Propositioned?

Hi all,
Sorry I haven't updated in awhile but I haven't had anything to write. But today something very strange happened to me. I got up a little later than normal since I was woken up by mosquitoes biting me in my room in the middle of the night and I had a hard time going back to sleep.

After breakfast I decided to go to the KKU Complex to get some souvenirs and conditioner. I was dressed in a tank top and a pair of bermuda shorts. When I was done, I waited for the shuttle bus back to the hotel. A guy also got on and stared at me, then proceeded to make small talk with me in English. He asked me my name, where I was from, etc. Then he sat down next to me and said 'I like you' and kissed my shoulder! Needless to say, I rushed off the bus and was a little freaked out. I wasn't sure if I was just propositioned or he was just a strange guy. I've seen plenty of women wear shorts, so I know that is culturally appropriate. My friend also wore a tank top the other day, so I thought that was culturally appropriate too. But apparently maybe not, so I will not be wearing tank tops here anymore. It's crazy what passes for appropriate dress here because I've seen some women dress in skirts that have thigh high slits nearly to their crotch! So after that experience, I'm keeping everything wrapped up.

Besides that experience, it has been a decent week. I've got lots of data and I'm chugging along. Although the doxycycline is still making me a little queasy. My interview with the nursing students took way longer than it should, but it was just part of their school project.

Dr. Panya told me that I would have to give an hour long presentation on my work during the last Thursday that I'm here, so I have to figure out what I'm going to say. I'm working on that today, my only day off of the week. I guess I have to come up with something to say.

I went out to dinner with Dr. Panya and his students on Friday night and it was really fun. I had so much to eat and it was all delicious (ah-loy). The waiter took a picture of all of us, Nongnuch and Dr. Panya is sitting next to me. Ann is sitting across from me and Ghee is sitting next to her.
I also took some pictures of the shuttle, the new taxi service here in Khon Kaen, and inside of the complex.
Look at all the motorbikes!I think that's all for now. I will try to take some more pictures and post when something strange happens to me. Have a good weekend!

Feeling Queasy

Not much new to report here in Khon Kaen. I was not feeling well last night since I think I inadvertently ate dairy within the two hours of taking my anti-malarials and may have ingested some insect repellent, resulting in a very upset stomach. I definitely need my anti-malarials since I've attacked by the mosquito population and I think I have roughly twenty mosquito bites so far.

As I'm sitting here in the hotel lobby typing out this blog post, I was just approached by a group of nursing students who wanted to interview me for some reason or another (they asked me where I was from and I told them USA, then they said something about why they wanted to talk to me). I told them okay, so they're going to interview me tomorrow. It's going to be interesting since they don't appear to speak very good English.

I think people are shocked that I'm from America and have decided to come to Khon Kaen since not many tourists come here. Last night I met a woman in the hotel lobby who was having trouble with her wireless so she asked me to help her. I tried to help her but her laptop was not cooperating. We got to talking and she told me that I looked Thai Chinese, hence her initial assumption that I was Thai. Her name was Pooh and she works for the Johnson and Johnson Company in Bangkok. Her English was quite good and she offered to show me around Bangkok (then proceeded to give me her phone number) if I was ever there. I'm not going to take her up on the offer since I'm not going to be in Bangkok, but I wonder if this is part of the Thai hospitality that I've heard about.

Tonight I managed to take a picture of the skin lightening washes I talked about last week. It's a UV lightening cleanser according to the packaging. I don't know what that means but it sounds painful.
That's it for tonight, I'll try to write another post in a couple of days when I get some new pictures. Have a good night!

Day Off

Today was my day off, so I slept in a little and decided to venture out around campus. After breakfast I went to the market/stores area right outside of campus. This area is just a little further from the Faculty of Medicine. Here is a picture of the road I walk along everyday to the Faculty of Medicine.

Here is a picture of the building that I work in everyday.

These are views from the overpass of the main road in Khon Kaen. The overpass sign shows a picture of the Thai royal family (I think).

Most of the stores were closed when I walked by since it was still early (10AM). I was able to take some pictures of the campus and the food stalls. Here is a picture of a fruit stall along the street. Khon Kaen and Thai people in general love their fruit, so you find many of these stalls along the street and in markets. They will cut up the fruit and put them in little clear plastic bags and sometimes serve it with a sugar and chili powder mixture.

Thai people are also very religious, so there are many Buddhist shrines outside of buildings. I even saw a monk today! When people pass by the shrine across my hotel, they wai or bow their head in prayer. Here is a picture of a small shrine outside an apartment complex (I think, but it could have been a hotel).

Here is a larger shrine outside of the hospital.

