Part 1: Disco Fever. A bunch of us decided to go to a Disco Night at this club called Glow in Bangkok with a couple of kids we met from Virginia and Australia. We all got dolled-up and glitzed-out and headed into town for a good night. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but partying in Bangkok is a ton of fun. There are always scantily clad Thai girl posses and jazzed up Thai men, but they never seem to dance. To make up for all of the still-standing Thais at their cocktail tables with entire bottles of liquors, us farangs dance as wildly as possible. What makes the whole ordeal the most fun is the fact that the Thais do not appear to be annoyed with our dancing, I think they envy our ability to just let loose. In such a normally conservative culture, Pai says that “it takes a lot of alcohol to get Thais to dance”, and I do believe that most of the girls worry that if they dance too much they may be mistaken for prostitutes. Speaking of prostitutes, to get to Glow we had to walk down Soi Cowboy("the heart of Bangkok's Sleaze District) which is one of the three major red light districts in Bangkok. Friendly ladies and awkward advances on our male counterparts were amusing.
Part 2: Robotany. Saturday I spent the entire day to myself, walking around campus and the Park through Thon Buri taking photographs of plants. “Robotany” is a shout out to my third session major class at Nature Camp last summer, they were so cute. I found out that in my absence as Botany instructor this summer, the director Flip has taken charge. Also I found out that the arts and crafts closet that I so meticulously conceived is being put to good use in a Wildlife Art class. My botanical adventure around Thon Buri turned out decently because lots of plants are randomly labeled (all in Thai except for the scientific name, which I can look up!).
Part 3: Honey, I Shrunk Thailand! On Sunday, six of us took an 8 baht bus to Samutprakan where we could spend the day at Muang Boran (The Ancient City). This “City” is a several hundred acre plot in the shape of Thailand housing replicas of every major architectural and natural landmark in the entire country. We were hesitant to the idea that this could be cheesy, but everything we read on Muang Boran said that it was remarkably amazing and not touristy. True! We got student discounts because in effect we have immigrated here for the time being, so we also got free bicycles for the day to explore the City. The replicas were on a smaller scale, but still gigantic to us, and we were able to get a feel for where we would like to visit in the coming months. The day was a leisurely bike tour of the entire country of Thailand.
