The end of Bangkok, the beginning of Chiang Mai

Can you imagine, six students with Christmas hats on a white beach and blue ocean water on the background? We did it last weekend on the beautiful island Ko Phi Phi. But before we went to this great place, we finished our research project proposal, our tourism test and the last week of seminars and other classes at Rangsit University Bangkok.

After the elephant festival in Surin our group had two more weeks to prepare our project proposal and to prepare for the test at the end. Our research teacher, mister Prantik, has helped and learned us a lot about research and the different research methods we could use in the village Baan Hua Tung, which we will visit the in the coming weeks. During week three and four of our stay in Bangkok, the group has worked very hard together to prepare the research proposal and the presentation. To reward ourselves for the good teamwork, we went to Bangkok on Saturday the 21th of November to enjoy the local market close to Mochit called: Chatuchak. The market was very big, lots of tourists and great local people who were selling their products. After the local market we went to China Town, just a few minutes by sky train and a few minutes with the boat. China Town was different from the rest of Bangkok, Chinese temples, food and local markets. At a Thai restaurant we had dinner and in the evening we met Hendrijetha on Koh San Road to enjoy the night life, including some drinks, eating grasshoppers on the street and were cured by doctor fishes. They ate the dead skin of our feet.

The next day our group worked on the project and received some feedback of our research teacher which we took in consideration. In the next days we worked together to finish the project, learn more about Thai culture and language from our Thai teacher misses Beer. A thanks giving party was given on the 26th of November and we joined the party, had some great Thai food and live music from students of the university.

On Wednesday the 28th we had dinner on the 83rd floor of the Sky Tower in Bangkok. We enjoyed the Thai food and the amazing view of the city at night. Afterwards we went to the State Tower to have a drink at the highest open air bar of the world, at the 64th floor.

The next days we, together with the seminars of Hendrijetha and the research workshops of Prantik, developed our research proposal. After we received feedback from the teachers and misses Nitsch, we have given a presentation about our proposal, the same day we have send the project proposal to Brigitte Nitsch, Pai (from cbt – i) and Prantik. On Thursday in week four we had our CBT test which was a very difficult test for us, but we are sure that we all pass it.

After handing in the proposal and making the test, we went for a cultural/holiday tour to Phuket and Ko Phi Phi. We went snorkeling, enjoying local foods and drinks, relaxing on white beaches and swimming with sharks.

But to all great things comes an end, so we had to get back to Bangkok, Sita Villa, and clean our rooms. The next day, the 10th of December we left Bangkok to start our new adventure in the Mae Klong area where we will stay for three days. After that we headed towards Chiang Mai by night train to start working at our research project.