I was out for maybe an hour or two, and by the time I got back to the hotel, I was dripping in sweat. After I sat in the air conditioning for awhile, I went to the KKU student complex for lunch. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the complex and next to the complex is a small park. Here’s a couple of pictures of the park with little dinosaur statues. The guidebooks say that a dinosaur species was discovered nearby and the people have embraced the dinosaur around the city.
After lunch, I decided to have a little adventure on the KKU shuttle bus. I rode the bus around campus so I could see the different areas of the campus (I think the drivers thought I was crazy, since I think I took three different shuttles). I had to walk and wait around for the bus, so I managed to get a strange tan. As I was waiting/walking along the bus route, I took a picture of the local “buses” to the different areas of town. These are called songtaiw, which are just covered pickup trucks that go different routes. I asked Nongnuch about it yesterday and she said they are kind of scary to ride on. The guide books said the drivers weave in and out of traffic and sometimes they are so packed that people hang off the backs.

Yesterday Dr. Panya bought pizza and chicken wings for everyone working with the collection, which was really nice. I’m never going to go hungry in Thailand since everyone keeps feeding me! Thai pizza was like American pizza but Thai people eat it very differently than we do. The order of pizza came with a giant bag of twenty packets of ketchup and they would put a packet of ketchup on each slice of pizza before they ate it. We finished our impromptu meal with some DQ ice-cream, which was welcome on the hot day. DQ was the only recognizable fast food chain I’ve seen here so far, I wonder if there’s a McDonald’s close by so I can take a picture of it. I also had Pad Thai for the first time here yesterday and it was delicious. Pad Thai is more of a street food, found in markets and stalls. It’s not available at the hotel restaurant, so I have to wait until Nongnuch is around so she can order it for me.

Tomorrow I continue data collection, so I'm spending the rest of the day doing non educational things, like watching World Cup games or reading Harry Potter. Hope you're all having a good weekend and Father's Day!

Almost the end of the first week...

Hi all!

It's Friday night here and I am going to collect data tomorrow, so there's not much relaxing to be had. After five days here, I have collected data from nearly 100 skulls, and I think I will collect more data next week since I'm getting into my groove.

I think I may have shocked Nongnuch the other day when she asked me if I was religious and I told her I wasn't. She was flabbergasted. Then she asked me if I wanted to go with her one morning when she brings food to the local monks (a local Buddist tradition). I just told her since my parents weren't religious I wasn't raised to be and left it at that.

Then I proceeded to shock her again when she asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I guess she was shocked at my spinsterhood, then she suggested I get a Thai boyfriend so I could improve my Thai. I laughed at her suggestion but it does seems like a good way to improve my language skills. I think I can currently say/identify 10-20 different things. Most of what I can say appears to revolve around food. Thai people eat a lot but they are really skinny. They kept commenting that I don't eat that much, and for anyone that knows me, that is so not true. They like to have a rice dish with meat and then fruit and dessert after each meal. It's a lot of food! Here's a picture of my dinner at the hotel restaurant.
I still can't get used to the crazy motorbike riders here. I forgot to get a picture today, but I will soon. It's pretty standard to see three or four people crammed on a motorbike on the roads here, but today I saw two guys riding a motorbike and the guy on the back was carrying a full sized ladder! If I was that guy I would be really tired.

Every morning in front of my hotel there are women who sit and sell their silk wares. They even weave silk cloths, purses, and other goodies while they sit. They are gone by the time I get back for the evening. One of these mornings I will look at their wares and buy some souvenirs. Here's a picture of them selling their stuff.
There is a shrine across my hotel that many students frequent before exams to pray for good luck. It's really pretty with lots of elephant statues in the front. I still have yet to see an actual elephant though. Here are some pictures of the shrine.
The food is really good here and really cheap. I just have to be careful not to order the spicy stuff, cause then it's REALLY spicy. I wish they had the chili pepper icons next to the menu like they do at Chinese restaurants back home. However, I now know the Thai word for chili so I know what to avoid.

One last note, one thing that really confuses me about Thailand is that their toilet paper is very strange. It's not a continuous roll, but rather square by square (if they have it). I haven't really adjusted to using this type of toilet paper, so it's a good thing that I brought travel toilet paper. The toilet at school doesn't have toilet paper, so I have to remember to bring my own everyday, so I'm learning to adjust.

Otherwise, life here is good, albeit a little rural for my liking. I really like my hosts and Dr. Panya is really sweet and funny. I'm collecting lots of data and I may be even able to finish the entire collection in a month! I hope that I get to see some of the sights before I leave, but it's work first then play later.

Internet access again!

