need it at the camp). When we got there, some of the people spotted us, they motioned to others inside and all of a sudden all these little kids came running out, starring at us with their hungry eyes. There were so many kids, probably at least 50 of them. They had no shoes and dirty clothes, either too big or too small, but they did look so happy to see us. They spoke no English, but when you smiled at them they just smiled back. When they saw we had tons of fruit all the little kids ran into a line, it was kind of cute. All the parents stood around and they looked so happy to see it. Everytime we gave them fruit they did a a wai ("why"; you do it when you say thank you) and went away.

All the little kids looked so happy and their parents looked so grateful. As sad as it was to come here and see it, it made me feel good inside.

I also started talking three boys around my age (he was 20) and he was telling me his story. He told me they went to Bangkok to go to college but the Thai police caught them and now they were stuck in this refugee camp for who knows how long. I couldn't believe it: how can you be so free, go to school, and then all of a sudden be stuck in a refugee camp, only alotted two hours of your day outside, and then inside with nothing to do? Another thing that hit me hard was that he was one of the only Thai's with the best English I ever did hear. I couldn't believe it. He told me that they teach them English inside, and hoping that one day they can leave and live in America or Australia. I hope so.

It was so interesting and sad to hear all of the people's stories and how they ended up there. Some people tried to escape, but got caught. One little girl was still in the camp while her mom escaped outside and left her there. A women came up to us and started crying and saying how thankful she was for us coming. That's when I couldn't take it anymore -- I broke down and started to cry. Just thinking about that right now I'm tearing up.

It was so sad. How can I live my life now knowing that this camp is out there? Knowing that there are camps probably EVERYWHERE around the world and probably places even worse than this? I feel so guilty now spending money on myself when I can use it to help these people. I just feel so stupid and oblvious to these things like this now, I feel like such an idiot for ignoring it. Going here defintely changed my perspective on a lot of things -- there's so much I want to do now to help the world and places like this.

As sad and upsetting as it was to go here, I loved going here. I loved playing with all the kids and seeing their bright and happy faces. We gave them piggy back rides, and oh, we gave each of them colored pencils and books, so we were showing them how to draw things. Some of the little girls were better than I was haha. All the kids were so cute. It's so sad to see -- these little kids have grown up and were born in there: they have no idea what the real world is like.

I'm not sure how to end this blog -- there's so much more I want to say. I just know I want to make a difference in this world now and help these people that are probably everywhere. Going to this refugee camp made me realize a lot of things, and I will not take my life and everything I have for granted anymore.

Some pictures:

Laos

I left for Laos after class on a Thursday and returned back on Tuesday night. Wow, Laos was amazing and so much fun, probably one of my favorite places I've been to so far here in SE Asia. It's just so funny to think that in all my years of geography and history and studying about Laos, I never thought I'd actually go there. I mean, when you think about Laos, do you ever think of going there to vacation? I personally never did. It was crazy to see so many farangs there (all from Western Europe, mainly Britain) who go there to go on vacation when Americans never do or think to go there. But now I've been there and now I know: if you have a chance to visit SE Asia, try to see Laos as well :]

Thursday & Friday: Vientiane

Vientiane is the capital of Laos and is located right across the Mekong from Nong Khai (it's about 20 min. in). There were 9 of us girls that left that Thursday night. We took tuk-tuks to the Laos-Thailand Friendship Bridge and off we went to Laos! It seemed very similar to Thailand at first but when we got into the city there were farangs everywhere, backpacks and all. You don't see that as often in Nong Khai. We went around and looked for guesthouses (aka hotel) to stay in. Oh, that's something that kind of made this trip more fun -- we didn't have that much planned for it. We didn't book a guesthouse in advance and kind of just went with the flow. I don't know but traveling that way is more fun and easier because I feel if you have everything planned out, like to the hour, you will get stressed if you aren't on time or if you have to be somewhere at this time and it just gets too complicated. ANYWAY, we all split into 3 different guesthouses and ate out to dinner at this Italian place. It was AMAZING. Seriously, international food taste 100000 times better than in the US. I don't know why but they are just so good at cooking it here.



