Stranded in Paradise

As I'm sure you all have heard, protestors of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in Thailand have taken over the domestic and international airports in Bangkok. At first it didn't sound so bad, but there have been no flights in and out of Don Muang or Suvarnabhumi in several days. Tourists stuck here, businessmen stuck elsewhere, Thailand is losing an absurd amount of money such that many Thais that were sympathetic of the PAD party now are ashamed at the reputation Thailand has for political unrest.
Despite all this unrest and the small bombings we hear reported, some of us took off for a nice weekend at the beach :o). Back to Koh Samet in the Gulf of Thailand, Dan, Ruby, Pai, Steph and myself got a nice bungalow and played in the water while the chaos persists in Bangkok. Steph is Ruby's friend from the University of Connecticut who was visiting her here and is now STILL visiting her because she cannot leave the country and may not be back in time to take her final exams. "Chaos" is a tough word to use for this situation though. I go to aerobics in the morning, we go to movies and shopping in town... nothing is changed except international travel which doesn't apply to me... yet. We have heard that this should blow over by the King's birthday on December 5 which is plenty of time before my flight back to the US.

Back from the beach, we celebrated Thanksgiving! I was expecting rice and more rice, but our friends spent all afternoon cooking the most incredible Thanksgiving dinner at our friend Amber's apartment downtown from the cranberry sauce to the stuffing to the corn cobs to the sweet potatoes. It was the most delicious meal and it was so fun to be with so many friends in a fancy western-style apartment with a sofa for the evening.

On Saturday I went to Cambodia! My student visa expired November 30 because that's when my official study abroad program ended at KMUTT, so I had to go to Cambodia to get a tourist visa. I called the Immigration Burreau to see if I could get a new visa there, but they told me to drive to the border. Very funny. Either way, the Kingdom of Cambodia was great for the 30 minutes I spent there before taking my van back. Thanks ThaiVisaRun.Com!

I bought tons of Christmas presents for my family at the Chatuchak Weekend Market on Sunday... very successful indeed. This upcoming week I'm going on a pretty wild adventure: scuba diving in one of the top ten dive sites in the entire world... stay tuned!

Note: Our friend and advisor P. Mee called Angela Friday night after the airports were closed--

P. Mee: Angera? I think perhaps you should not go into Bangkok tonight.

Angela: What? We're actually already in town, why?

P. Mee: I think perhaps there is going to be a revolution.

Angela: ...okay?