Super long post

I guess I’ve fallen behind on the blogging a little bit so I’ll get everyone up to speed. First off, Thailand is an amazing place and everyone I’ve met at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) has been unbelievably friendly to everyone in our program. On Tuesday night, there was a welcome party for new students held in one of the activity centers on campus. It was pretty bizarre actually. There were random games, like chugging pop as fast as you can, trivia contests, and singing competitions. A group of six of us went up and sang the MSU fight song, which I’m pretty sure went over everyone’s heads. There was another game where there was a box being passed around like hot potato. If you got stuck with it, you had to pull out a slip of paper from it and do what it said, and all of them were embarrassing of course. The girl sitting next to me, Sarah, had to go up and dance in front of everyone. Later, my roommate Ryan got dragged up to dance in this crazy circle of Indian guys. Afterwards though, there was a dance party and they sold beer behind a counter, so of course we got some. It was all pretty awkward and hilarious for our second day of being there.

The next day we had to get up early for a field trip to the Damnoen Saduak floating market, which is about 65 miles southwest of Bangkok A floating market is basically a market set up on a system of canals with boats serving as the shops, produce stands, and even restaurants. We hired a guy to take us around in a boat for 100 baht each (about $3) so we could see everything. It was really touristy in general but it was pretty surreal for us farang (Westerners) to see boats pull up next to us full of fruit and bubbling pots of food.

Later that night Ryan and I went to a bar near Thammasat University, which is right next to AIT, with some of the students who have been showing us around in Thailand. They served us beer from these huge three-liter vats with spouts on the bottom. One thing about Thailand that sucks a little is that they serve their beer lukewarm and then put ice in it. Gross! I found out that night that my friend Sam, one of the students helping us out, is from Kyrgyzstan. How random is that? His girlfriend, Peace, and one of her friends taught me the Thai word for crazy, but then kept cracking up when I said it to them. Apparently its extremely rude to call someone that unless you’re good friends with them, ha ha.

The next night, we didn’t have much to do in the evening so we went out to this crazy nightclub called Pretty Highly Attractive (I can’t make this stuff up), or Phat for short. There was a Thai rock band that was actually pretty good with copious amounts of American dance music in between. Our group of Americans was kind of a novelty so everyone wanted to toast us and share drinks in between bouts of crazy dancing. All the Thai people we have met are so friendly and, it’s really awesome.

Today we visited Ayuthaya, which was the capital of Thailand before Bangkok was founded. It was mostly destroyed in 1767 by an invading Burmese army so it has lots of ruins. There was a temple with an enormous golden Buddha statue inside that was over 600 years old and another one that was almost just as old. I think I’m going to end up seeing about a thousand Buddhas before I leave this place, but they are pretty impressive so I’m ok with it, ha ha. The last thing we saw in Ayuthaya was the ruins of a huge temple called Wat Chai Wattanaram, which is built in the style of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It was a very beautiful place.

Right now, I have to go get ready for a Thai barbecue (don’t ask me what that means, ha ha), so sawat-dii khrap for now