What was Thailand like?
Jesse Zylstra
Our first three days on our trip were spent in Bangkok, Thailand, waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. We stayed in a nice hotel, and we did a few shopping things at tourist markets. The streets of Thailand are very busy, and the sidewalks are not very wide. A good amount of people in the places we stayed at in Thailand spoke at least some English (at least enough English to sell you something). The traffic in Thailand is nothing compared to India, however stop signs and traffic lights are still “suggestions” and there are few traffic laws.
Thailand did have a smell to it, since storm drains and sewage lines are shared in many places, but it wasn’t too bad. The weather was nice in Thailand, and for the most part it was partly-cloudy and not too hot out.
We arrived in Calcutta, India on July 23rd, and returned to Thailand July 27th. We arrived in Chaing-Mai. We stayed in a hotel that was right next to the Night Market, which has plenty of things to look at and is very tourist orientated. Besides the Night Market, there are other markets that were in walking distance that we looked at, its quite an area. Many of the markets were located under buildings, and were quite extensive. We also visited the Sunday Market, which was also tourist-based and much busier. The third market we went to was much smaller, and mainly a local market. It was called the Wet Market, and had quite a few interesting things to look at, from various live fish, eels, cockroaches, birds, rabbits, bull frogs, and turtles, to fruits and produce. It was quite a variety, and there were plenty of other shops nearby.
We visited two orphanages in Thailand. The first one was for Non-Tribal Thai children only. This particular orphanage adopts children and removes the parents ability to take the children back. Less than 1% of the Non-Tribal Thai population is Christian, which is where the focus of this orphanage comes from (to help Thai children grow up in a Christian home, and to teach them about Christ).
After this, we headed to the Mae-La Refugee Camp. We were denied entry to the camp on the first day for an unknown reason. The military that guards the camp has the ability to say “no” to those trying to enter the camp if they want, and they probably did it “just because”. Dr. Simon, in charge of getting us in, called around and was able to get us permission to enter. The Refugee camp was quite a ways away from Chiang-Mai, and was a 5 hour drive. The closest town to it was Mae-Sot. The camp was located in a jungle-like area, and it rained quite a bit. The river had actually flooded on the second day we were there.
We visited Tiger Kingdom, an Elephant Farm, and an Orchid farm, which were all interesting to see. After this day, we took the Night Train back to Bangkok. The Night Train is no Amtrak, however it was relatively comfortable and got us from point A to point B without having to pay that much.
The next day, we visited the Global English school, and had a quick tour of the school. Following that day, we went to a Technology school which was having an English camp. We worked in smaller groups of older students (I suppose, ages 19-23). Many of them had their nickname in English on a name tag, and we saw some very interesting ones such as “Fork” and “M”. The students had an elementary understanding of English.
The day after that, we went back to the Global English School which was having International Day. All of the students were dressed as if they were from another country. This was our last day.
At all of the schools and hostiles that we visited in both Thailand and India, we mainly used the same activities. We had two shows which were translated, one was a short skit the other was a puppet show. After that, we used crafts to re-enforce the lessons. The crafts we had were cross bead-necklaces, “scratch-paper” which turned colorful when scratched with a stick, and paper puppets. We also sang songs that some of the children knew using hand motions.
All of this takes a very long time, but it is a lot of fun for everyone. I think we were all drained of energy by the end of each day.
I think that India was definitely the most interesting place we went to, however Thailand was a nicer place to be. The people of Thailand seem much happier and nicer, and their Government isn’t as corrupt.
