FS09 Part 1 - Song Khla

It has been some time since I blogged and I told myself it's time to blog about Field Studies, before all the good and wonderful memories fade away.... 42 days of maddness and fun is now 12.6GB of photos and videos on my hard disk.

Day 1-2 (17-18/5/09)

This is the day where it all began. After one whole week of thai lessons, we were all set to put our thai into use. Gathered at golden mile to board the bus all the way to Hat Yai. 18 hours journey. seems torturous but we realised there are much more worse trips that we had to do in thailand itself.

Us at golden mile before we start the long journey...

The bus that brought us to Thailand.

Reached Hat Yai and we transferred to their local bus for the short hop to Song Khla.

Checked into Viva Hotel, our home for the next 4 nights. Hotel was not the posh type, but still ok to stay in.

our room in a messy state.

We went down to Thaksin University where we met up with our Thai Buddies. I was paired up with this girl called Yu. They are english majors in Thaksin Uni and they are all very eager to practice their english with us. of course, we are also eager to speak to them in our 'chui' thai.

me and my thai buddy, Yu

After some ice-breaking games, we rushed back to the hotel to wash up and then it was off to a welcome dinner at a very nice resort. All of us were dressed up for the occasion (the only time in the whole trip where everyone wore so nice. the rest of the days were chui clothes)

Day 3-5 (19-21/5/09)

The next 3 days were spent in Song Khla, with thai lessons in the morning, some fields trip in the afternoon and then night market at night. Our thai buddies brought us around most of the time. Visited lots of night market where food is nice (aroy) and cheap! Ate freaking damm a lot in thailand cause food is so cheap.

Not forgetting the serious part of the trip, our thai oral exam. I was so damm unlucky to get the most difficult topic and once me and elaine finished the assigned topic, our teachers told us to continue speaking, so we just talked about everything under the sun in thai.

Our classroom...

Fooling around in between lessons....

class photo...

at the night market

at another night market (with more food!)

the canteen in school. we had to order our food in thai!

around thaksin university...

our main mode of transport - the tuk tuk....

us inside the tuk tuk. the tuk tuk was so short that most of us had to keep our heads down while inside.

Of course, we did some sight-seeing in Song Khla.

View of the whole city from a hill

temple on top of the hill. forgot the name....


us fooling around...



song khla museum.

with our thai buddies at KFC... we still can't get away from all the fastfood.....

beside Songkhla Lake.

Not forgetting the beautiful beaches in thailand!

Like every other long overseas trip, laundry is our top concern so we had to wash our own clothes (laundry services are expensive...) So this is how we wash clothes, using the sink!

That's all for Song Khla... Next Stop: Krabi!

This is ridiculous!

It costs cheaper to fly from Singapore to Shanghai then from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Now i guess i am gonna settle for the 20 hrs train ride to and fro all alone.... :(

I realised it has been a long time since i blogged. People probably knew more about what's happening to me through facebook. Seriously, the number of emails i receive from facebook on a daily basis is crazy....

And so I finally went to my virgin concert! 答案是The Answer Is.....孙燕姿2009世界巡回演唱会!! The concert didn't fall short of my expectations and the 5 of us were singing, jumping and going crazy at our seats! Who goes to a concert and sits down? I think we did piss those behind us. haha.. I am having a concert withdrawal syndrome and yanzi's song are on my playlist. I am trying hard to recall the order of the songs she sang yest night!

Went back to crash geog soc FIC as well as I am really damm bored at home. I really feel so damm old there ( I was the oldest guy in camp at one point). But seeing my freshies becoming organisers of the camp and bringing in a new batch of freshies, it really brought back lots of memories from previous years camp. Though i didn't spend a lot of them with them, I still managed to have some fun (last yr i didn't manage to play a lot... ) and got to know some other juniors. Today when we were looking for Lai Wa and we saw her car, i suddenly remembered her driving a few of us to engin canteen to collect food for GC and i realise, wow, it has been a year plus already....

Looks like it will be outings outings and more outings and then i am off to HK!

It has been 4 days since I came back from Thailand and i am still missing every moment of it. It really feels weird to have meals alone, sleep alone and wake up to nobody around you...

The FS09 gathering we had yesterday really brought me back into the Field Studies mood. It is really like FS all over again, the same group of people going from places to places, having meals together, cracking jokes and making lame comments, making lots of noise wherever we go, taking pictures, jumpshots, unglam pics... This whole field studies is something which i will never forget for the rest of my life and it is definitely the highlight of my student life! I will strongly encourage all geog majors (or even non geog major) to go for it if you have the chance!

And something to mention. I almost got a shock of my life when i collected my SEP acceptance package. The letter states that the dateline for the submission of documents for my application is 1st July!!! and i collected my stuff only on the 29th! so i had to rush around cck to get my hair cut (to take a decent looking photograph that is going to be on my student pass), rush to the bank to get a bank draft for payment, rush home to get more documents and finally rush to the post office to get my mail sent over to HK by express courier. costs me $18 (heart pain...) Haiz.. This is what i get for extending my stay in bangkok (which i blew another 10k baht)...

And i am so sad that they took George O'Malley out of Grey's Anatomy.... This season ended with a cliff hanger, both george and izzie in resuscitation. Apparently, T.R. Knight contract is not renewed so i guess o'malley is dead. izzie should survive since she is still a regular on the next season.. I kind of like his character on the show... He is this guy who isn't really the smartest and brightest and yet still tries his best at everything.. for season 5, he was given very little screen time and i guess his departure is evident... and now i got to wait till 24 sep for the new season and I hope i will be able to watch it somehow in HK..

off to KL tmr.. will definitely blog about Field studies as there are really so many good memories that i want to remember and share. Will need to do so before everything fades away...

