Sam Roi Yot National Park
Friday:
In the morning I still had no definate plans for the weekend, but as the day progressed and everybody sent emails to our yahoo group we decided to go to Sam Roi Yot National Park in the south. We wanted to get an early start so we decided to meet at the southern bus terminal (which is actually in the northeast of bangkok) at 8am. I decided I didnt really want to get sick so I was just going to go home and have dinner so I could go to sleep early and actually rest. On the way home I stopped by for dinner at this really good seafood place near the mall that I had been to before with my boss. I managed to clean out the cup of fish sauce with chili's of all the chili's so they had to bring me a new bowl of chili peppers. I think they were surprised to see a foreigner eat that many chilis.
Saturday morning:
I got up around 4:45am and got ready and made it to the bus stop by about 6, but I was supposed to get a "micro-bus" but I had no idea how to catch one of those or what they looked like so I ended up waiting at the stop for about 30 minutes trying to figure it out. Most of the locals weren't too much help either. I told one of them I needed "microbus bpaat" (which means microbus eight) and held up eight fingers, and she proceeded to hold up 5 fingers and say "five". Then I counted for her in thai from 1 to 8, and she said "five". I understand that my pronunciation was probably wrong, but you would think that she could count the number of fingers I had up or would understand if I counted for her from one to five in thai... And there was no 5 bus that came to this stop, nor was there a 5 bus that went to my destination so I have no clue where the 5 was coming from. Some other guy told me i needed to be on the other side of the road which was obviously wrong because that would take me in out of town when I had to go through town. I eventually just gave up and took a normal bus to the skytrain station (skytrains are subways that are above the ground, looks kinda like the disneyland monorail) to get at least closer to my destination. I was planning on just taking a cab from there, but I randomly ran into the people I was going to meet in the middle of plaza and they knew which bus to take so I just joined them.
satuday:
We made it to the park by riding in the back of a 'taxi' (more on the
taxi's later) and had to hike for about 30 minutes up an down a quite
steep hill to get to the beach where they had the bungalows and restaurant. And having all our bags with us and being about noon we all were pretty much drenched in sweat by the time we got our bungalow, but it was nice to be at a beach that didn't have the sound of any cars or other tourists besides ourselves. Anyhow, our bungalow was surprisingly clean and cheap ($25 total for the entire place with 11 people), but it didnt have much of a shower. It was just a plastic tube connected to a faucet in the bathroom and the toilet didnt have have a seat, it was just a bowl. But for less than $2.50 a night you really can't complain that much and it was just a place to crash at night anyhow.
We got lunch a little beachside restaurant next to our bungalow and I got a really interesting local dish called som-thum, which was an super spicy papaya salad with an unripened papaya, lime juice, garlic, peanuts, and chili peppers. It was really really good (and actually healthy!).
We then got on the back of another 'taxi' which took us to this place
where took a little boat ride for about an hour. It was pretty relaxing and interesting. There was some nice views of the mountains in the park as the sun was going down so I had fun taking pictures. I also so the weirdest animal I had ever seen in my life. It was fish that would actually swim up onto the banks of the river into the mud and actually wiggle around with little legs and breath air. It was really cool to see it because I had actually seen a special on national geographic on the same animal, but I had never expected to ever see it in its natural habitat. We also so some monkeys and some cool birds, but the fish with legs definately won the prize for the monst intersting sight!
We knew that once we went back to our bungalow there wouldnt be much to do but drink beer and hang out so we wanted to cram as much stuff in as we could. Our next adventure was conquering khao daeng (one of the known viewpoints). The task wouldn't have been that difficult had we started earlier and had more light. Going up was difficult enough with the sun setting and a very badly marked trail. There were some arrows that were set against a rock, but you could just take it and turn it the other direction so you really had no idea if it was pointing the right direction or not. Eventually after getting off the trail and back on repeatedly we made it to the top with enough time to take some pictures and run down before it got too dark (we were quite late on that one!). So we were stumbling around in the twilight on a very badly marked trail in a mostly deserted thai national park. But with all the odds against us we made it down without twisting any ankles, scraping our legs, or grabbing a cactus instead of a rock for support.