Being classy, drinking wine w/ our dinner. Me, Pooja, Emma, Laura, Kathleen, & Dana. (Lexie, Sarah, & Danielle were at a different table)








After that we just walked around for a little and sat down at a resturant at drank some Beerlao. Um, can I just say how much I LOVE Beerlao? It's now on my list of favorite beers...it's definitely my favorite Asian beer now...it is WAY too good.

The next day we went to a wat...beautiful, as always and then we went to this HUGE archway. This archway was built when the Laos people were freed from the French...kind of funny, they built it based on Frensh architecture.




The Wat :]



























More wat














Us & the archway













Pretty!




















After exploring these two places we got lunch, and took a mini-van to our next destination: Vang Vieng.


Friday Night - Tuesday: Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is spring break '99 European style. I swear there were more farangs than Laos people here...young, and ready to party haha. Vang Vieng was full of water activities, hiking, caving, and a lot of partying (don't worry mom -- I controlled myself). At night there were so many different bars, such as Bucket Bar (free buckets for one hour, nice), Smile Bar (lots of dancing,) and everyone's favorite: Q-Bar (major major MAJOR CODE BLUE). It was so much fun.


During the day:

- I went hiking up this mountain one day...pretty: you could see the whole town!

-Tubing: basically, you float down a river and there are bars along it as you go. People throw rope at you and you grab it and they pull you in. They have ziplines and ropes you hang on to and swing into the water. I went on way that was sooo high I almost peed my pants when i let go..it was so much fun. It takes a long time to get down the river since there are so many bars. After awhile though it got kind of boring and the bars were down and current was extremely slow. It took about 6 hours of my day on the river.

-The Blue lagoon was this extremely pretty pretty lagoon. I went w/ Dana before heading back to Thailand. There was a tree we jumped off on and it had rope swings too.

























We finally went home on Tuesday night and I was sad to leave Laos. It was definitely one of my favorite places I traveled to and hopefully I'll go back some day!

Traveling east to Nong Khai!

We left Chiang Mai to travel to our new home for 3 weeks: Nong Khai. We took a bus from Chiang Mai but on the way we stopped in Sukhothai, the old city. Sukhothai was Thailand's first capital and lasted for about 100 years and then it became ruins.

After 3 hours of driving we stopped in Sukhothai. Oh man, it was great to be in a nice hotel again...air-con (air conditioning), an actual tub, & to all of our happines, a pool. That was the first thing everyone did after we threw our luggage down. It felt so good to be in clean water (chlorine!). Even our professors came in and jumped in with us. We all just hungout at the pool the whole night...it was fun.

The next day we explored Sukhothai -- the old city. We rented bikes and rode around and looked at all these old ruins. It was so cool -- I felt like it wasn't real! I traveled around w/ Nick & Dana...it's like us three are best friends haha (we do a lot of things together). After exploring a bit we went to new-town Sukhothai and had lunch there. Then we went back to our hotel and into the pool we went...

We then left the next day on a 5 hour bus ride to Nong Khai. We arrived at our new home -- the Mut Mee Guest house. The Mut Mee is located right on the Mekong River (as I am typing this I am outside looking at it!). In geography classes & history classes I've learned about the Mekong River, but I never thought I'd actually be by it one day. I'm probably going to go swimming & jet skiing in it tomorrow....

As much as I miss Chiang Mai, I am in love w/ Nong Khai. The only downside here is all of the mosquitos -- my legs have never been this swollen w/ bites before!

Sukhothai:




























Some Pictures of Nong Khai:











































(I know it's mostly just the sky --- but look how amazing it is here!!)

Songkran

As I said in earlier post, Songkran is Thailand's New Years. It began on Saturday and ended on Wednesday (it sort of still went on during Thursday). Like I also said, Songkran is a huge, gigantic water fight.

Some things about Songkran:

• People are in the back of cars with garbage cans full of water, and they throw buckets of water on you while driving down the street.
  
