We ended our first part of this amazing adventure by getting
onto a plane in Bali Airport. The next part was delayed about an hour and a
half as we were grounded on the runway. We also had hands down the most
uncomfortable seats of all time, with upright position being so upright, we
were almost leaning slightly forward. We also had to buy our own food on the
plane. This proved to be disastrous when Lindsay and myself could not bear the
thought of ordering 2 minute noodles, unlike Sam, and insisted on trying
something else on the menu. They did not have our first choice available, or
our second or third. Lets just say we only had two options in the end. A very
safe and predictable tuna wrap or something a bit more adventurous, a precooked
in-flight meal, which did not look too horrible in the picture. We chose the
second option and let me just say it was the wrong choice. I can say it was very gross
as I at least tried to eat a bit of it after I scraped the dried fish off the
top, which at first glance looked a lot like maggots. Mmmm yummy. Needless to
say, we did not eat it. Asia Air voted the best low cost airline 2009, 2010, 2011. We beg to
differ.
We were greeted in Thailand by a large welcoming party
consisting of highly enthusiastic girls who were all to eager to teach us Thai
words and bombard us with information. This was really overwhelming, as we were
just trying to catch our breaths and get our heads straight. Also try catch a
view of the city before we were whisked away to our new home.
What we saw of Thailand on the bus ride to Rangsit reminded
us a lot of home, but as Lindsay pointed out that most cities in third world
countries probably look a lot a like. The area we live in is a mixed between
two worlds, there are huge houses behind tall gates, with the streets running infront
of them littered with stray dogs, which love to howl and make extreme amounts
of noise.
Sita Villa will be our home for the upcoming weeks,
unfortunately we feel more like prisoners than guests here, with cameras
conveniently situated just outside both of our rooms and a guard that needs you
to state your room number every time you leave and return to the res. We were
also told that “Big Brother always has an eye on us”, which was confirmed when
some other students were asked how their nights were after returning home in
the early hours of the morning. We will have to hide our faces when coming home
from a bender.
We were seriously spoilt in Bali, with getting fresh towels
and sheets every day. This place is completely different. The bedding does not
match, in fact myself and Melvin have cows and other forest creatures on our
bed sheets. We also have small baby blankets as duvets, his with pink flowers
and mine with multi colored sheep. Melvin is a giant and can barely cover his
legs with his blanket. Tom on the other hand has a sleeping bag. Que scratchy
noise every time he moves. Enjoy that Melvin. Despite this fact, their room has
once again become the designated clubhouse. Sam and Lindsay have a fridge in
their room that is big enough to hide several dead bodies in. Finally no one
will be able to steal our yoghurt, we are sure of this fact as we also have
to pay for our rooms to get cleaned.
No towels or toilet paper is provided. Sam and Lindsay live in the
newer of the two buildings, which is nice because it doesn’t smell of mould
however they do live on the 4th floor and exactly opposite the lady
that owns the place, not ideal when coming home at early hours of the morning after a night on the town. My room is on the 2nd floor of the old building
and my aircon is so loud that every time it is turned on it sounds as if my
room might take off. Regardless of the Krusty nature of our accommodation we
are all very happy to be in Thailand and know we will have an amazing time
here.
On our first night here we couldn’t resist a sneaky bender
to Bangkok, which is a 45 minute taxi drive away, but fortunately quite cheap and this doesn't dig into our drinking savings too much. We took 3 separate taxis and
met in Pat Pong, we were in the first taxi and an hour after we arrived the
entire group had found each other. Bangkok is completely different to Bali.
There are less Australians, which I think we are all grateful for, but there
are a lot more dodgy people trying to lure you into bars and sell you things
you just don’t want. We went to a bar for a drink, which was like a Go Go Bar, where we were exposed to
girls dancing on the bar in bikinis with numbers around their necks. This foreign phenomenon is something we are going to have to get used too. The next place we went to was a beer garden and a lot more chilled, we all just sat and
tried to soak it all in. But it was all a little too much for the first night.
We ended up leaving early, but not before Julian stopped for some food at some
place on the side of the road, Michel was chewing on a twig he found on the
table before getting bored and started convincing Julian he needed to add crazy
amounts of dry and fresh chilli to his food. Julian did and proceeded to eat
his late night snack with extreme difficulty and by the end of it his eyes were
watering. There was also a rat the size of a maltese poodle who enjoyed this show. We jumped in a taxi and Michel almost immediately fell asleep on
Lindsays shoulder and managed to push all three of us girls into the one corner of the backseat during his nap. Julian became so obsessed with knowing where the best clubs
were as well as learning a few thai words that our taxi driver almost forgot that he was meant to be taking us home to Sita Villa resulting in him missing the turn off completely.
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| First night out. Us with Michelle. |
On Sunday the school organized a trip to The Future Mall for
all the new students. As I walked outside I felt instantly ill as the heat was
just too unbearable. Sammy and Lindsay however had a great time and the boys
and myself are already planning when we can go. You know because we need towels
and toilet paper. Patrick arrived on Sunday afternoon and the boys celebrated
this fact by drinking an entire bottle of Absolut Vodka.
Monday was a full school day and we all actually enjoyed it.
The university campus is huge and it is the first time we will be at a
mainstream Uni, we are all very excited about this fact because it is so
completely different to Stenden SA and Stenden Bali. We had introduction lectures to
Thailand, Thai culture and then finally to Events Module 2. This is going to be
a tough module as we already have our first presentation on Tuesday. Tom has a
swollen ankle and none of us know what it is from, our thoughts were that it
was a spider bite but after spending almost the entire afternoon at the
hospital it seems to just be some dirt that got into a small wound that became
infected. When we asked him what he would do if it got so bad that he would
need to go home he responded by saying, “I wont go home, I would rather cut it
off. I don’t really need it anyway”. Luckiliy it isn’t that bad and he can stay
in Thailand… For now.
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| First day at Uni. |
Today we had bid presentations, where we had to present our ideas for various events. It was quite interesting to see all the new group dynamics of the various teams. We are waiting on the results of weather we got our bid or not. Fingers crossed.
