Week 5; Crazy people working and a Buddhist holiday

Kicking off the week with a little socializing, thanks to my professor, Ron Heck, I was able to meet up with a former UH Alumni, Mee-chai, who is teaching at Bangkok University. It was nice to talk to a local who I also had a lot in common with and could joke about Dr Heck's antics. After meeting close to UNESCO, Mee-chai was nice enough to take me out of the city to one of his father's favorite restaurants on the main river that flows through the city. Unfortunately, Mee-chai will be moving to New York soon, but hopefully we can get some Muy Thai boxing in before then.

Meechai and some good Thai food 

Continuing this work week with creating materials for the upcoming Policy Formulation workshop, the week was always going to be tough due to the Buddhist holiday on Friday, taking away some very much needed time (though I wont complain about the 3 day weekend).
The week taught me many things, funnily enough, not much in the way of educational policy, rather it was some pretty good lessons in working in an office environment and working with others. Let me tell you, communication, a big thing. When I next receive an instruction to do something, I will suck every last piece of pertinent information about said task out of that person. Tell me everything you know and want, EVERYTHING NOW. Sigh, I guess these lessons are just a process of getting used to this new office environment, rather than the teacher one I am used to (where I made a majority of my own decisions). In the end, thanks to the amazing efforts of other interns, research assistants and other higher staff who stayed for a majority of the weekend, everything was ready for the weekend.

Crazy people doing their thing

In addition to creating Prezi's, powerpoints and reading materials, a few of us also readied for running the simulation model with the participants (in the role of guides/facilitators, etc). Given assigned roles, (Minister of Finance here) we will use the EPPSim (filled with real data from an annonymous country) to fiddle with and try to hit specific targets based on our roles. For instance, as Minister of Finance, I need to ensure that we dont go over the allocated budget for education, etc. Anyway, I readied my suggestions and ran the projection and I am pretty sure I would be an awesome Finance Minister, but everyone would hate me.

Koh Chang 

As mentioned prior, it was a three day weekend, where everyone and their mother seems to get out of Bangkok. Which is exactly what I did. So, with a few other lady interns who had had it for the week, we went to the second largest island in Thailand; Koh Chang.
I admit, it was pretty touristy (many hotels and huts) , however, there was much that seemed remote and under developed about it (elephants being fence-lessly housed next to the main road). A lovely Kiwi and I found a set of huts on a rocky beach in one of the most southern towns, Lonely Beach, (one of the most remote obviously) which was known for being more backpacker and hippy than touristy. After a long day of traveling, (a bus, ferry, and a truck), we finally arrived and had a late late lunch and watched a stormy sunset.  We then met up with the other gals and enjoyed more drinks and dining.
Saturday, our only full day, was spent I admit pretty lazily. After exploring the main fishing village, where the town is essentially built on a pier (hotels, shops, restaurants, the lighthouse,everything), we found the most perfect, near deserted beach you can imagine, deck chairs and bar included. As it included views of the southern islands, we were happy to swim, drink pina coladas, eat, sun and repeat.

Our perfect beach in the south, looking towards the Southern Isles.

If Saturday was relaxing, then Sunday turned to be quite the adventure in trying to get home. After a nice breakfast in White Sand beach, we needed to find a truck taxi. We had given ourselves 3 hours to make it to the ferry , cross to the mainland and make it to the 2pm bus. Once in a taxi, it ended up stopping 2 kms later, after it turned out there was a 5km line of cars that needed to get onto the ferry. After sitting around, we decided to try our luck and walk down the road through the Thai jungle. After 3kms or so of furious walking, it started to pour rain, typical Thai style. While taking shelter, we found out from a police officer, who was looking at the long line of cars, that we still had 2kms to go. We also found out that he was willing to let us hop on his motorcycle and take us both to the ferry, by-passing all the cars. Not taking away from Saturday's beach, riding on that small motorcycle on the opposite side of the road, through lush humid jungle (fresh with rain), was the highlight of the trip. We were lucky enough to just walk onto a ferry and made our bus with 30 mins to spare.

So, that was my week, it was a long one, but was definitely the most eventful I have had yet. When I returned on Sunday night, I definitely felt like I had turned a corner with my stay here, like I was a little more settled and more of a local, which of course I am not, but it felt like I was more than a bumbling tourist (seen more so after I was able to direct my taxi driver in Thai). I of course think of Andrew every day and am so proud with how hard he works and wish I could help him with little stuff, like laundry.