• People are in front of their houses under umbrellas, w/ their hoses, buckets, and huge garbage cans full of water waiting to throw a bucket on you or spray you clothes.
• Some people put huge blocks of ice in their garbage cans so the water is FREEZING cold (it feels TERRIBLE)
• Water guns in the eye = painful
• People swim in the disgusting river/mote water (it's brown and dirty and just smelly)
• People use water from the disgusting river/mote
• You will walk in water....in the street. It's flooded.
• Never use the flooded water on the ground to refill your bucket -- Thais don't like it...
• Wear clothes you don't care about getting dirty and stained for the rest of your life
• They attack foreigners
  
• Some water is dyed....watch out
  
• Some people will throw this coconut water on you and it hardens...icky.
• You will smell gross for the whole entire week...as well as your room since your clothes are drying in there
• Don't go out till it's dark if you don't want to get wet!

Songkran was so much fun -- it seriously felt like Spring Break: Asian Style (meaning, a lot more modest). There was a strip where they closed down the whole street and it was bananas: there were stages left and right full of music and dancing girls, people drinking everywhere (which was gross -- that disgusting water got in their beer cans yet they still drank it), people spraying HUGE hoses of water, more dancing....it was a blast. You couldn't move in the street because it was so crowded.

In another area the streets aren't blocked but basically are...meaning, the traffic doesn't move. It's right by the river/mote thing, and people are just lined up on the sidewalk, all throwing water on you. On the left side, it's just person after person after person w/ their ice cold buckets of dirty river water. On the right side, it's truck after truck after truck throwing water on you. It's gross but so ridiculous and so much fun.

We walked along both of these strips three days in a row. While walking along the river/mote strip we found a Rasta Bar and there we got buckets and listened to live music...seriously, I cannot emphasize how much fun I had...

Songkran was definitely one of the greatest experiences I have ever had. After 5 days of water, though, I did kind of start to get sick of it. I miss it now, though, because it's so incredibly hot here. But yeah, if you ever decide to go to Thailand, go in April, during Songkran, you don't want to miss it :]


Pictures of Songkran I stole from my friend Justin:

Pai

Pai is a little hippie Thai town 3 hours north of Chiang Mai. Going to Pai was not apart of our study abroad program -- it was a side trip we planned ourselves. We left on Saturday morning and returned on Monday morning in time for Songkran (more about that later!). There were 24 of us who went to Pai together and 10 others did their own thing. The drive to Pai was alright -- it was very windy road all uphill and thankfully I didn't get carsick on the way there (...more about the way coming back though haha).

Before I go on with my blog about Pai I have to write a little about Songkran (Songkran will have its own blog after this). Songkran is Thailand's New Year's week long festival and basically, it's a huge gigantic water fight. There are people on the side of streets with hoses, buckets, and garbage cans full of water and they just throw water on you as you walk by (they mostly go for foreigners ....aka Cal Poly students!). People will have squirt guns but I came to the conclusion that squirt guns don't do anything as bad as buckets of water (unless you squirt the sucker in the eye). That's a little preview about that, more about Pai....

So we get to Pai on Saturday morning and it's Songkran (forget to say, Songkran is craziest in Chiang Mai) but it still goes on everywhere else as well. Our van was getting water thrown all over it. We get to our bungalows, which were pretty sweet. Kathleen and I got a delux bungalow because we're ballers:




Our bungalow :]









Our huge bed.








Our porch :]







We settled in and then we went to walk around town to get lunch. Like I mentioned earlier, Songkran began. As we began walking the streets, the water fight began. After about 3 minutes of walking, all our clothes were soaked with water. It's really funny, the little monks, novices (boys who are around ages 8-12) were the worst and just had no mercy on you. I figured out that if you walk slowly by them and ignore them, they won't try to splash you but if you see them and make faces at them and start running they will go after you.

I got lunch w/ a couple of friends (good curry!) and then we began to explore Pai afterwards. Pai isn't that big so we circled and walked around the whole town easily. We then rented bikes and then rode all around Pai. It was really fun, except it was kind of nerve-wrecking. Why? Well, try riding a bike and having little Thai children throwing a bucket of water in your face as you ride by....scary. One kid, Kalen, was trying to shoot with his water gun while he rode his bike and a kid splashed water on him and then he fell off and his bike skidded. (He was okay) It was still fun though but you had to be careful.

