The week before this last one was Rachelle's 21st birthday on Tuesday the 5th. After a long day at school we went to The Cedar, a Lebanese restaurant, and then to a dessert shop called Summer where we were able to sit on huge pillows in a grassy area and eat some amazing dessert under the stars.
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| Roomies at The Cedar |
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| Eye came too! |
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| Dessert #1 |
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| The Summer- pillows and tables on a grass under the stars |
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| Food coma |
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| Dessert #2 |
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| Dessert #3 Happy Birthday Rachelle! |
Wednesday morning Rachelle, Anjali, Isabelle, Nico, Aaron, Issac, Sam, and I headed to Pak Chong en route to Kao Yai, Thailand's first ever National Park.
Once we arrived in Pak Chong we had some lunch and then the heavens unleashed some torrential rain on us for about an hour or two. The rain lightened up but some people were a bit discouraged so it ended up being only Aaron, Issac, and I who persevered onto the National Park.
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| Lots of rain... so we decided to go for a run in it |
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| Pig heads! yikes! |
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| Nice and sunny at Kao Yai... go figure |
When we arrived outside Kao Yai, the sun was shinning and the landscape looked as if it had never rained. We contacted the others and everyone but Rachelle hopped onto the next bus to Kao Yai, however, they did not make it there until nightfall. Meanwhile, Aaron, Issac, and I caught a ride with three friendly Thai people to a campsite and set up our tent next to our new friends. Then They drove us to two viewpoints and a waterfall before heading back to the campsite to cook some delicious seafood and have a few beers before bed.
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| Monkeys everywhere... |
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| First viewpoint we stopped at with our new Thai friends who picked us up |
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| Setting up camp |
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| Waterfall they filmed in The Beach |
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| Aaron having a little too much fun |
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| View from the highest point in Thailand |
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| Our Thai friends... they're all around the age of 35 haha |
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| Our Thai friends brought a small cooker and lots of seafood and graciously cooked for ALL of us |
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| The others finally made it! |
The next morning we all ate some breakfast and headed on our first trek into the jungle to see a few waterfalls.
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| And the trekking begins! |
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| Climbing up the waterfall to get some better views |
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| Yes that is a bug |
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| These signs were everywhere along one of the rivers we hiked by, and we kept searching but we never saw one... |
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| Lord of the Rings |
Then we hitch-hiked to the visitor center to have some lunch before we attempted to start on another trek leading to an observation tower.
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| All of us piling into the trunk of some nice Thai person's car |
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| Refueling |
Unfortunately after some wrong turns, we ended up doing a loop and finding ourselves back at the road we entered the trek from. So we hiked a ways down the road and entered the jungle again. For some reason these two treks were absolutely infested with leeches. You couldn't take two steps without having two or three on your shoes or sucking on your ankles. At one point we stopped in dry area, a little lost, and Anjali had about 4 on each ankle sucking away. So gross!
But finally we found the observation tower and some amazing views. When we headed back to the road to hitch hike back to the visitor center, we spotted a family of elephants!! It was so amazing to see them in the wild, and very lucky I was told.
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| We found this huge tree during our second trek |
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| The red marks on the the trees marked the paths because often times the path was not very distinct. When we ran out of red marks, thats when it started to get a little scary |
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| Monkeys just chillin in the road |
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| Crossing the river |
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| Almost made it! Everyone sprinted this path to the tower |
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| Victory! |
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| Leech bite! |
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| The group |
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| Enjoying the self timer |
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| Elephants!! |
After dinner we took a night safari in hopes of seeing some cool exotic animals but at most we saw some deer, including barking deer, yes they bark like dogs, it's quite strange, and some civets.
When we made it back to our campsite, I found our tent opened (all four zippers undone) and my bag completely ripped apart and my bathroom bag strewn out on the grass around our campsite. The culprit: Monkeys. For some reason monkeys and I just don't seem to get along. Anyway, I cleaned up my stuff and we headed to sleep. The next morning we headed back to Pak Chong and then to Khorat!
In Khorat we checked into a hotel and headed into town to check out the sites. Turns our there weren't many and it ended up raining for a decent part of the afternoon. We spent part of the afternoon in a cute little coffee shop waiting out the rain before we headed to the night bazaars to get some food and meet Antoine after his trip to Cambodia.
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| 30 Baht cheeseburgers! So not worth it |
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| Downtown Khorat. The statue is of a past mayor's wife who led a revolt against the people attempting to take over the town. She is now basically a demigod and every year the town holds a festival in her honor. |
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| Hanging out with some local kids |
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| Storm on the horizon |
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| Durian, a "fruit" that most people either love or hate |
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| Nico was one of those who hated it |
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| Night Bazaar, so much good food! |
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| This is how they cut the papaya for papaya salad or Som tom, a northeastern specialty. So good! but very spicy |
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| My new favorite food, mango and sticky rice. Everyone should try it. |
After walking around for awhile we called it a night.
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