Hi all,

My hotel lost power two nights ago and I haven't been able to access the internet since then. It was weird waking up to find my room pitch black and the air not working. Thankfully, the power was out during the night and by the time I was getting ready, power was restored.

It's official, I'm Thai. Yesterday, a woman pulled up besides me in her car and asked me for directions. I gave her a blank look and looked at the guy standing next to me also waiting for the bus to tackle that question. I'm not sure if she thought I was an idiot or rude. I really have to perfect my Thai so that I can say I don't speak Thai in Thai. Currently I can say four things: I'm full, I'm hungry, hello, and thank you. It's not the most useful vocabulary but it'll work for me. By the end of the month, I think I should be able to say a sentence or two.

I've managed to collect data from over 50 skulls, so I'm making decent progress, but not quick enough to go through the entire collection by the end of the month. The collection is pretty extensive, albeit a little gross since some of the beetle remains are still inside the skulls. It's weird to think that some of these people have been dead for less than a year. The collection consists of people donating their body to the school and they have died from various causes. There are also a lot of monks in the collection, which I find strange because I thought they would have buried them by the monastery.

Yesterday was my most productive day and I got 28 skulls measured. Whereas today, I only got 17 skulls measured. Dr. Panya requested that I go to the Graduate Student seminar today for the Department of Anatomy at noon. It's a weekly seminar where someone, either staff or student presents a paper entirely in English about their research. Today the topic was about Alzheimer's, which was interesting. After the speaker gave her talk in English, the floor was open to questions, which were mostly in Thai. I didn't quite understand what was going on, but I noticed lots of laughing. I even got to ask a question in English of course, which kind of stumped the speaker and I felt bad. Then Dr. Panya introduced me to the department and I had to say a few words. I asked Nongnuch why they have the seminars in English and she told me it was to strengthen their English skills for when they give professional presentations.Dr. Panya wants me to give a 40 minute presentation my last week here about both my Master's thesis and my work here at KKU. I guess I have to get to work on that since I have no clue what to say.

It stormed for the first time here tonight, so that was nice since it might cool things down here. It's been over 100 degrees everyday since I've been here. It's been unbearably hot and humid.

I thought I would take some pictures of the different types of snacks available here in Thailand since it is highly amusing to me. When I arrived at the Bangkok airport, I bought a bag of chips to eat. It was a bag of Lay's chips, but it was Nori Seaweed flavor and according to the bag, is the number one best seller. It's actually quite tasty and does taste a little like seaweed. Here's a picture of one that I bought here in Khon Kaen.
I also included a picture of the bags of chips that housekeeping leaves for me in my fridge in my room. From the picture, I can only deduce that it's crab or seafood flavored or it's made of crab roe?
I couldn't get a picture of the weird toiletries for sale at the Mini-mart next to my hotel. I had wanted to get some facial cleanser since I apparently didn't remember to bring any. However, the only cleanser the store sells are whitening products. I'm not kidding you, all the facial cleanser and shower creams had whitening or lightening products in it. At least, that's what the English name said. Now I'm not sure if this was translated wrong, or if they actually mean to lighten the skin. I'm very tempted to buy a bottle and use it myself, but I'm a little scared of what it will do to my skin.

I think that's all for now, in the coming days I hope to be able to take a picture of the college uniforms and the cheers they do, along with all the motorbikes in the campus.

First Day in Khon Kaen

After my blog post yesterday, I went and took a long nap. When I woke up at 4 in the afternoon, I was starving and decided to venture out on my own. I walked to the Student Union or what they call the Complex. It's an indoor/outdoor building with lots of food stalls and restaurants. It was a harrowing 10 minute walk, since they don't have sidewalks here and the motorbike drivers and drivers are out of control. They also don't have crosswalks or walk lights. Along the way, I saw some wild dogs and some rats, which was kinda scary since my hosts told me I should avoid the dogs because they bite.

I went to a restaurant that served mostly noodle dishes (I only went inside because I saw that they had English subtitles under the menu). The wait staff did not speak English but luckily their menus had pictures on them. My Thai is pretty bad, so far I can say hello and thank you. I pointed at the first thing I saw, and it was describe as a fish noodle in red sauce. It looked pretty good and was really cheap. When my food came I was so hungry that I started shoveling the food in my mouth. Big mistake. Not only was it hot (it was noodles in a red broth), it was damned spicy! I like spicy foods, but this was too spicy for me. I managed to eat all of it while downing my iced tea(?). I stopped by the 7-11 to get some snacks and bottled water then proceeded back to my hotel.