Later in the day my friend Nick and I went to a bar called Buffalo and got buckets. Buckets include a bottle of coke, a little energy drink, and a flask of whiskey (sang-song):



<-- like so.









You should share these things because you can get very drunk off of them (they are so easy to drink). Nick and I got two, then we got my friend Dana, went back to Buffalo, and then we got two more with her. I promise I'm not an alcoholic, I was just on a vacation during my vacation :]

That night we all went out to Buffalo (for me, again!) and drank more buckets. We had live music from a guitarist named Cherry (she was from England) and she was extremely good. She left the bar for a little, but then came back to play another set and with her she brought a whole bunch of Muy Thai Boxers. These Muy Thai Boxers looked like they were in their 20s and they were from everywhere (Ireland, US, England, Australia, you name it...). My friend Lexie and I were laughing because they'd began talking to us two and then they just surrounded the table hitting on all the girls. After socializing with them some of us headed to another bar called Ting-Tong. Ting-Tong was tight, it was outside and it had a place where it was set up in a circle and you can lay down. It was a long and fun night.

The next day I pampered myself -- a pedicure, foot scrub, and a massage. I love Thailand. We repeated the night again like the previous night (minus Muy Thai Boxers) and then Monday morning we went home for Songkran. Oh wow, the ride back was miserably. I never felt so sick in a car before in my life. I think it was because I didn't eat anything for breakfast, I was hungover, and the roads are as windy as **** and the driver drove like a maniac. I thought I was going to die...worst 2 hours I've spent in a car. I did feel better, though, after I threw up at a gas station we stopped at :] Thought you'd like the know that haha.


Overally, Pai was such a cool town -- it is full of the best international food since so many foreigners go there. I wish we could have spent more time there but that's okay, I want to come back to Thailand someday so maybe I'll go then :]





Me and some of the Muy Thai Boxers...I'm such a baller :]

A little about wats...

I thought i should write a little bit about wats (temples) to give you all an idea of what they're like....soooo....here it is :]

I have seen so many wats that I really don’t want to look at them anymore (well, for awhile at least). As beautiful as they are, they are all very similar (in format). However, there are differences…Each wat prays for different things (besides Buddha) such as for stray dogs, tigers, monkeys, etc. I really like how each wat represents specific things – it’s what makes each wat different and appreciative, and it really gives it character.

A few things you must know when entering a Wat and/or being around a Monk:

• Must have clothing covering shoulders & down to your knees
• Take off shoes before entering Wat
• Your head must always be lower than the monks & Buddha images
• Girls must not touch monks
• Never have your feet pointing towards Buddha – must always sit on legs

They seem like easy rules but they are actually hard to follow since they are so simple (you forget easily!).

A picture of some wats:

Things you don't do everyday....

Things you don’t do Everyday:

Bamboo Rafting:

We first went bamboo rafting the next day after the Hill Tribes. There were four to a raft and I was with Alicia, Dana, and Jana. We didn’t realize we’d actually be sitting in the water (we thought the bamboo was like, a legit raft) but the water definitely seeps through. We were all wearing our bathing suites underneath our clothes and thankfully I was wearing flip-flops, but poor Alicia and Dana had their socks and running shoes on. Anyway, down the river we went. It was calm and nice; our guy stood up on the bamboo raft and he directed us by pushing on the rocks with a bamboo stick. There were times the water was so shallow basically we’d be pushing ourselves over the rocks, but it was a nice little butt massage haha. There were times when he’d say “CROCODILE!” and hit the stick in the water and splash us…pretty funny. On the land around us there were elephants and people. It reminded me of being in Pirates of the Caribbean and also the jungle cruise.

