USS George Washington Visits Thailand

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Juan Pinalez

LAEM CHABANG, Thailand – After 56-days at sea, the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) and her crew of 5,500 Sailors arrived in Laem Chabang, Thailand, Aug. 6 for a well deserved rest and relaxation port visit in the coastal city of Pattaya.
“The crew has worked very hard since we left Japan back in June and they deserve every opportunity to enjoy themselves,” said George Washington’s commanding officer, Capt. David A. Lausman.  “I fully expect to see them out in full force shopping, enjoying Thai food and taking tours.  They’ve earned it.”              

The port call marks the ship’s second visit to the partner nation of Thailand since George Washington arrived in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) in 2008.            

 During the visit, more than 250 George Washington Sailors will participate in eleven community service (COMSERV) projects to help further the relationship between the U.S. Navy and Thailand. Sailors will also have an opportunity to experience Thai culture through numerous tours offered by the ship’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) program. 

“It’s exciting to see how many Sailors have signed up to volunteer their free time ashore helping others,” said Cmdr. Brian Haley, George Washington’s Chaplain.   “You’d think with being at sea for so long, they’d want to relax but they’re actually more interested in helping people and making a difference.  It’s wonderful to see.” 

The COMSERV opportunities will allow Sailors to contribute to the beautification of local schools, temples and pay visits to elderly residents at an area nursing home.          
  “I’m very excited to spend so much time in Thailand. Not only will I do the usual tourist stuff, I’m also going to volunteer my time and participate in a COMSERVE with a local school,” said Information Systems Technician 1st Class (SW) Bobby Anderson, from Houston. “There is so much to do in Pattaya and with as much time as we’re given, I look forward to doing it all. There are elephants to ride, tigers to see, temples to visit and a really cool zip line in the middle of the forest to go on.”
        
George Washington will also welcome aboard nearly 300 representatives from Thailand and provide them with guided tours of the aircraft carrier. These honored guests include children from a local orphanage and government leaders.  The tours serve to educate the public on the inner workings of the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier.          
  “I am thrilled to have people tour our ship.  It’s a great opportunity for them to meet our crew and learned about what we do.  That’s the secret to securing stability in the region; opening the doors to minimize misunderstanding,” said Lausman.
  
George Washington returned to patrolling the waters of the Western Pacific on June 12, 2011, departing her forward operating base of Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka.  Onboard are more than 5,500 Sailors from George Washington and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5. George Washington’s mission is to ensure security and stability in the 7th Fleet AOR and to be in position to work with our allies and regional partners to respond to any crisis across the operational spectrum as directed.
-GW-

Not America Safe: Propane Pipe

I'm sure my father would tell you that this wouldn't pass code in America. Plastic gas tubing? Next to a hot burning stove? I don't think that's America safe.

Thailand: Day 7

Our last day in Thailand, we took a one day boat trip to Phi Phi island. Phi Phi is famous for being the location of the Leo Dicaprio movie, The Beach.  It is absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The water was so green and the mountains came straight out of the water. Breathtaking.

Our boat trip took us to the island. We went snorkeling, swimming, had lunch and then went to a small island for some relaxing and sun. Sounds nice until you factor in the 15 people puking off the back of the boat because the waves were so rough. Oh well, good thing Christina and I don't get sea sick!

There was one spot where you could feed the monkeys. Someone got a little too close with their Pepsi I think.

Our last stop, Khai Nai island. A teeny, tiny island perfect for a beer, snorkeling and sunbathing.

Thailand! So beautiful and sketchy. I definitely want to make a trip back some day!

Thailand: Day 6

Our first full day in Phuket was another day of scuba diving! Well, Christina was a good friend and went snorkeling even though she doesn't like being in the water and I went diving. The coral and fish were much better in this part of Thailand. We got picked up in the morning by our dive company and headed to the pier. We loaded up in a nice boat with multiple other dive companies. The best part? It was just Newton, my dive master, and me diving together. Small groups are definitely better because they can point things out to you and you don't have other divers scaring the fish away.

We had a long boat ride out to Racha Yai (behind me in the far distance) so we took advantage of the sun and saw a few jelly fish too. Our first dive was in a cove off the island. Christina enjoyed a beer when she was done snorkeling and feeding the fish.

The most memorable part of the trip were the Trigger Fish. Thank goodness that Newton had warned me about these guys ahead of time!

 When one starting biting my fins the first time, I freaked out a little bit! I thought I had kicked Newton's tank or hit the coral, but it was an 18 inch fish chomping on my yellow fins! He attacked a few times, swam around us and the longer we held still, the further away he swam. During the second dive, when another one came around, I just watched him and laughed. At least he didn't go for my fingers. Those teeth were scary looking! Definitely a few memorable dives.

After we got back to Phuket, we headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up, put on some nice clothes and headed to dinner. We went to a restaurant one town over recommended by LP. Christina and I had a nice romantic dinner, just the two of us. :)

Over dinner, we decided that we wanted to go to Phi Phi island the next day since our trip to the Vegetarian Festival didn't work out. At 10:00 pm, we headed in to Patong City to find a tour company. Luckily, things around there were open late, so we found a place still open and booked a trip that left at 8 am the next morning. Perfect!

