I’ve been in Thailand for a few days now, but today was the first day with real patient interaction, so I waited until now to write.  I’ll do the post in two parts so you don’t have to read a super long post.

I had no trouble with the airports or the flights getting to Bangkok on Wednesday and Thursday.  We got picked up in Bangkok and took the 3 hour drive to Korat.  We are staying at Suranaree Technology Institute.  There is a guest house there that is more like a hotel that we have as home base.  Since we got there right before the weekend, we didn’t do any medical stuff.

Friday we took a tour of a district hospital that is in the process of being built and has just a few wards open right now.  Friday night for dinner half of us went to the mall (someone needed to buy some short sleeve shirts).  This mall is just like an American mall.  It’s 4 stories and stocked full.  There’s a grocery store in it too, where we bought breakfast food for our rooms.  There is a food court and also a market in the center of the mall.  We ate at the market.  Everything was so good.  I’m going to eat my heart out this month and miss is so much when I come home. (I’m trying to show a picture, but it says it’s too big and I don’t know how to fix that.  My IT husband isn’t here to tell me how either IT husband fixed it).

Saturday we went to the zoo.  We rented bikes to ride around.  It was so much fun.  There was a seal show.  Too bad it was all in Thai. after the zoo, most of us took a long, hard nap.  It’s hot here and being outside for a few hours exhausted us.  Most of us walked to a market right outside of campus to eat dinner.  Street/ market vendor food is the best!

Sunday we went to the mall again so the people who didn’t go before could see it.  We ate at the food court this time.  Soooooo many choices.  The food was amazing again.  After walking around all 4 floors we got a tuk-tuk (golf cart/ scooter type thing) back to the hotel.  A few of us hit up the pool for a bit.  Then we went to a real restaurant to eat.  It was really good, but no better than street vendor food and three times more expensive.  Market vendor food is $1, the restaurant was $3-5.  Then to the Night Bazaar to do some shopping.  It was like a flea market.

To be continued….