Saturday, May 19, 2012

:) The Land of Smiles :)

Now that I have lived in India for almost ten months now I know that one could never understand a place by simply being a tourist there. In Thailand I was in fact only a tourist for eight days. My time there was very nice, but I did not learn a thing about culture. I was very close with the Thai exchange student in my city last year. I asked her a lot of questions and it is only because I spoke with her that I know a thing about Thailand.
My friend Anna and I went to Thailand to go to the Rotary International Conference in Bangkok. However we only went to one hour of the convention. We were never even registered for the convention: / The first two days of our journey we were in Pattaya. Pattaya is nothing but a bunch of foreigners who came for the notorious Thai sex industry. There are prostitutes literally EVERYWHERE! After India I consider myself a passionate feminist, and it sickens me to see women forced to do horrible things for their livelihood. The city disgusts me and I hated being there. Pattaya is supposedly famous for its beaches, but I found that they were sub-par because they were ruined by tourists.
Bangkok- We finally saw a glimpse into a more Thai Thailand. The hotel we stayed in was overly luxurious and it was in the very commercial part of town. To be honest this is exactly the kind of travelling I do not want to do. We went on vacation to Thailand not really to discover it. Fortunately Anna and I were given a lot of freedom so we travelled through the city to visit local flower markets and Buddhist temples. The Temple of the Reclining Buddha was stunning. All of the temples we visited were artistic masterpieces.   
People- There is a reason that Thailand is called the “Land 1,000 Smiles”.  People are very warm and enthusiastic to help you with anything. I found people very innocent and sweet, but they are incredibly shy people. I spoke with some other exchange students at the conference to ask them questions about their experiences and they said that what I said was true, but Thai people do not communicate at all. Of course I was not there for enough time to make any judgement call on this.
Food- Thailand is famous for its exotic cuisine; however all of it has meat. Thailand is a nightmare for vegetarians. There is even meat in desserts sometimes. Once I bit into a pink little rice cake very similar to a cupcake and there was a chunk of chicken in the middle. Who puts chicken in cupcakes?! Because Anna and I are vegetarians the only Thai dish we could eat was Pad Thai. We ate it every day for lunch and dinner. We also bought a lot of Thai snacks like seaweed and strange Asian processed foods. The best thing about Thai food is the crazy exotic fruits. Mangosteen, litchi, dragon fruit!  We never had a real food issue because we were travelling with a group of Indians. Where there are Indian people there is always Indian vegetarian food. Every night there was an option for an Indian restaurant.
I had a very short trip to the Land of Smiles, and I cannot say that I learned so much but it was an experience. One day I will go back to Thailand to meet my friend Isis so that she can show me the true Thailand. Bangkok is cool, but it is the opposite of my travelling style. The only reason I would ever go back to Bangkok is to see the temple of the Reclining Buddha again, and I would absolutely never go back to Pattaya. I’m thinking that when I come back to India with my parents I will do a tour of all of Asia. I have to go to Burma and Nepal. My best friend Camille went to Burma and she says it is her favourite country to travel in. I would like to see Indonesia and maybe even the Philippines. I have become increasingly curious about Arabic speaking countries, but I would like to finish Asia before I start something else.

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