Pathum Thani, Thailand

Its Sunday, March 21st and my 21st birthday is exactly a month away…my flight home is also a month away. The closer it gets, the more I don’t see myself back in the United States. My friends are not American anymore they are from all different parts of the world. I am a citizen of the world. The more people I meet from different places the more I realize that Americans are frowned upon by pretty much everyone outside of the United States, it’s embarrassing really.

This past weekend I was supposed to go on a school field trip with the whole international college, BUT I went out the night before with some of my Norwegian friends that I met in Bali and didn’t get home until 5:30 am and was supposed to leave at 6 am so I decided that it wouldn’t be worth it to be hungover the entire day. Instead I woke up late at around 2 p.m. and went to eat at Yellow Spoon my favorite Thai restaurant on campus. After, I went with my Norwegian friend Daniel to his friends apartment in Bangkok on Sukhumvit road. We had to take the taxi to the BTS station(Sky Train, a popular form of transportation in BKK) because of the red shirt riots going on in Bangkok. Right now there are riots going on every day in Bangkok due to the issues with the old prime minister. The news and our school encourages foreigners to stay out of the riots but when living in Bangkok it’s hard to stay away because they are everywhere. As Daniel and I exited the BTS station I saw trucks filled with red shirt rioters shouting and screaming and all of the sudden everything on the news became real. Whenever I would read about the riots or hear about them I couldn’t paint the picture of how it would be, but seeing it first hand was quite an experience. It was violent at all, it was actually peaceful and organized. The main purpose for their riots are to create gridlocks which they were very successful. When we made it to Fredrick’s apartment, Daniels Norwegian friend, they both got ready while I hung out and listened to some music from Norway and Japan..it was pretty good! After they both finished getting ready we headed downstair to the lobby to meet up with Fredricks friends. Fredrick attends Bangkok University which is located in central Bangkok. His two buddies Sami, from Finland, and Marlen, from Germany, met up with us to go eat on Sukhumvit Soi 11 at Lemoncello’s, a delicious authentic Italian restaurant. For the first time in three months I had pasta, penne pasta and it was mm mm good! We were at lemoncello’s for a while discussing movies, music, and how much everyone hates America. I honestly did not know until I left the country how much Americans are disliked by pretty much everyone in the world, I hate it! I tried to defend myself and my country by saying that they can’t generalize…not all Americans are ignorant and ethnocentric, but it’s hard to when I have also had a lot of negative experiences with Americans as well. It is a very touchy subject for me because I believe that there is good and bad in every country, people just tend to criticize America much more because apparently we believe that we are the ONLY country that matters. I don’t believe that AT ALL. After a long discussion/debate on American ignorance we get up and decide that we needed to go to a Go-Go bar at Nana plaza. Nana plaza is a sex district that has these GO GO bars that Thailand is famous for because of the Vietnam war. Basically Thai girls are naked or close to it dancing or swaying on stage wearing numbers. Surrounding them are old white creepy men, of course there are some young boys who are just horny, and then there’s me. I was the only girl in there not working, it was the most interesting experience. I felt so sorry for these girls, they looked miserable. Selling their bodies in order to make a living…and the worst part is that the people giving them money were all old creepy men, ugh. After the go go bar we went to the Bed Supperclub which is a bar on Sukhumvit known for it’s posh set up with white beds and talented DJs. The plays was vibrating with great music and the club quickly filled up with people from all over the world. After a few rasberry mojitos I was chillen on the bed sitting next to Daniel people watching, thats the best! The rest of the night was pretty chill because I didn’t feel like drinking too much and neither did any of the other boys, but I still enjoyed myself so much!

Now I am lying here on my bed reminiscing on all of my experiences I have had since I have arrived in Thailand and I am trying to picture myself leaving this place and I can’t, i seriously cannot. There have been many experiences that I haven’t liked and there have been days where I missed my family but I have never EVER found myself saying I wanted to go home. I have 5 weeks left here in Thailand and I refuse to waste a minute. I have Dutch friends that I met in Jakarta arriving today and I can’t wait to meet up with them, it’s going to be a blast! Next weekend I am going to Cambodia, weekend after that Laos, then Chiang Mai for the Thai New Year, and depending on if I can change my ticket home to the end of May/beginning of June I want to end the rest of my stay in Southeast Asia at Bali, DUh! How am I ever going to leave this place? I don’t know if I could get back into the swing of things back in America, life is too easy here. Its simple, and I definitely learned that I am a simple girl while being here in Thailand. I don’t want to think about leaving Thailand anymore so I am going to try and push it in the back of my mind until the time actually comes. Until then, party on!!

Sawadeeka,
Ariana

Via | TravelPod

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