I managed to watch some of the World Cup game but it was in Thai, and Thai television doesn't show you the score while they broadcast, or the teams, so you just have to guess who they are playing. I went to bed really early for me (11PM) last night and I woke up at 7AM this morning, but I'm still jet lagged. I am really tired in the middle of day and I it's hard to focus on my work. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have gotten over the jet lag.

I haven't been here that long but I've already attracted the local mosquito population, since I managed to get eight mosquito bites last night. A lizard got into my bathroom last night and I was so startled by it. I had no idea what to do with it and when I looked in my bathroom this morning the lizard was gone.

My guest room is pretty decent, it's very large and has seen better days but it will suit my needs. My one complaint about the room is the bed. It is rock hard and sleeping on it is like sleeping on a wooden board. Here are some pictures of it.
My hotel provides a breakfast buffet of traditional Thai food of congee, fried rice, a salad bar, and some fruit. Here's a picture of the restaurant and it's an outdoor restaurant that gets pretty hot during the day.
After breakfast this morning, Ann met me in my hotel to walk me over to the Faculty of Medicine. I got to met Dr. Panya, the curator of the collection, and they managed to get me set up. Dr. Panya is a really friendly man and I felt at ease when I met him. He also refused to let me pay for my lunch and he introduced me to some Thai fruit (guava) that I've never had before. They eat it with skewers and dip it in a sugar, salt, and hot chili powder mixture. I didn't particularly enjoy or dislike it. I couldn't eat the other Thai fruit like papaya or dragonfruit because I'm allergic and I don't like it. I still haven't come across the dreaded durian yet. Thai people also have a different way of eating than we do. They eat with a fork and spoon but no knives. The spoon is held in the right hand and the fork is used to pile food on the spoon. It's taking me some time to get used to this.

Dr. Panya and I talked about my research and I told him about the different techniques we use in forensic anthropology. I also started my data collection today and measured 11 skulls. This is definitely a slow start since they have over 800 skulls in their collection!

After I was done for the day, Ann walked me back to my hotel and we almost got run over many times because we were crossing the streets during rush hour. I was sweating like a pig by the time I got back but it doesn't appear anyone else is sweating as much as me. Hopefully acclimatization will occur in a week.

One thing that surprises me and makes me laugh is that everyone thinks I'm Thai here. They all look at me like I'm stupid since they talk to me in Thai and I get a blank look on my face. I've never been confused as being Thai before so that just cracks me up. I'm pretty sure they think I'm an idiot because I never wai (clasp my hand like in prayer and bow my head) to anyone because I'm not sure when it's appropriate to do it.

Tomorrow I collect more data and tackle more Thai words. I will try to take some pictures of the strange snack foods that I've bought, including some very strange toiletry products.

Sawatdee from Thailand

Greetings all!

I finally made it to Thailand, but I have no idea what time zone or day it is, so bear with me. It's 11 hours ahead of the east coast here, so it's Sunday morning. All in all, the trip wasn't bad but there were some pretty insufferable parts. This is going to be a really long post, and I'm sorry.

I left NYC on Friday afternoon, where I boarded a Cathay Pacific flight bound for Hong Kong. Here are some pictures of the gate I had to wait to board my flight.The flight was 16 hours nonstop and I was unfortunately stuck in the middle seat. I was lucky enough to have an awesome entertainment center at my disposal, which I took a picture of:
I managed to watch five movies, Crazy Heart (which is excellent and totally reaffirms my lust of Colin Farrell), Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (which is fun, but not great), Invictus (a great movie and so appropriate), It's Complicated (Alec Baldwin is hilarious and Meryl Streep is just awesome), and finally How to Train Your Dragon (which I've already seen but I love it). During my movie watching, Cathay Pacific tries to stuff you as much as they can, so you keep coming back to the airline and pay the high airfares. Here are some pictures of the food that they fed us. This was lunch, which was served right after we got to cruising altitude. This is a crazy Chinese airline tradition, where they serve a snack of Cup of Noodles between lunch and dinner. Dinner was served a quarter to midnight, so my dining habits and internal clock is really messed up. Dinner was some beef and potatoes concoction which was pretty good.