Then we had dinner and a few much needed beers before at the 'village' before we hiked over the hill in near pitch darkness back to the beach. After surviving the 30 minute pitch-dark trek over the hill we bought some more beers (before the only shop closed on that side of the hill) and hung out on the beach for a while listening to music and the waves crashing. About half us ended up sleeping until the sunrose on the beach, while the other half spent the entire night in the bungalow.
Sunday:
I woke up around 5:30 as the sun was rising and stayed out until the sun was out before coming back into the bungalow to sleep a few more hours. After breakfast we all hiked up to a really huge cave (although it wasn't a cave anymore because it had caved in making it look more like a really big hole. Regardless, they had built a temple in the middle of the cave as they like to put cool temples just about everywhere here. It was pretty serene exploring around and climbing a bit there.
Then we caught a 'taxi' to another cave that wasn't too far away. This one had not caved in so it was pitch dark inside, but they hadn't installed lights, handrails, and guides like how they do in other countries. It was just a big cave with the ever-confusing wooden board with arrows pointed on them that you could turn to whatever direction you want. Actually, I was surprised because they did have an shed where you could rent flashlights from and some metal stairs in them as well. The cave was really fun to explore because we could just hike around in it as we pleased. We didnt have to worry about any tourguides or restrictions on where we could go as long as we could get ourselves out eventually. We had some fun seeing some bats and some huge rooms and some crazy deep drops before hiking our way out back into the blazing heat and then down the side of the mountain on a 'trail' that we kinda just made up.
By this point I had a huge headache mostly due to the fact that I hadn't been drinking enough water. I guess the 2 liters of water I drank definately wasn't enough because I had yet dispose of it in any way but sweating. In addition, my legs were starting to ache excessively so I am sure I was entering dehydration so after we had lunch and took the boat (instead of the hike) around the hill to the beach I opted to just grab a chair and take a nap on the beach instead of checking out some other cave or going for a walk along the ocean which what the others were doing. The quiet alone-time was definately a much needed break after being in a group of 11 people for such a long time.
After taking a 'shower' and packing up we hiked over the hill and caught another 'taxi' to take us to town to try and catch the last bus out. But things had been going too well over the weekend and something had to go wrong eventually so on the way to town we got a flat tire and had to wait another 30 minutes before we got another ride to the city to try and go to bangkok. The best part was that the locals no idea how to change the tire or use a jack to lift the car. We had to help them figure that part out. When we left they were still trying to figure out how to take off the spare so I hope they eventually figured it out.
When the driver dropped us off right next to the bus ready to go, once again it just felt way to easy and we knew something had to go wrong. We of course found out that the bus was sold out and the next bus that was not sold out was at 6:30 in the morning which would mean all of us would be quite late and groggy to work in the morning. We ended up hiring a van to take us which only costed a dollar more and was quite comfortable and quick. It had leather seats and a nice stereo (10-disc changer, new reciever, and an EQ) so we played some u2 and some other chillout music so the ride back was actually quite enjoyable. Luckily on the trip I found out that another german guy lived nearby me so we were able to share the taxi ride back and save some baht.
Thai Taxi's:
Okay, so in Bangkok they have normal taxi's that you would expect in just about most cities in the world. They have meters and seats and life is good. But in the rest of thailand most taxi's just a sort of modified (or unmodified) pickup truck. Some of them have two boards along the longer sides for you to sit on, some have a cover in case it rains, and some just have a bunch of coconuts in the back that you have to sit around and deal with. In addition, none of them have any sort of a meter so you have to ask them how much it would cost first and bargain with them for a bit before agreeing to go with them. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery for a bitter idea of what I am talking about...
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