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March 12, 2006
September '05- Hua Hin to see Elephant Polo
I returned last night from my first journey outside Bangkok and it was
definitely exciting! We went to Hua Hin; about three hours away on
the Indian Ocean! The main draw for this was to see elephant polo; a
bit colonial. The city itself was obviously much smaller than Bangkok and
likewise, a lot less English. I travelled with my two roommates and 4
other guys on the PiA(Princeton) program. Luckily, two of the guys
speak fluent Thai which made things much easier. We took a minivan
and it reminded me of an van that Eddie,, Clark Griswald's cousin from
"Vacation' would be driving. I was in the way back. All of us PiA
kids took up most of the van except for a nun and a rando girl. One
of the girls, Jade, had to sit in the front between the driver and the
nun because apparently nun's cannot sit directly next to men.
Nevertheless, the trip was very exciting and two guys from Singapore
joined the group- Pia guys that is. These guys were from LA and are
2 months into their 7 month journey across Asia. Quirky, but very
fun. We arrived and checked into the guesthouse, aka where we were
staying. For a mere $4/night I stayed in a very rustic room. By
rustic I mean no air and cockroaches..yuck. The walls were paper thin
and you could hear your neighbor talking :). However, the outside was
adorable, adorned in Asian themed figures and it really was so cool
looking. Met some neat people there; a Finish couple. All these
people you meet on the road are unique and memorable in their own
right; too many stories to go into detail. So we then hit the beach.
Hua Hin, is actually a destination for Thai people. Unlike the
beautiful Phuket, Koh Samet, Koh Samui, there were not many foreigners
there. So few that I actually wore my shirt in the ocean, I felt my
bikini was a bit too revealing. Trust me when I say you ( as in
westerners) in places like this are stared at enough, taking a shirt
off is kinda the last thing i wanted to do. There is no escaping your
whiteness. Not to get too distracted, but another funny thing is
that all the creams in drugstores/supermarkets are white creams.
Everyone wants to be whiter. A PiA girl in Indonesia went on holiday,
lost weight and got tan. When she returned people asked if she was
ill, they were all worried. Sure enough she became paler a couple
weeks later and gained the weight back and the villagers replied,
thank god you look so much better now that nyou are white and fat :)
Different conception of beauty...this is not really in the cities, but
likely in more rural areas.
Sorry, back to trip.... So we hit the beach, a sidebar to the elephant
polo. We ate a great restaurants. We went to the night market and
walked around. The next morning we went back tot he beach. Morgan, my
roommate said she thought it was good that this was my first beach. I
thought the scenery was beautiful, but apparently this does not
compare to Samui and the southern Thai beaches. The trip back i was
again in the back of the van, except it kinda felt we were driving
through a war zone it was so bumpy. Got back around 6ish last night.
I had a great time and my lunch break is now up so I'm signing off.
Much more to come soon.
Posted by rpropper at March 12, 2006 10:04 AM
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