I have to admit, I kind of like airline food and Cathay Pacific's food is pretty good. As a result of all the food and drink, I had to get up and use the facilities and to stretch but it was difficult with my seat mate.The flight was crowded and I was seated next to a very inconsiderate aisle seatmate. Since my seatmate had an aisle seat and there were two other people sitting on the other side of him, you would figure that he would be considerate about us getting up to use the facilities. But clearly, that is not the case. He is by no means a skinny man or obese, but he had to clutter his seat pocket and area with I kid you not, a dozen newspapers in both Chinese and English. I was fine with the clutter at first since I didn't have to get up to use the facilities yet. However, after hour 6, I had to get up. I asked my seatmate to get up, but he just moved his newspapers out of the way and expected me to climb over him. Is it really that hard to get up???!!! You're on a 16+ hour flight and you're not getting up at every opportunity? I find that crazy. At this point I had to ponder whether to give him the butt or the crotch. I gave him the butt. I nearly ended up in his lap. I thought maybe it was just a one time thing, but nope, when the lady sitting in the window seat, she had to crawl over the both of us because he wouldn't let me out. Besides the bad seatmate and the constantly crying baby, it was a decent flight.

After that I had a 3 hour layover in HKG, which is one of the larger airports I've been in. What drove me crazy about the airport was that there was not a single working outlet anywhere. I wanted to charge my netbook and phone, but none of the outlets worked. The funny thing about that was there were charging stations everywhere, but none of them had power! There were so many stores in the airport, but very few food stalls. I wanted something to drink since I was so dehydrated from the flight, but I had to walk to kingdom come to find some food or drink. Now I know how the Hong Kongese stay so skinny, you have to work for the food and drink, since I walked at least a mile in the airport. My layover went pretty quickly since I had to walk all over the place.

Then it was time for my flight to Bangkok, which was the worst flight of my trip. When I got on the plane, it smelled. I had a window seat next to a European woman, who was traveling with other family members who were all over the plane. She asked me about five minutes after I sat down if I would change seats with her granddaughter. I said fine, since I think that's a reasonable request to grant a family. However, I was totally set up. The person that the granddaughter was sitting next to stank. I mean he was ripe. He was sweating, probably from running down the giant terminal in HKG, I thought I would pass out. Since the flight was so full, there were no empty seats elsewhere. His BO was so bad, the people around me complained about it, but I couldn't say anything because, how do you tell the flight attendant that the guy sitting right next to you stank without hurting his feelings? I sucked it up and bore it for the 2+ hour flight. The flight attendant did come by and sprayed air freshener around us, but it didn't help too much. They fed us on the 2+ hour flight, some fish and rice thing, which was pretty good.

I bolted off the flight when we landed in Bangkok, since most of the other people stayed on the flight since it was off to Mumbai.

The Bangkok airport is also huge, which involved a lot of walking for me. I think I managed to walk all of my food off. I wasn't sure if I had to go through immigration first, or if I go straight to my transfer flight. I walked all over the airport to ask someone, but since it was almost midnight, it was pretty deserted. After about half an hour of walking, I found someone and I had to go through immigration and then go check back into the domestic terminal.
After I got through immigration, the check in counters at the domestic terminal was closed. I definitely wasn't alone since there were lots of people camped out on the chairs. Most of them appeared to be American or Australian backpackers with their rucksacks and guidebooks. I had about a 5+ hour layover, so I walked everywhere. The airport is pretty nice and I managed to take a couple of pictures of it.
There were a couple of restaurants open, but I wasn't hungry at that point. I managed to stumble upon the US-England World Cup soccer game being broadcast in one of the restaurants. A large crowd was gathering outside of the restaurants to watch and I joined them. It was fun, but I couldn't really see much of it since the TV was so small. I went to the all night mini mart there and decided to buy something to eat. I was a little shocked at how cheap things were in the airport. I got a bottle of Coke and a pretty big bag of chips for 55 baht, which is like $1.75. Then it was time for my Khon Kaen flight.

The flight was pretty empty, I had an entire row by myself and the flight was only 45 minutes long. Even during a 45 minute flight, Thai Airways felt the need to feed us, but I declined the food since I was sleeping. When I landed in Khon Kaen, all I could see was a tiny airport. I was getting nervous since I was supposed to meet some of the grad students at KKU and they were going to take me to my hotel. The sweetest group of women and girls greeted me. They had a large sign with my name printed on it. Ann, Nongnuch (grad students at KKU), Nongnuch's sister and daughter greeted me at the airport, and they were very nice. The children didn't speak English, but Ann and Nongnuch were pretty good. We piled into Nongnuch's pickup truck and headed to the university. I have to say that Thai drivers are scary! They don't obey stop signs or right of ways, the only thing they seem to obey are lights. There are also a lot of dinosaur statues (like the ones you see in museum dioramas) in town and I find that fascinating.

We got to the Kwanmor Hotel at KKU and we couldn't check in yet, so they took me to breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which was really nice of them. They wouldn't take my money, so I'm going to have to take them out to dinner some night. I've settled into my hotel, and I think I'm going to take a nap now, so I'll write more tomorrow when I begin my first day looking at the KKU skeletal collections. I'm really excited!