Bangkok & Phuket

Wednesday night I hopped on a flight to Bangkok with P-Kik at the last minute. We stayed at Asia Hotel in Bangkok (http://www.asiahotel.co.th/asia_bangkok.htm) for the night. Asia Hotel is expensive (from a poor college student’s point of view) and looking a little old, but it’s still quite nice. One great thing about Asia Hotel is that you can walk straight from the hotel’s second floor onto the Sky Train.

Thursday morning I hopped on the Sky Train and headed over to the famous Siam Paragon shopping center. Just picked up a few things of course.

I spent the afternoon flying down to Phuket, the largest island in Thailand. This is where the tsunami hit back in 2004.

I chose to stay at Sugar Palm Resort located just 100 meters from Kata Beach. I was told that the beaches on the west side of the island are much better than those on the east. I thought that Kata Beach was a good compromise between the crazy tourism at Patong Beach and the isolated feel of Nai Thon Beach. And oh what a great choice! Kata Beach turned out to be one the most beautiful beaches on the island and the Sugar Palm Resort (http://www.sugarpalmresort.com/) was so amazing!!! I highly recommend Sugar Palm Resort and Kata Beach; it’s the best in Phuket.

Thursday evening I saw the Simon Cabaret show. This was an exciting show filled with lip syncing transvestites. Somehow I ended up with a front row seat to the show. Many of the lady-boys were quite beautiful and more than convincing. The Simon Cabaret show was quite entertaining, however the dancers seemed less than enthusiastic. After the show all of the lady-boys lined up outside begging for photographs. Of course every photograph you take with them costs about $2. If you want to see the Simon Cabaret show make sure to call ahead; they will pick you up from your hotel in a minibus and drop you back off after the show for only 160 Baht.

The Kitchen of the World

I eat most of my meals from street vendors. I must say that most of the time before I eat, I think to myself "I hope this food/drink does not make me sick." But apparently I am very lucky or vegetarian; I'm not sure which is the responsible factor here.

One of the shops in the hospital cafeteria:

For every meal in Thailand you usually eat either rice or noodles. The rice here is either your standard rice or sticky rice. But there are a few different types of noodles.

There are glass noodles which are clear in color and long/skinny.

Then there is the fat, dark noodles that taste a lot like eggs.

There are also dark, long/skinny noodles that are quite stretchy and difficult to cut (not pictured here).

Some of my favorite foods are:

-DragonFruit! (The black and white fruit):

-Rice with Veggies:

-Pad Thai (noodles, sprouts, peanuts, veggies); Sorry, I've eaten numerous times, but have always forgotten to photograph.

-Fried Rice with Cashew Nuts:

-Pad See You (fat noodles, veggies, tofu, some delish sauce and spices)

-Coconut Smoothie:

Som Tum (raw papaya, peanuts, carrots, tomatoes, and sticky rice on the side):

Desserts!:

-Mangos with sticky rice and coconut milk (my personal favorite)

-Fried Bananas topped with something "made from rice:"

-Mini crispy crepes with cream:

Big crispy, sweet crepe:

-Taro balls in coconut milk (similar to Boo Alloy)

-A dessert I didn't really like...I thought it tasted like leaves:

-Coconut ice cream

-Coconut sweet bread

-Boo Alloy, Coconut milk with flavored sticky rice balls! So delicious:

My favorite part about Thai food is all the coconut I get to eat everyday!

And some food I haven't tried:

Herbal Medicine

I was lucky enough to visit a rural hospital specializing in herbal medicine with Apple. This hospital was incredibly small, only 30 beds.




The hospital has a huge garden where they grow over seventy kinds of plants. After harvesting the necessary parts of the plants, they use their own manufacturing facility to create the final product. In the manufacturing building I saw how they make tea and herbal balls used in Thai massage.

I also saw some of the employees using a large machine to squeeze the oil out of garlic. The garlic oil was then frozen, then freeze-dried to make a powder which is then put into pill form (yes, I mean the actual definition of pill form for any of you pharmacy people who know what I'm talking about).


Lots of garlic:


This hospital encourages alternative medicine such as Thai massage and acupuncture too. Here is Apple, myself, and the director of pharmacy of this hospital in the herbal pharmacy. All of the drugs behind us were grown, manufactured, packaged, and sold on the hospital grounds.

Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park, Part II

On Sunday we visited the old Political and Military School where the communists taught their doctrine. The Political and Military School consists of 31 identical buildings (in true communist fashion) which were labeled as places to sleep, a kitchen, a film developing studio, guard’s room, and many others. It was located in the creepy, moss-filled portion of the mountain. Right next door to the communist’s president’s house was the jail. I think my capitalist views got me in trouble:

We also visited a waterfall where the communists used hydropower to power a rice grinder.

The large rock crevice was used as a natural air raid shelter by the communists.

Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park is a beautiful part of Thailand with a rich history. I would advise anyone visiting this park to bring a car. All of the sites at the park are quite far apart, definitely not walking distance. There are no bikes, scooters, or cars to rent either. So if you arrive by bus you’ll be hitch-hiking with other tourists from site to site.

Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park, Part I

This weekend May (a Thai pharmD student) and I thought we would check out one of Thailand’s National Parks, Phu Hin Rong Kla. Even though the park is only 2 hours away, it took us 6 hours to arrive at the park.

First we went to the Phitsanulok bus station at 5:40am to catch the 6am bus. After searching the small bus station, we finally found the random woman who we were supposed to buy bus tickets from. We bought our tickets and hopped on the bus, unfortunately the bus was already full. After fighting the woman for our money back, we waited at the bus station until the next bus left around 7:30am. We knew that we were supposed to get off at the Nakhorn stop, before taking a minibus to the park. May could tell by the map that we were getting close to our stop, then we heard the bus driver say that this stop was for those going to Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park. May and I got off, along with two other Thai tourists from Bangkok. I asked May about three times “are you sure this is the right stop?” because we were basically dropped off on the side of the highway with no minibus in sight. She double checked with the bus driver and “yes” it was correct. Obviously we were in the wrong place.

After talking to the locals, we hitch-hiked to the police station because apparently you can hitch-hike safer if you start at the police station. We were in luck; after standing outside the police station for about 7 minutes a caravan of minibuses full of tourists on their way to the national park drove by. We were able to hop onto the large tuk tuk full of tour guides that followed the minibuses. Little did we know that this was just the start of a weekend full of hitch-hiking…

This justifies my feelings of how difficult it is to get around Thailand by bus...I was even with a real Thai person and we still ended up lost and confused. I can't even imagine if I had been alone, because none of the people we interacted with spoke English (and of course nothing is written in English either). I would recommend anyone travelling around Thailand to just rent a car and drive yourself, it would be a lot less stressful. If you are not that adventurous, then I would suggest you stick to a tour group.

We finally arrived at Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park at noon!

Me with the English sign:

May with the Thai sign:

We first decided to walk down to Lan Hin Tak or the “broken rock field.” This mountain is the former battleground where the Thai government fought off the communists.

Next we took a walk over to Lan Hin Pum, another field of nodulated rocks located at the cliff’s edge. We also saw the old flag pole where the communists used to raise their red flag after they won a battle. Now the Thai flag is waved of course.

Me with one of the communists old guns:

Health Promotion

I am currently participating in an event at Buddhachinaraj Hospital to promote health. The hospital is encouraging everyone to walk around the pond next to the hospital. If you walk at designated times, you will receive one stamp per lap on your lap-card. If you walk 81 laps before October 10th, then you will receive a free T-Shirt. The hospital chose 81 laps because that is the age of the King of Thailand. I was surprised at the high turnout everyday (even the weekends!) of all the hospital employees and patients who are walking.

Getting stamped for walking a lap:

Walking around the pond:

Me (and the King!) with all of my stamps:

This is not the only health promoting event I have seen at the hospital. All hospital employees are required to submit their BMI (Body Mass Index). Employees with BMI's over 23 are encouraged to visit "BMI Camp" where they learn about diet and exercise. The best part of all this health promotion is that no one complains or opposes at what Americans would probably call an "invasion of privacy."

The Imperial Phukaew Hill Resort

This weekend I visited a resort located in the hills of northern Thailand with the pharmacy department of Buddhachinaraj Hospital. Saturday was a day to relax. In the morning I strolled around the resort grounds taking in the scenery. I spent the afternoon being a photographer of all of the team-building activities for the pharmacy department. After dinner, we had a party at the resort with the popular Thai past-time of karaoke! Lucky for me it was all in Thai, so I had a good excuse not to sing.

Sunday I hiked around the hills with another Farang, Robert, who moved to Thailand from England. Of course, it was nice to talk with a westerner again! After lunch Apple and I headed to the top of the mountain, then stopped for ice cream right before the afternoon downpour started.

Overall it was a nice weekend to relax at resort.