Day 6:Trevor Gusmini

Good Evening Everyone,

My name is Trevor Gusmini. I graduated from Walpole High School and am a part of the IMB program at Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Today we left Pattaya and traveled to the massive Laem Chabang Port in Chonburi province. We were pleasantly greeted by members of their team and were given fresh coffee, water, and delicious banana nut muffins. What really stood out to me was how they adopted and lived by the S.M.A.R.T. principle which stands for Standard, Mastery, Agility, Responsibility, and Teamwork to focus on the growth of Thailand’s maritime trade. All port authority members have those goals inscribed onto their work uniform.

This port spans 4,000 acres and has 18 terminals that can handle at least 11 million TEUs and 2 million cars annually which ranks them in the top 20 and top 5 globally in those respective areas. They developed the port in three stages. They are in Phase 3 (which started in 2022 and is set to be finished by 2038) through land reclamation and aims to accommodate economic expansion, enhance competitiveness, and maximize capacity to handle 18 million TEUs. One cool aspect I learned is how they provide environmental support by conservation and mangrove forestation. The view was incredible from the 22 story observation tower.

For lunch we had fresh seafood on the water which included Calamari, fried shrimp, vegetables, crab, fish, fried eggs with crab, clam, and rice, seasoned with different sauces which really transformed the taste.

We also visited Namyong RO-RO Terminal which had almost 15000 cars ready to be loaded. It was mind blowing to see how many cars were sitting in the port and the trucks filled with drivers were going to each RO-RO vessel to load and unload vehicles. It was also very cool to see the various models of cars which are not found in the US. A typical theme I saw are much smaller cars, all with tinted windows to keep cars cool. There was a very large number of EVs made in China.

After our visit we made the trek back to the Asian Institute of Technology where we got settled back in and I did some much needed laundry. I am looking forward to what’s in store next!