weekend at khao sok with the leeches

Hello! I'm going to write about this weekend now and finish up about Chiang Mai later this week. Hope that's not too confusing!

This weekend we went to Khao Sok National Park with Keysa and her friend from Hawaii and David. It's about a three hour bus ride (even though its only 60 km away). We left after school on Saturday and got there around 4:30. The bus ride was about 3 dollars and was pretty comfortable. We stayed in some bungalows right on the river.

Saturday evening we went on a little hike in the park. From our bungalow we could see the park entrance and walk right in. It's very jungley. Khao Sok is supposed to be the oldest preserved jungle in the world- older than the Congo or Amazon. That evening we had dinner at our Bungalows which was very good and then we went to a Rasta bar where there was a funny guy with a Snoop Dog tattoo. We think he wanted to be Keysa's gik (that is a Thai person's boy/girlfriend on the side- we want to start that word going in the US if you can help us). Saturday we also organized a trek to the huge lake for the next day.

Here's a picture of us with the guy at the bar.


Sunday we got up early for our trek. We drove with our guide for about an hour in the back of his truck to the lake. Then we took about an hour long boat ride around the lake which is really huge. There were lots of beautiful limestone cliffs and the weather was very nice for that part. Then we got to a restaurant right on the lake and ate a very yummy lunch with fried coconut bananas for dessert. We also got to go swimming in the lake there.

Here's a picture of the long boat:


Here's a view from the boat:


Here's everyone on the long boat


Here we are floating in tubes in the lake:


Then we took the long boat again to a little trail that goes up to a viewpoint. The trail was pretty treacherous especially since it had started to rain so it was super slippery. It took about 1.5 hours to get to the top. The first hour wasn't too bad, but then we got to the cliffs rock area where we were more or less rock climbing. That was pretty hard for me.

This is the view from the top:



This is the rough climb down:


I got three leech bites on the trek- I think Justin got a couple too. The leeches were relentless. We got a couple on our hike Saturday night and Justin tried to flush his down the sink, but it kept holding on and climbing up out of the sink. And if he tried to push it down with his finger it would grab on to that.

When we did get to the top the view was very beautiful although a little foggy. The climb down was also very tough and slippery, but we came out with only a few scratches and a jammed toe. I was sure I was going to completely wipe out at some point, but I didn't. Justin wore his flip flops which kept falling off, but he didn't wipe out either.

After the hike we rode back to the dock and got driven to the bus station in the town nearby. The bus ride home was only an hour which was nice.

I think we'll definitely go back there a lot this year. There were tons of hikes to go on and the whole park was very beautiful. I don't think we'll go on another trek anytime soon just because it was pretty expensive (1400 baht/ 45dollars).

Today were cleaning and doing laundry. Maybe tennis or badminton later and some more lesson planning. We're trying to get all planned out for the whole week so that this week is less stressful than last.

I don't think I mentioned yet about Justin's teaching allergy? Whenever he stands for more than an hour or so his shoulder and neck start to really hurt. He thinks it stems from when he got hit on his bike in March. The doctor got him some muscle relaxants that have been helping, but I think he should go to a chiropractor to see about other options.

So hopefully next week will be better. Oh and Happy Birthday Lisa Shiue!!

Love to all!!