April 21st (pt. 2) (Yes, it's technically May 19th now)

Okay. Round two, here we go. I am writing this first sentence barely seven hours after posting my last entry. Odds are I will procrastinate and post this a month later.

Somewhere around February 1st, things started to suck. Like, really suck, as in me thinking I had the then newly emerging Corona virus that probably wasn't even in the country yet. Turns out it was just a really really bad stomach bug, probably from the seafood that I ate (no regrets, the crab was amazing), but you know. Still.

I was sick for about two weeks, which I think is longer than I've ever been sick for in my entire life and definitely longer than I'd ever like to be sick for again. The entire thing was a twelve day mess of feeling so weak that I could hardly manage a trip up the stairs on my own without passing out on the floor from exhaustion, which did actually happen once (only for a couple minutes). Super fun. I can look back on it now and laugh, though, because there's something hilariously pathetic about having to use a swivel chair as a brace to go four feet from the bed to the couch where the AC hit me more directly. Also, it makes one heck of an exchange story to say that I got the worst sickness of my entire life while I was abroad.

I recovered and got back to school just as it was ending. The Thai school year ends in March, and due to finals that I couldn't take and didn't need, my last day was February 14th, Valentine's Day. Apparently, there's this thing in Thai schools- or maybe just Asian schools in general- where the Valentine's Day traditions we took part in as kids never really gets old. People still bring sweets like candies and chocolates to hand out at school, and little stickers that say 'love you' and 'be mine' and 'cute' and all these other super sweet things and they stick them on everybody. I still have about a dozen stickers on my school uniform, since I haven't worn it since then. Nobody can convince me to take those stickers off, especially because I was hoping to see my school friends at graduation in the middle of March but can't thanks to this whole 'pandemic' thing. Super inconvenient, by the way. Thanks, world.

Although, I have to say, Thailand didn't really go into panic mode until much later, so a week after school ended, I spent some time at the beach with my first host family. It was great to see them again after maybe a month or so apart, and I went with my first host parents and youngest host brother to Chaolao beach (yes, the same one I probably got sick from. From what I know, Chaolao seems to be the beach that everyone in Chanthaburi goes to, which I have no problem with. It's absolutely gorgeous). I spent most of the day with my host brother, whether it was playing catch in the pool or building sand castles by the waves that were inevitably destroyed. I got sunburned, despite putting on several layers of sunscreen, but over all it was pretty awesome. Another thing about Chaolao I should probably mention is the jellyfish, which are basically everywhere. They're in the water, on the beach, and they were probably in my hair at one point. They're completely harmless (as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong,) but they're also invisible. So just imagine swimming around and then your hands and feet start bumping into things that you absolutely cannot see despite how hard you look for them, and there are just these little jellylike blobs brushing against you and completely surrounding you and there's nothing you can do about it.

There's a reason why I only swam in the ocean for five minutes.

As the evening approached, Rotarians trickled in and we eventually left as a group to go to a separate part of the beach for a cleanup. I'd been wanting to do something like that for quite a while, and honestly, it felt great to be a part of it. I wasn't there at the end to count how many bags of trash we had collected, but there were at least two dozen and the beach looked significantly better afterwards. Being a part of something like that, something that can help change things so fast and so dramatically, was almost a dream come true for me.

Three days later, we got a guinea pig. I have no idea why and he has nothing to do with anything, but I like him and his name is Sprite and he's fat and he bites me. I also tried my hand at baking, and according to my host family's reactions, I'm not totally terrible at it.

The district conference was held during early March in Kalasin, a wonderful eight hours north of us. I stayed in a hotel with my host mom, and I had plenty of time to spend with my fellow inbounds and the next year's outbounds as well. I met several students who were planning on going to Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, America, Canada, and so many more countries (although if I think about it now, I don't know how the 20-21 exchange year will work, if it even happens at all). They were an awesomely enthusiastic crowd, and when we weren't rehearsing for our big performance at the end of the conference, we were spending time walking to nearby gas stations or restaurants or hanging out by the pool or in the hotel rooms playing card games. On the last night of the conference, we all gathered together to perform a traditional Thai dance, one that I hated at first but grew to love as I got the hang of it. I got to wear the traditional Thai dance clothes, which in my opinion are incredibly beautiful, and the Rotarians put me in a row where I could be seen more clearly than any of the other inbounds, which felt amazing. Either they like my style, or they liked the fact that I look Thai. Either way, I appreciated it.

