Day 3: Mahidol University

Fun Fact: The tuk-tuk are small three-wheeled motorcycles with something like a cab in back where up to four people can ride. One grad student said they managed to fit twelve people into the back of something like these:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw

Unlike a taxi, you negotiate the fare prior to leaving. This cost us 80 baht one time for four people and 70 baht for three. They go very fast and there's not much to hold on to. However, it's something you can't miss out on.

Motorcycle taxis are another option but they drive very fast and weave through Bangkok's endless traffic at rush hour. They get you where you want to go quickly but there's no defense against getting hit by a car.

Standard taxis are a good choice. The minimum fare is 35 baht for something like 1km and then 2 baht for every few fractions of a km later. Time in traffic may also add to the fare. We usually get something like an 80 baht fare, which is reasonable when split four or five ways. Be sure to make sure they use the meter or else the driver can claim a much higher fare when you get to your destination.

With any of these means of travel, you have the ask ahead of time about where you want to go because they may not be going as far as you'd like. Motorcycles and tuk-tuk seem to have home bases set up in different spots around the city to service different areas. Taxis also have their own normal routes.

In tourist spots, some tuk-tuk or taxi drivers may end up bringing you away from where you want to go in order to drop you off around stores and places they do business with. You have to go through several of these places before you can continue on. We haven't run into one of these traps yet and it doesn't seem likely out where we are. Drivers around popular spots will also try very hard to get you to use their service if you're walking around like you want to leave the area. It's okay to pass them by or simply refuse. They usually advertise prices to you in this manner; I'm not sure if these prices offered are discounted or not but you can also negotiate the cost beforehand while being sure to keep to the set price when you go to pay them.

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The first Monday was the first working day of the trip. The two of us working at Mahidol met our grad students at CRI in the morning and went through the route to get the university. It takes about one hour and involves one bus, the Sky Train, and then either another bus or walking. The buses are very crowded at rush hour and sometimes you're stuck where the doors open and close. You have to be careful about that because sometimes the doors will open while the bus is still slowing down (and moving at a considerable pace). A lot of the buses are air conditioned and cost 12 baht, but the open buses will only cost around 5 baht.

The university is a very interesting place with a lot to see. The lab I'm working in is very large and the group is both friendly and talented. I met with my professor to discuss the project and it seems very cool. I won't mention much about it on this blog. Mahidol University has several buildings/campuses around the city for things like Science, Dentistry, and so on. The Faculty of Science campus is very nice with a lot of green plants and impressive architecture. On the opposite side of the campus is the cafeteria where a lot of interesting foods and drinks are available. Apparently there is a market that opens in the center of campus on some Thursdays. (I missed the first one because I ended up being at the CRI conference later on that week.)

I don't have pictures of Mahidol yet.

Day 2: Grand Palace, Wat Pho

Fun Facts: The currency of Thailand is the baht. 31 to 32 baht is one dollar, or something like 27 or less if you go to the airport to exchange money. Fractions of a baht are called satang (like US cents). Most things cost at least 5 baht and I haven't used any satang yet; you get these little coins as change from grocery stores where they charge fractions of a baht. Denominations of baht go 1, 2, 5, and 10 as coins with 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 as bills. Some denominations of satang (I've only seen 25 and 50 so far) are smaller than dimes. When you get the bills, you can see that they are almost always in impeccable condition. This money has the king on it and he is very highly respected. Because of this, the money should always be handled with care as it would be disrespectful.

Food and other things are a lot less expensive in Thailand than the USA. You can get lunch/dinner for 30-45 baht and then a drink will be 10-15 baht. So that's about two dollars or less for a meal. Yet there are some places where food can be extremely expensive (fancy tourist places). Food courts are an interesting option as they allow you to go around and see a wide variety of options. At places like IT Square and the Central Mall, you put money on a card which you give to the people you get your food from. They subtract the value from the total and you can recover what's left when you leave the food court. You'll have to order from pictures placed around the storefronts. Once you've ordered, they cook it to order in front of you usually.

Street vendors are another popular option and you can't go far without running into one or a grouping of them. However, people traveling from outside the country should probably be sure to avoid certain foods or conditions as it could make them sick. I haven't had anything from the street vendors yet.

Another thing is that you can often bargain/haggle with vendors selling goods outside of established stores. It's fun and shouldn't be taken too aggressively. If you're a foreigner, you can probably get something down 10%. More if you can speak Thai or just some phrases (they seem to think it's cute or something), down to 25% off in one case. Usually just asking for a lower price will get you somewhere but in the end it's still really less expensive. Thai people get the most generous discounts. Most numbers are written in Arabic (0123456789) on signs and in shops but vendors will speak the numbers in Thai. I've learned to speak the numbers (it's a bit simpler format than English) yet vendors will also have calculators on hand to show you the price in a format you can understand. Since the labeled price will drop with haggling, the calculator provides a quick and concrete way of showing the new price.


