In August I had the opportunity to go to Bangkok in Thailand.

Before the journey I had lots of difficulties. Two month before the travelling I haven’t received the Card of Acceptance, although the deadline was over. My Contact Persons texted me very late for the first time, so I hadn’t got the opportunity to ask my thousands of questions from them.

I was in Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok. The accomodiaton was close to the hospital, actually it was among the buildings of the hospital. It was a dorm for medical students, who are learning in the university. The room was four-bedded, but I lived with only one another exchange student, who came from Germany. The dorm was comfy and nice. I expected something really bad, so I was suprised when I arrived there.There was air-conditioner too! The location was more than perfect. Metro, skytrain and bus stops were close.  There was no kitchen, but I didn’t miss it because the warm food was cheap.

My Contact persons were kind, but they were a penfriend rather than a contact person. I met with them for five minutes :D At the beginning of the practice, when they gave me the logbook and at the and of the practice, when i recieved the pocket money.  The pocket money was 3000 BHT.  Local Committee organized only one social programme at the end of the months. We visited Amphawa floating market, some parks and temples and we had a river cruise dinner. The dinner was awesome!! I loved it.

During the whole practice we had arrangement. I was in Pediatrics. Acutally I nominated OB/GYN at the first place and Pediatrics was the third. But I am feeling grateful to get the Pediatrics. At the first two weeks we visited OPD and we spent the last two weeks in IPD. In OPD we visited Well-baby clinic, HIV clinic, Neurology clinic, Infectous clinic, Cardiology Clinic, Hematology Clinic, GI Clinic and Genetics Clinic. The last two weeks we took part in the work of Infectious ward.  I prefer the OPD it was more exciting. I learnt more things in OPD than in IPD. HIV clinic was shocking. I felt myself very lucky to be there and experienced to be involved into some rare and tropical disease’s treatment. The doctors there were kind and helpful and tried their best to translate most of the things, what the patients said. All of the doctors could speak in English very well, so they could explain us a lot of things easily. I saw there a lot of patient with thalassemia and Dengue-fever. The hospital was modern and well-equipped.

I had to be at the hospital from 9 am until noon, than I had a lunchbreak and in the afternoon I was in the hospital from 1pm to 4 pm. In the hospital there were  numerous cafeterias, the food was delicious and the price was reasonable.

After the practice we went sightseeing or just visited the gym, which was in the dorm (for students it was for free). The capital city is huge and the traffic is horrible. During the rush hours the best decision is not to use the public transport. Unfortunately, the traffic at off-peak hours are still huge, so just keep calm, you will get to your destination in a few hours :D At the weekends we went on sightseeing tour in Bangkok, we visited a beach few hours from Bangkok, and the ancient capital city, Ayutthaya. We were in Chiang Mai too. It’s in the northern part of the country. If you have the opportunity to go there, do not miss it!

If I had to choose again, my choice would be Bangkok and Chulalongkorn University again!