And then the next morning I was whisked off to a dinosaur museum. I still have no idea why. Maybe because my Rotary club really liked dinosaurs, or maybe they thought I would like dinosaurs? I missed the last portion of the meeting, where everyone took pictures with everyone with their blazers on, and I was super bummed to have to miss it. I still have no idea why we went to a dinosaur museum. Maybe it's a Thai thing. I didn't know how to ask.

Not even a week later was what I could easily say was the best trip of my life. It's not an exaggeration (sorry Mom and Dad), nothing else I've ever done has ever even come close to how amazing my trip to the Thailand Peninsula was. (Dad don't worry Yellowstone was still awesome thanks I love you)

I'm not entirely sure where to start with it, but since I still want some stories to tell in person when I get back, I'll keep it slightly more brief than I would otherwise. We started the trip by heading to Bangkok, then took a bus down the length of the peninsula. We started the ride around 6:30 P.M. and arrived at our hotel around 6:30 A.M., which was about as fun as anyone would imagine. I took a nap with four of my friends in a two person room before getting up for breakfast, and then we were off. We traveled via traditional longboat, and although I regretfully can't remember specifically where it was, I think we were near Phang-nga. The views consisted mostly of small islands on an expanse of calm water covered in mangrove forests, until we arrived at James Bond Island. The island was dotted with wonderful views and little shops (with extremely aggressive saleswomen), and we later moved on to see a floating community and even a few caves.

After a much needed night of sleep, we woke up the next morning to board a motorboat and headed out into the middle of the Andaman Sea. We spent a full two hours on the boat to reach our destination, and the ride was rough and hot and windy and I didn't care because I had the sun on my face and I was surrounded by people and scenery that I loved and it was absolutely amazing and I wouldn't have traded it for anything else. And surprisingly enough, I didn't get sunburned. The secret was what must've been seven or eight layers of sunscreen. We finally stopped at a nearly deserted island to snorkel, and although I didn't bring my camera, I don't think I'll ever forget the things I saw. Schools of fish, jellyfish, colorful coral, black sea urchins, and more were everywhere around the boat. There were things that I saw that I thought would only be in magazines. I remember a specific moment where things were layered perfectly in front of me, where there were schools of different tropical fish layered against each other to make a rainbow of colors beneath me, and beneath them was a cluster of black sea urchins on top of the rocks and coral. Not to exaggerate or be dramatic, but I would've stayed there for hours if I could've.

Afterwards, we visited a small village, similar to the Hill Tribe Community that we visited during the North Trip. The people of the community rely on tourists to buy their crafts and aren't always successful, so Rotary donated clothes and supplies to the community and the inbounds had the privilege of handing them out. After visiting another island for lunch and time at the beach, which was as scenic as ever, we took the motorboat back to Phuket. Given that it was one of the outbound's birthday, we spent midnight on the beach together and had a great time over all.

Also, hey, remember the sketchy Songthaew rides I mentioned last time? We got another one! Way sketchier, too! Up a ridiculously steep and bumpy road, and a kid's wallet fell out. That was something. The ride took us to the top of a mountain, and I have no idea what it was called, but the view was spectacular. I climbed a sketchy ladder into a sketchy tree house which, by the way, had some very angry ants in it, but the view was well worth it. And then I almost fell out of the Songthaew on the way back down. We then went canoeing and made our way to a cave system, and when we got back to the hotel later, there was another birthday and we all sang happy birthday in at least five or six different languages.

