Passage to ASEAN (P2A) at Phranakhon Rajabhat University (Bangkok, Thailand) by FPT University’s Students has closed with wonderful experiences. Please discover Thailand with Nguyen Thi Hai Yen (K12, Business Administration), an FPT student after that interesting trip.

Before preparing luggages to go to the airport, I confused a while about this trip to P2A in Thai Lan, if it did great teamwork like the last 4th field trip or not.

 But after two-day of experiences, I changed my mind completely. This trip helped us to learn, understand the culture and belief of the golden pagoda country. Students after exchanging of a few words became so close together.   

P2A’s first day: we learned about the culture of greeting, thanking, apologizing, how to ask prices, counting numbers in Thai language. The Thai’s intonation is special and slight, but intonation sounds quite interesting. I learned a little such as sa wa dee kaa, kop koon, nư, sỏn and etc. In general, if going with FPT students to discover Thailand, everyone must have known how to ask prices and bargain when shopping. 

Next, my group was guided to PNRU museum, university tour and Buddhist building. What a large campus, larger than a resort in Viet Nam! The sight was so beautiful out of imagination. Generally speaking, it was so wonderful with integrating yourself into the nature, and then it was information exchange with Chinese students who came to Thailand for study. All were not only handsome males and beautiful females but also friendly guys. 

PNRU museum is where to store pictures, books and things from Rama Kings of Thailand. On stepping in, it shows Thai people love their king very much and the country has wonderful historic stories through the passage of Thailand discovery with FPT students.

 

A journey to Thai Lan took students many new places and tasted amazing foods.

Day 2 of Thailand discovery with FPT students was the trip to Thai Royal Palace (Phra Borom Maha Ratcha wang). The pagoda and tower architectures of the Royal Palace made everyone feel not only surprised over its huge scale but also admired by its sophistication in every tiny detail. The work is considered the ‘golden pagoda’ country’s symbol of pride. The architecture of the royal palace is a combination of such various cultures as Chinese, French, Italian and etc. but it still carries Thai architecture. 

 The biggest tower of the architectural community here is called Phra Sri Rattana. The tower looks like a high storey-building with mountain shape covered with millions of thin gold slices transported from Italy. This tower is used to embalm the bodies of newly passed-away kings. The tower is protected around by elephant statues. 

Starvation was coming, my group was taken by sister Saiibudz (a Thai person) to a restaurant in the center of Bangkok. Let’s try a food which is rumored as ‘mango sticky rice’ here. Oh my God! How delicious it was! Stomach was full and then my group returned to the university to study Thai cuisine and practice. Each member oneself entered the kitchen to prepare their own dinner.

Thai food is so hot and sweet. I can’t bear with eating hot food and therefore, didn’t put capsicum into recipe whereas others added nearly a half of bowl of hot stuff.  

It was just two days but so full of joys and memories  

Day 3 in Thailand, my group made sight-seeing and shopping at a floating market named as Koh Kret on Koh Kret island. This place is famous with porcelain made by Mon people’s skillful hands. The porcelain here is bright red, beautiful and sophisticated. People made it in a traditional and adroit way, which made us become addicted with looking at, and therefore, each of us bought home some Thai things for memory after the trip of Thailand discovery with FPT students.    

After that, the whole group returned to the school to receive the certificate of completion for P2A experiences. The teachers said that it was so glad to see the group and share Thai culture, the group’s English was good, and they hoped to see us on a nearest day. 

Free day: we moved to a nice and small hostel near the center of Bangkok on the final day, then visited Chatuchak market, Bangkok. It is impossible to go around the whole market in one day. The market has about 1500 stands. We went together for a while, and then separated from each other since it was so large and there were a lot of things for choice, and hence we got disorientated. Here the whole group made shopping and enjoyed special Thai food like mango sticky rice, coconut ice cream, banana cake, Thai pudding, Thai sweet … In general, this was a day of walking for shopping, energy consuming and then eating to try famous foods here.  

I learned a lot when participating the P2A passage, especially English. Everyone communicated in English with each other. When the tour guide introduced museum or pagoda, of course, the Thai could not understand Vietnamese language and the Vietnamese could not understand Thai language, and therefore, English was the unique thing to help people understand each other. This was a chance to remarkably improve our English. Both listening and speaking skills were practiced a lot.     

Experience for you while joining such a program as P2A is that you should prepare for yourself a back bag or small suitcase for convenience while traveling. Regarding budget, in addition to fees paid against the tour, you should prepare some more money to pay your eating or buy your favorite things that sometimes are not available in Viet Nam. Moreover, you should attend all activities in the program. They are truly useful; and it is not always for us to have a chance to participate in. And in fact, try one time, then you will have experience

With 5 million VND for 4 to 5 days of experience (including room and board) it’s quite reasonable, isn’t it? 

NGUYỄN THỊ HẢI YẾN

K12 Student, Business Administration