Day 32

Sunday. Went to the ruins of Sukhothai. Awesome. Took like 200 pictures. Got some food and ice cream!!! So good. Then came back to the hotel and took a nap. Got up and got in the pool. Then had dinner and started drinking with the teachers. Fun night.

Day 33

Got prepped for 8 hour bus ride to Nong Khai. Amazing drive. Beatiful Country. Got here. Wasn’t too bad. Here and it’s right on the Mae Kong river which is the border between Laos and Thailand. I’ll get more info later miss you all.

written by  Matt Eastlick on April 27, 2009 from Nong Khai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Thailand Study Abroad
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Day 34

Woke up….damn it was hot last night. Jumped on the bus and went to a Cal Poly Alumni’s village he lives in now. Been there 20 years with a thai wife and 3 kids. It was the Esan village. Very cool and got to do a scavenger hunt in order to get to know people. Very fun and got a hole bunch of fruit off the trees. Uie was our guide. Very nice lady. Lunch…..finally bugs!!! Snail, beetles, ants, ant larva, papaya salad, water buffalo skin, sticky rice, mango, rice cakes, chicken, and fish…….Ant larva was no joke probably the best. The fruit we got from the locals…..3 type of mangos, Lyche, fresh tamerin, starfruit, little cherries, little green sour things, long green bean, tomatoes, and ….. some other stuff. Of course….awesome. Come back and now I’m just typin’ this and should start studying for midterms tomorrow. I forgot that we had a huge welcoming party for us at the school. So at 6pm, we went down to school and got a nice barbeque style dinner. Chicken, sticky rice, fresh fruit, everything good. Then we played games (snake eating tail, tiger eating cow, and stupid American games.). After came back and studied, and then a group of us went out for an hour or so to see the town before we went to bed.

Day 35

Wednesday….went to class and took a midterm. Ouch. Hopefully that turns out better that I feel about it. Came back and rented some bicycles. Rode to the Tesco Lotus. Ended up being more of a shopping mall than a supermarket. Crazy insane. There was actually a Wal-Mart type thing inside. Anyways, we got some beer, but the funny thing is that in Thailand you can’t buy beer from 2pm-5pm. We got to the register at around 4:57pm….we had to wait three minutes to buy it because they couldn’t have the records on the cash register! So that was entertaining. Came back and ate dinner and just hung out under the cabaña.

Day 36

Went to class again and had another midterm. I think that one went better. Came back and went to a Vietnamese restaurant that was pretty good with amazing service. All of the waiters and waitresses just sat there watching you which was totally awkward. You would take a drink of water or soda and by the time it hit the table, they were filling it back up for you. Good thing we weren’t drinkin’ booze. Might be an awful deep glass;) Came back and had a few beers and played the guitar with Randy. I was Carrie’s birthday, so I played here happy birthday on the git. Went out with some of the the guys and the nursing students at the college with us. Came home and hit the sack…I was shot and we leave at 8am to Lao tomorrow!!

written by  Matt Eastlick on May 4, 2009 from Nong Khai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Thailand Study Abroad
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Got up and headed to the Friendship Bridge. It’s the passageway to get to Laos. Got there and there was a guy who helped us get through faster if we took his taxi on the other side of the border. So we did it. Then we probably did the sketchiest thing we’ve all done so far this trip. He asked for our passports and we gave them to him…..Mom, Chele, don’t freak out. I had my hand around him the whole time. And by God he got us through fast the security didn’t even really look over anything. They just stamped us and we went on through. Anywho….he took us into Vientiane(the capital) and then we paid him extra to take us the next 3 hours drive to Vang Vieng. Had a funny lunch….baguette and water.

written by  Matt Eastlick on May 4, 2009 from Vientiane, Laos
from the travel blog: Thailand Study Abroad
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Day 38

Woke up and hiked this little mountain behind the city. Very cool. Started thunder and raining!!! Felt so amazing!!!! Watched it rain from under our new little cabaña since we moved for the slums!! Met a nice couple. Chris (Australia) and Anja (Germany). They were very nice. They gave me a book called Blood River about Africa and a journalist traveling the area. Ate dinner with them and found out it was Anja birthday, so I knew that my big group was going to “Q-Bar” so I took them there. I meant to mention that I think 35 of us went to Laos that weekend. So when we showed up at Q-Bar all I saw were drunk Cal Poly kids. It was so funny! We just joined in and got Anja her birthday shots and danced for awhile and then went bed. Exhausting day….

Day 39

Woke up and met Chris and Anja for breakfast at Bungalow. They were staying at the same as us. We planned a trip to some caves. Everyone else went tubbing down the river, but that sounded like a drunkin’ day so I opted out on that one. So we rented motorbikes and took off to the mountains. Beautiful landscape. Dane we are coming back. Went to the “Blue Lagoon”. It really was a blue lagoon which was the most beautiful water I’ve ever seen. Rope swings into them and trees to climb and jump off of. So we swam for awhile and then hiked the mountain to where the cave started. Holy crap…..you couldn’t see the ceiling it was so big. So we walked around that and then took a detour home. We still had gas in the tank, so we had to go cruisin’. We went north or town to where there weren’t any white people and it was great. Watched the sun set and came back to return the bike. All day on the bike…..35,000 kip…a little over 4 dollars. Read my book and went to sleep.

Day 40

Planned on going home, but everyone wanted to see the blue lagoon, so I stayed to be there tour guide. Skipped class, but worth it. Took a mini-bus back to Vientiane and then got back at the Mut-Mee at 6pm. Took a shower and ate and went to bed around 9:30pm……Long ass weekend.

written by  Matt Eastlick on May 4, 2009 from Vang Vieng, Laos
from the travel blog: Thailand Study Abroad
Send a Compliment

---

1 comment...