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Day 2: On the day after resting up from the travel, we left early in the morning to tour numerous cultural sites around Bangkok. The first was the Grand Palace. It's a huge religious site that is maintained by the royalty and there are no monks living there. One part of the Thai culture is that every man is expected to become a monk for some period of their life. This can be a few weeks or much longer. The main temple of the Grand Palace houses the largest jade Buddha around, which is referred to as the Emerald Buddha. It is placed on top of a huge golden set-up inside a large room where people come to pray. Pictures weren't allowed inside. This statue is dressed for each of the three seasons in Thailand. There's also a whole tower covered in gold tiles and the building housing the Buddha is encrusted in what could be gem stones and more gold. Altogether this site took only three years to build a long time ago. There are also giant statues placed at the entrances; these are demons placed to fight off evils that would follow people into the site.

After the Grand Palace was Wat Pho, where the giant golden reposing Buddha statue is located. It's pretty big. On the opposite side of the statue near the exit are 108 bowls where those praying can drop a single coin into each one as they go along. 108 is the number of Auspicious Symbols in Buddhism. There's a station where one can exchange 20 baht for 108 coins. I'm not sure if these coins are satang (the Thai equivalent of cents) or some specialized coins. Afterward we stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant by the river.



Following this was the Vivanmek Mansion. It's a royal mansion built with teak wood about four kings ago. Since then, it has become a storage place and museum for gifts and other possessions of the Thai royalty. A lot of neat things are on display but cameras were forbidden. The tour was rather straightforward and showed off many collections of expensive things. Next door was the Arts of the Kingdom V exhibition of masterpieces to commemorate the elaborate gifts created to honor the king's birthday. Each one took months or years to finish and the details are amazing. They're built with teak, gold, iridescent beetle wings, and gems. Once again no cameras were allowed. Some stuff can be found online.

Day 1: IT Square

Fun Fact: "Bangkok" in Thai is Krung Thep (กรุงเทพ), which is something like 'city of angels'. However, that's just a short name for it.

Bangkok's full name is: กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์.

Spoken, it sounds like: 'Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit'.

Or, in English: "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn."




This is the longest name for a place in the world. 'Bangkok' fits more nicely on a mailing envelope, though.

Source

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In my last entry I linked to two albums (Thai 1 and 2) on Facebook that are open to everyone to see. As I write this there are now five Thai albums and several videos. These cover the first weekend with something like 200+ pics.

Day 1: Having arrived at 12am Saturday, the rest of the day was reserved for recovery. I didn't end up suffering from jet lag as by the end of a 30 hour journey I wasn't sure when or where I was anyway. We met for breakfast at 8 am (provided daily at the accommodations) and discussed plans for the week. The breakfast is sort of Thai, with the occasional rice soup or exotic fruit, but more American styled. Our advisor told us that Thai breakfasts are much different.

At 11 am we met the ThaiROP students from MIT, essentially on the same schedule as us and also delayed from 10 weeks down to 2 weeks by the civil unrest. From there we met some of the graduate students that a few of us would be working with. We went to IT Square Mall which is a five minute walk down the street. I don't have too many pictures of IT Square yet since we go there all the time. It'll take a lot to capture all the sites and sounds of IT Square which, combined with CRI campus, forms the whole of our fishbowl-like awareness of this huge city. We bought a wide variety of exotic fruits and tried them out. I didn't particularly think they were too strong in flavor but they did provide new tastes and textures that you don't find in the West. The rest of the day was spent resting and exploring IT Square a second time.

Day Zero: Planes and More Planes

Three (out of eight) of us started out the trip from Newark Airport in New Jersey. It's a moderately sized airport and that's where we took one of the very large planes north, over the Arctic, to get to Japan. This was about 16 hours of flying. The flight was okay but far too long. We were following the sun going west/north so it was daylight outside the entire time. They kept the windows closed for most of the flight in order to fake it being night so we would be adjusted to Japan time. I tried to look out the window but it was way too bright out to see anything, plus I was sitting beside the wing. When we were landing I could take some pictures of the Japanese countryside. The food on the flight got progressively worse as we went.

We landed at Narita Airport in Tokyo. There's a lot of interesting stores and such all around there along with a few cafes. It's very large and there's several terminals separated by huge underground tunnels with moving sidewalks. There was a four hour layover so the six of us, having met three other REU students here, hung out and waited for the next flight there. It was more or less the same as the last flight but only six or seven hours this time. I slept through most of time.

By about 12 am we ended up at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok. It's huge and is built with glass walls and ceilings everywhere. From there we took vans to Chulabhorn Research Institute where we are staying. The accommodations are like a hotel and we're paired up two to a room. We haven't been spending much time at the residence lately since we're out at the universities from eight to six.


Four Days of Pictures:
Album 1
Album 2
I haven't had any time to go through them and take out blurry ones. And there's more when I can take them off the phone. 

Computer Access

I finally have wireless access at the residence. It seems like you need everything short of a blood sample and having to wear an explosive collar to get online. I have lots to cover and it's already 1 am here, so I'll wait until the morning since my day starts later tomorrow. I've been taking pictures with the camera, and with my cellphone when things come up randomly. Have to get a USB flash card reader to grab stuff from the cellphone.