The next part of the trip was possibly the best day of all, and we all dubbed it 'island hopping day' for obvious reasons. We spent the first hour or two riding traditional longboats between tiny islands, and then spent a few hours at Koh Hong. Koh means island in Thai, but I don't know the translation for hong (other than 'room,' but I don't think that's the translation I'm looking for). We spent almost the entire day hopping one tiny pristine beach to the next. The waters there are breathtakingly blue, as in the color that you see in pictures from the Caribbean, and the sand is so fine and clean it's unbelievable. There are natural stone cliffs topped with jungles, and the color of the sky makes you almost forget that places like Shanghai even exist (should I be a poet? I should be a poet. Look at me, being dramatic, making comparisons. Seriously though, it's beautiful). There weren't a lot of tourists around, thanks to the whole 'world going into lock down mode' thing, which still hadn't hit Thailand very hard at that point. But I do remember a specific moment when we were taking pictures on the beach with our flags; and the thing is, whenever you're in a foreign country and you see someone else of your nationality, you're allowed to freak out. French and Belgian people get excited and start talking super fast, I've seen Taiwanese people act like they're childhood friends, and Brazilians always yell out 'BRRAZEEEEHL' in the deepest and loudest possible voice, but that's just... Brazil. And it's really hard to forget taking pictures of the German girl holding her flag, and then seeing three buff German dudes in speedos racing down the beach at breakneck speed and screaming "Ja! DEUTSCHLAND!!" At the top of their lungs to come and join her for pictures and doing bodybuilder poses with their country's flag. It was really something.

After a brief visit to a fishing farm, we headed back to a hotel in the middle of nowhere and played card games and went on walks until midnight. We spent the next morning working for a reforestation project, followed by a long ride to Chumpon where we made our own Batik. There was dinner and a party on the beach, which was almost completely empty except for us, and we were even lucky enough to find a place with American breakfast food the next morning. I raced a couple others on the beach and lost, and after another long bus ride to the outskirts of Bangkok, we went on a firefly tour on the river near the ancient city of Ayutthaya. I couldn't take any pictures, but the best way I can describe it is by comparing them to tiny blinking fairy lights. The next day (and the last full day), after a visit to a museum and another lunch on the beach, we went on a boat tour for dinner to celebrate coming so far on exchange.

The day after was really for the purpose of saying our goodbyes. There was a meeting and a ceremony and we were all passing around pictures and flags, signing them along with papers and pictures and notebooks. We drove off to a lunch by the beach, and at that point, it was time for me (and the other inbound in Chanthaburi) to be the first ones to go. There was a good five minutes of hugging and maybe some crying and then more hugging, and it was very embarrassing to be on the brink of an absolute meltdown while they watched me leave. It didn't help that the Rotarians blasted the song "See You Again" while it all happened, and I don't appreciate the fact that they took videos of me crying and being pretty much the only one who cried since I was only one of two that were leaving a few hours early. The rest cried at the airport, though, so I guess that makes me feel better.

I have every intention of seeing all of them again sometime in the future.

After the south trip, everything seemed to slow down and almost stop. By that time, the infection rates in Thailand were rising, and I had to self isolate for fourteen days. And as of now, most people aren't really able to go anywhere. Masks are required while outdoors and there's a mandatory curfew, and while Thailand doesn't have strict social distancing rules like what I've seen on the U.S. news, almost everyone is staying indoors all the time. I've spent my time baking and making things and making college decisions, and I've recently learned that I can finally understand the news in Thai. I can't understand every spoken word, but the pictures and context make it relatively easy, so I spend a lot of time watching people being somewhat stubborn in the U.S. via Thai news media outlets that politely criticize their actions more often than not. Songkran, the Thai new year celebration that I had been looking forward to for almost a year and a half, was understandably cancelled, which was an absolute bummer. But on the plus side, the endangered leatherback turtles are absolutely thriving here and researchers have found the most nests in over twenty years. Considering I used to be almost obsessed with marine biology, it's really nice to hear about, especially while staying here.

I'm still trying to hold out until my original departure date of June 4th. I'm terrified of traveling on my own, and I've considered going back early in order to travel with people I know, but that plan doesn't seem to be working and it looks like I'll be staying until June. My host mom is a bit antsy, too, so we've spent some time driving around for fun and sight seeing from the safety of the car. My goals for now are to simply keep learning what I can. I know I won't have a lot of time left in this country, so I want to really cherish what I have left. And even if I don't make many more new memories before I leave, I've already had some of the best moments of my life here.