Thirty-six hours traveling doesn’t seem like that long … right? The Thailand IL trip started off with three connecting flights: one six hours, one fifteen hours, and the last three hours. Out of 18 students, 5 of them were nervous about the flights and worried about how they could keep themselves occupied, but all of us found different ways to do so. Sophia, Gabby, Aashika, Brandon, and Jade slept for the majority of the flights. Alex, Ben, Jaiwant, and Justin chose to walk around during the longer flights to stretch out their legs. Kayla, Anjali, Barleen, Zaydan, Bodhi, Emilia, Jenaya, and Max watched many different movies throughout the hours. Dean read a book.
When we arrived, our tour guide, Thep, picked us up and gave us a cold towelette and a bottle of water. As we were driving and observing the scenery, it made us think about the things we were looking forward to. Emilia was most looking forward to “trying Thai food” and experiencing the local culture.
As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we were given free time to freshen up after our long travel days and to relax. At around 5:30, Thep guided us through the streets of Chinatown in Bangkok.
There were many different street vendors that were selling all different types of food and drink, including tanghulu, durian, and fresh mango. One stall even had cooked scorpions, crickets, mealworms, centipedes, and water bugs. Anjali, Gabby, and Bodhi decided to try the scorpion. Anjali described the taste as a “grainy potato.” Mr. Cotter also tried cooked crickets and mealworms.
After a long walk in the busy streets of Bangkok, we were able to sit down and eat dinner, which consisted of options such as fried rice with eggs, chicken, or shrimp and pad thai with chicken or shrimp.
When we came back to the hotel, we gathered as a group to discuss our plans for the next morning and went through “WARM,” representing Wows, Adversities, Readiness, and the Morning Query. Our morning query for the next day was, “What are our tools to approach the unknown with an open and curious mind?”