Bangkok nightlife + Bang Saen Beach

Photo cred to MK

     This is going to a be a long blog post, just to warn you.  So on Saturday we decided to see how the nightlife is in downtown Bangkok.  After coordinating cabs with a huge group of us (Thailand field site + SEAS friends) we went to Khao San Road, which is an area known for lots of Europeans and touristy clubs.  We randomly stumbled into a place called "The Club," which had some cool dubstep-y music we could hear from the outside.  We walked in and the atmosphere was overwhelming in every sense imaginable.  There were TONS of people, Thais, Americans, and Europeans, dancing to a live DJ, straight out of a rave movie.  It reminded me of concerts S, C, & R would go to at home, hopefully they appreciated the video I took.  After dancing for a bit we left drenched in sweat and exhausted.  It was definitely a successful un-planned trip (as always) downtown, and it was a nice change to not be the only Americans around. 
  

   Sunday, just a couple hours later, we woke up to head to Bang Saen beach, a few hours away from our school.  After getting some delicious grilled bananas to go, we took a bus (or two) to a van station, to then go to the beach.  Three hours later we arrived at our "bungalows" to put it nicely, and quickly changed to walk only a few minutes to be on the beach! The beach was definitely different than the ones we are all used to (pristine, clear-ish water).  Rich (our professor) told us all of the food prepared on the beach used to be wrapped in banana leaves, so everyone could throw the leaves in the sand when they finished eating.  But as food progressed, they began wrapping food in plastic, but old habits die hard.  There was a significant amount of trash lining the beach (and in the water), but there was a large group of people walking around picking it up, and even a bulldozer scooping up trash.  A very eye-opening experience, and I will be sure not to take the freezing (but clean) waters of the NC coast for granted again.  At night the guys cooked some fresh seafood and rice for us, which was delicious!  I got to try tons of seafood I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise, and it was all amazing.  If I was better worded in seafood I would describe what I ate, but I'll post a pic instead of a few dishes I could capture before everyone ate.

Before

After

   Today we went to an awesome Chinese temple near the beach.  The ornate detail was so overwhelming, we were there for at least an hour and I probably could have spent all day if time allowed.  There were multiple buildings/pagodas outside and each had a few floors.  The detailing that went into both the inside and outside was incredible, but sadly you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the temple.  Unfortunately, all of the labels for the statues and paintings were in Thai and Chinese, so a lot of the time I felt like I couldn't fully appreciate what I was looking at even though I could admire the artistic work.  I did notice there were elements of both Buddhism and Hinduism in the temple, which I was aware was prevalent in Thai Buddhism but am not sure about regarding the Chinese-Thai.  Thanks to AP Art History, I recognized Hindu brahma and and shiva, alongside images of Buddha which was unique and pretty cool.  Here are a couple pictures that really don't do the temple justice at all- but you can get the picture.

 
  We also tried a new snack today (like every other day here), which was delicious!  It is sticky rice cooked in an emptied bamboo stalk with coconut milk, coming in different varieties like sweet red bean for example.  It looked kinda gross at first but everyone decided that it tasted way better than it looked.



 











 


 
    After the temple we went to (according to Google) Monkey Mountain.   I also could have spent all day watching the monkeys and taking an obscene amount of pictures of them doin their thang.  There were a bunch of babies that just hung out with their moms, and a few fat ones that seemed like the King of the clan (I'm thinking of Madagascar right now) just sitting in a tree.  I have heard many stories of angry, mean monkeys stealing all sorts of things, but nothing too crazy happened, potentially because we didn't have any food.  One did attempt to launch onto MK and open her satchel but I think she jumped away in time.  Vicious or not, they were adorable!