Bangkok, Thailand>, Jul 31, 2009
Normal
0
21
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
It is the end
of July. Back home everybody is enjoying their summer holiday and stories of Italy, France,
Greece, Ireland, and
where not have arrived at me via e-mail. In Thailand it is a different story
though. Exams have been the priority of many students and there is not even a
slight trace of holiday in the near future. I too am one of those unlucky
students.
My exam roster
was pretty nice though. I had three exams in a row on consecutive days, a
break, and finally on the last day my final exam. No two exams on one day, no
conflicts, no problems. After my third exam I felt pretty tired though. I
needed a break, preferably a serene place where I could relax and prepare for my
exams in the best possible way. Alex had a similar thought. He wanted to go to
Koh Chang, one of the rare places I had already visited. Normally I would have
declined and gone somewhere else however it is an ideal location and I hadn’t
visited every beach yet. So my demand was that we would go to a new beach. White Sand Beach it became.
First day was
quiet. The ride with the bus had drained us from all the energy we had. We
walked through the town, ate, found a place to live and rested a bit. That
night we went for dinner to Paddy’s, the local Irish pub, for dinner and a
delicious Guinness to appease the taste buds!
The next day
was study day which meant lying on a chair enjoying the sun, sunglasses on,
book on my lap, and a nice cool beer… ehm, soft drink! Hahaha, you cannot study
with beer!
The day was
over before I know it and evening struck. After studying the entire day and
finishing up to chapter 3(!!) we figured we deserved a cold one. We walked to
the first beach bar we could find and ordered two bottles Singha. Several
laughs, stories and bottles later we wanted a change of scenery and decided to
leave. The bartender did not agree with that thought though. He turned 23 that
day and his big birthday party was about to commence and he wanted us to join
the celebration. Staying turned out to be a great choice. Lots of food and
drinks were put on the table, guitar was pulled from the bar, and random girls
were pulled of the beach to join the party! This guy new how to throw a party!!
Strangely
enough though, this exam preparation didn’t prove to be really fruitful… Oh
well, there is always the final to make up for the mid-terms ^^
Education is
not only about studying; it is the preparation before the period in your life
you will start working. Mr. Glen of the International Office knows this as no
other. His philosophy is that networking is equally important, something I
definitely concur. When he got an invitation for a select party at the
Millennium Hilton he immediately arranged we were invited as well. After coming
two hours fashionably late due to traffic we had a real blast. Good food, good
wine, good people. But for me the party was far from done. Kilian and I decided
to go to Koh Sang Road
for a little afterparty! A quick phone call to Alex with the word beer in it
insured that our party would consist of three people.
At Koh Sang Road we
got introduced to something I had heard of but had yet to try. See in Thailand they
think in a good way about alcohol. The bottles are bigger and the drinks are
cheap. But that
isn’t enough. The Thai think glasses are overrated. So when they drink they drink buckets full with
cocktails! Ingenious if I may add. It did have a nasty side effect though. At
the end of the night a drunk Alex had to deal with an unconscious girl and
escorted her and her friends to a tuk-tuk, drunk Kiliand just started randomly
walking without the slightest clue why, and drunk Remco lost his phone four
times and looked so fucked up he got checked for drug use… Good times!
Cheers,
Remco