Of course, there were raft wars. There were always little Thai children somewhere ready to splash us. They’d come close and start throwing water on us, and we’d throw back. One little girl had a freakin’ monkey (I want one) and it was clinging on to her as she splashed us. It was pretty funny, anytime Thai children attacked I’d always start screaming “SA WA TI KHA!” (means hello in Thai) over and over again as I splashed them…it was just funny because I kept yelling “hello” at them, but in an angry voice…never mind, you have to be there. ANYWAY, we also splashed water with other rafts we’d pass by (like the other Poly rafts). Our guy let me steer and he jumped off and tried to flip over the other raft some other girls were on…sucks for them. It was crazy – some of the rafts were steered by kids no older than 10. (Some of the girls and guys from Poly would help steer in the back in that case.) We finally got to a point where you can just swim and jump off rocks. The cliffs weren’t that huge and the water would be really shallow and then all of a sudden really deep, so it was kind-of sketchy at first, but after awhile it was fun. It felt good to jump and swim in water when it was so hot.














After awhile we got back on our bamboo rafts and headed to the end, going to some elephant riding!

Elephant Riding:

Surprisingly, I liked the bamboo rafting a lot better than elephant riding. I think it was because I was super exhausted and on the elephants it was just hot, smelly, and we still had all our wet clothes on. I mean, I still LOVED riding elephants...you don't ride elephants everyday!! I went on an elephant with my friends Dana and Lexie. It was fun with them. When we were getting on them the guy told me to get on the neck! I was SO excited. I sat on it's neck, Dana and Lexie got in the carriage thing behind me, and the little Thai dude sat on its head. Wow, it was hard. I felt like we were squishing it but I guess we humans weigh nothing to elephants...It's ears kept hitting my legs and I had shorts on so I could feel it's tough skin on them (haha). It was kind of hard...I had NOTHING to hold on to because the guy was right in front of me and i was gripping with my inner thighs and gripping with my toes so my flip flops wouldn't fall off haha...it was complicated (I was soar the next day!). After awhile (like halfway through) Lexie and i switched places so she sat on the neck and I was in the carriage thing with Dana.

I felt bad, none of us had money so we couldn't buy bananas or candy cane for our elephant. It was annoying, he kept stopping every three steps and putting his truck up for us to feed him but we didn't have anything!! We finally called our friend Nick ahead and asked him to buy us bananas and thank god he did. We felt good to finally feed our elephant but now he was stopping every 1 step and putting his trunk up for food. We were running out pretty fast and then we kept saying no not yet and the elephant wouldn't move and the guy smacked his trunk with a stick and the elephant started growling and and stomping a little....you should have seen Dana, Lexie, and my face....thinking about it now I'm laughing but at the time we were scared shitless (I DID NOT WANT TO BE THROWN OFF....those things are HUGE). We were so scared...hahaha He started moving and then after a few steps (of course) he stopped and he put his trunk up and i was like JUST GIVE HIM A BANANA JUST GIVE HIM ONE!! and Dana and Lexie and I started laughing....I guess you had to be there....but yeah, it was fun :]











Flight of the Gibbons:

Flight of the gibbons was zip lining through the jungle. (A gibbon is a monkey if you didn't know...). We left at 7 in the morning and drove 2 hours up into the jungle. Zip lining through the trees was so fun! There were short lines were you could see the other side but some of the lines were super long and you couldn't see because there were branches in the way. There were other lines that just went straight down so you were basically free falling...One time I didn't put my feet down on the platform when I got across the line and i fell back and went back the other way and got stuck in the middle of the zip line. The guy had to come out and get me...I felt bad because he was huffing and puffing but then I realized at the end he was joking. Not funny. I am not a fat American!

We had three Thai guys: Leo (Leo Jr., after the beer), Dundie, & Dino. They were funny -- they made jokes like I asked before he pushed me down a zipline "How long have you been doing this?" and he responded "first day!" and pushed me haha. I noticed that Thais like to joke A LOT. One brought speakers so when we were waiting up on the bamboo platforms for the other groups to finish a course we listened to some rap music. It was fun, but after awhile I got kind of tired of it. There was a lot of waiting since there were 9 of us on our group so one person would have like 30 seconds of fun and then it was over till the next line.

After 3 hours of zip line we got one of the best tasting meals I've had in Thailand (veggies, chicken curry, rice...). I don't know why but it tasted AMAZING.

We saw a waterfall, and then our day was done (there). It was a good time :]



Me stuck on the zipline.








WEEE!!!









Our group!