Finally, FS2009 is over! While the rest headed back home, a few of us stayed back in Bangkok to enjoy ourselves.



It has been a long trip since the starting, on 18th may. Went through thai lessons in Song Khla, headed up to Krabi. More field trips, crazy survivor day at Railay, our first project. After Krabi was a torturous train journey up north to bangkok, then to Khon Kaen. At Khon Kaen, it was more orientation field trips, including the crazy 3 hours trip to Laos that blew our visa. Next up was our humanoid project, where my group went for a home stay in Chi Kok Kor village for 4D3N. Totally immersed in village life and before we got used to it, it was time to head back. Went for a 2nd border crossing to extend our stay in Thailand and straight after that was an overnight coach to Chiang Mai. Upon hitting Chiang Mai, we were stuck with doing our project and the yellow book. After project presentation in a mountain resort, we flew back down to Bangkok and I headed out into the city while the others flew home.



Well, that was a executive summary of FS09.



Though tiring at times, I really never did regret coming for this trip. The amount of things I had seen and experienced is really a lot a lot a lot. Plus, living together with so many others, being away from home for the longest time ever. All these are new experiences and I will never forget them. Not forgetting to mention the strong friendship that i have forged with some of them, all the funny moments and the funny quotes like "secretly", "chui maak maak", "maximum chui", "cha yen wann it noi"etc etc.... I am starting to miss ppl on the trip.....



I am still not missing home and I am secretly 1/4 a Khon Thai (thai ppl) ..... need to brush up on my thai language then i can live here already....

Another update from the field.

Fieldwork for project has just been completed. The past 2 days was just running around the different sites, doing site observation, surveys and tourists. I am like repeating this phrase so many times.

"Hi, sorry to interupt. I am a student from Singapore who is currently doing a project on cave tourism in Thailand. May i ask you some simple questions?"

At least we got to visit quite a few sites, crawling into the different holes in caves and visiting railay beach again... a pity that i couldn't lie down on the beach in railay or swim in the waters there...

well. back to project. will update again when i have time

FS09 update 2

Another update from thailand!

Haven been able to get to a internet cafe for the past few days and the free wifi at the krabi hotel is not very good (cause the whole world is online).

Right now settling in a internet shop on Railey Bay. It is a super tourist spot with all the beach front hotels, restaurants, pub, shops all catering to tourist. basically an enclave lah... Things here area much more expensive than usual but the views are stunning at certain spots.

So, yesterday was Survivor Day (this was what dr carl called it) and it was more of amazing race. We didn't know what was going on till yesterday morning. We were separated into groups and then we were told to board a longtail boat at the jetty. The boat then took us to this "mystery location" and we only knew it was railey bay when we reached. There, we received an envelope containing all the instructions. So we went round the island, wadding in shallow sea water, climb up cliffs and mountains, walked along rocks, trekked through the jungle. A totally shagged but fun experience. Too bad we didn't really got a chance to soak the sun at the beach or swim in the beautiful beaches.

Ok.. i shall go.. the rain has stopped and i am going to soak in the pool for a while..

more updates when i get decent internet access again.

FS09 update 1

It'sn the 3rd day into FS 09 now and it still seems like an extended holiday for some reason. Even though we have thai lessons everyday, it feels like holiday mood.

Ok, a quick update on what has happened for the past 3 days.

17/5
Boarded the bus at golden mile for a gruelling 15 hr bus ride to hat yai, followed by a transfer to song khla on a local bus with thai MTV blasting on the bus. Had a welcome dinner too and all of us were all so glam. of course we took the opportunity to cam whore. will post pictures when i get the chance to do so. the dinner ended with almost all of us getting so high dancing, singing and drinking (soft drinks). even prof ziegler sang on stage.

18/5
start of our thai lessons. 6 hrs of thai lessons, with more thai words, sentence structure.... of course, we do not miss the chance to cam whore... went down to the beach, night market with our buddies and ate lots of good and cheap stuff.

19/5
another 6 hrs of thai lessons to prepare for our oral exam. the fun thing was after exams, we headed down to the beach as well as going up a mountain (which i forgot the name). again, we were camwhoring like tourists. headed down to another night market again for the night for more aroy aahaan.

ok.. my 30 baht is almost up. shall update another time.

All ready to go! FS09!

All my bags are packed i'm ready to go, to enjoy myself in thailand for 5 weeks whole

After ziplock-ing all my stuff and doing CPR on my backpack, managed to get all the stuff needed into my bag. I am a bit kiasu also lah... bring more better than bring less.. With both bags almost full, i think i gonna need another bag if i were to go on a shopping spree in bangkok. well, shall try not to spree there considering i have no space inside my bag.

So looking forward to 5 (or rather 6 for me) weeks of fun! and thai lessons and field work! and of course the long bus and train rides...

So I'm leaving on a jet BUS ....... (Chin, 2009)

sawatdii kharp!

thai lessons everyday from 9am to 12 noon is really tiring. doesn't help when i keep going out after lessons and there are still homework and FS stuff to settle when i get home.

had a really fun k-session with the FS ppl yest at chinatown. realise we are going to see each other everyday for the next one month plus and we confirm will get sick of one another... went shopping with elainey today for bong's pressie and buy some stuff for thai.. realise we are spending a lot of $$ before we even depart.. and i am like bringing a lot of clothes there leh... a bit kiasu is it? If i don't bring, i feel a bit like insecure...

ok 4 more days to go and i am super excited! till then, it's gonna be a busy week!