We even had time for a beer and to check out the Lady Boys. I love Thailand!

Thailand: Day 5

Bright and early on Thursday morning, Christina and I were headed back to Bangkok airport to catch our flight to Phuket. Phuket is a territory/island of Thailand about a 1 1/2 hour flight south from Bangkok.

We checked in to our hotel in Nakalay Beach and decided we were going to check out the biggest city just south of us, Patong. First, we checked out the hotel though.

How does one get to their hotel room? A cable car of course! It was novel at first, but then we realized if you forgot something in the room, it took 20 minutes to get to the room and back. It was worth it for the awesome view we had from our room though!

In Patong, we checked out the beach...

Did some shopping and rode around in a tuk-tuk (nice ones!)...

Enjoyed the sunset...

We headed back to our hotel before dinner to enjoy the beach and little and see some more of the beautiful sunset...

We brought our own little mini bar to the beach and enjoyed some duty free gin I bought on the way to Thailand! I'm being frugal, people, my momma taught me well...

We relaxed on the beach til we got too hungry and then headed to one of our hotels many restaurants. Since they didn't have Hendrick's on the menu, we just decided to bring our own with us!

Yummy, yummy Thai food! Then, we were off to bed, another day of scuba tomorrow!

Thailand: Day 4

My last day with Glenn. Sad. Why do port calls go by so fast? We started the day with breakfast at the hotel. They had eggs. Exciting. I love when Asian countries actually have western-ish breakfasts. Rice and fish for breakfast is something I don't think I'll ever learn to adapt too. Give me some bacon and eggs!

So yeah, we had breakfast and then we walked down the street to the main road to catch a baht-bus. We learned that if you get a driver from the hotel they charge you pretty much 500 Baht ($18) but if you catch a baht-bus, you can ride as far as they are going for 20 baht (75 cents). So we caught a baht-bus and Glenn managed to not fall off the back (since the seats were full, he had to stand and hold on to a railing overhead), we pressed the doorbell when we saw our destination and hopped off and paid. Success, $15 in my pocket!

Our destination: the floating market. So it's a knock-off of the real floating market near Bangkok, but fun souvenirs to be found anyway. I always have to come back from vacation with gifts for my students. It's a Japanese thing for sure. Gifts for everyone! I guess cause they couldn't go? A small trinket or candy will do, but it's polite to bring back something.

We wandered, we shopped, we sweated, we attempted to order some food, we sweated some more. This was the only really hot day Glenn and I had in Thailand. While we were waiting for our food, Glenn was talking about lounging in the pool and relaxing back at the hotel before he had to depart for the bus to take him to the ship.

"I really wanna ride an elephant," I blurted out knowing that it was the opposite of what Glenn wanted to do at that moment. "I'm sorry, I can't come to Thailand and not ride an elephant!"

"Really? I wish you had mentioned this earlier."
"I know! I'm sorry, I did, kinda, not really. Can we ride an elephant."

Being the wonderful husband that he is, he made my wish come true!

We attempted to get a ride from a taxi at the market, but they didn't really seem to know where we were talking about. We decided to head back to the hotel first, I made some phone calls and got an Elephant Village driver to come pick us up! Ya ta!

We even had some time for lounging before they picked us up.

Elephants! I think Glenn enjoyed himself feeding the elephants bananas even though he was watching his watch to make sure we would be back in time. We fed them, we rode one for an hour (30 minute would have sufficed) and we pet the elephants! :)

 

Thanks Mr! We made it back in time to pack (quickly) Glenn up and order some room service. Relaxing would have been wonderful too, but all I can ever think about on the last night is saying goodbye in a few hours. Maybe staying busy until the last minute is the way to go? Miss you so much, Mr!

Thailand: Day 3

 Day 3 of our trip and my second to last day with Glenn was our scuba diving trip! If you haven't noticed, my new hobby has become quite my obsession.  I guess, I figure if we move back to Virginia, I won't have a lot of opportunities for diving. Gotta get it in when I can!

Pattaya is mostly famous for it's wreck diving. Since I'm not certified as an Advanced diver or wreck diver, our options were more limited. We headed to Koh Rhin island to do some coral reef diving. We were at the southern tip of the island and were working our way to the eastern side. That meant, we had some strong currents! Not as strong as Indonesia, but pretty strong still.

The next dive accessory I will purchase will be an underwater case for my digital camera. I hate not having pictures of the neat things we saw. Keiran and Paul from the squadron also joined us on the dive, but each twosome had it's own dive master. Much nicer than Guam where they just threw us in the water! Having a dive master is nice because they are familiar with the area and no what to look for. For example, on this dive, our dive master, John B, pointed out a bamboo shark that was hiding under some rocks! My first shark!

 To get to the island, we had about a 90 minute boat ride to take in the sights and relax.

 While we were diving we saw lots of fish, a few eels. I love the big schools of fish. So amazing. Next time I go diving, I'll have a case, I promise!

 Here you can see Pattaya city. Our hotel was about 5 miles down the coast to the right out of the city.

After we got back from diving, we headed to our hotel, got cleaned up and then met up with some of Glenn's squadron buddies. We stopped by a few bars...

 Rode in a tuk-tuk...

 

but we did not apply for any visas for our girlfriends from the bar...