After getting some “are you crazy?” looks from other teachers at my school when I told them I was going to try to catch a bus to Phuket for New Years, Bangkok seemed to be calling my name. I got there around 7 Wednesday night, checked into a nice little hotel and met up with some friends for a quick dinner. Not a very exciting night, and we parted early as we had a big day the next day. On Thursday, I met my friends at the mall and we went to see Sherlock Holmes and then spent a couple hours in Thailand’s largest English language bookstore. There, I looked at dozens of books on photography, traveling, and my favorite, The Guinness Book of World Records 2010. After, we went our separate ways to go back and shower and change and prepare for the nights festivities. Around 8pm, we met up at my hotel, broke out a bottle of champagne and toasted to the New Year. We even joined a mini dance party hostel by some local Thais that was downstairs in my hotel.
We grabbed some dinner and I got a nice big bowl of spaghetti and a couple of bloody mary’s to wash it down. Then, unsuccessfully we tried to find a bar to hang out in until we went to Central World for the New Years countdown, which is basically the Times Square of Bangkok. After not finding a good bar to go to, we just went to Central World early, and holy cow was that a fiasco. This place was packed. I couldn’t even move. Shoulder to shoulder, covered in sweat, most of it not mine. We quickly decided we couldn’t last much longer here and got on the sky train and headed to an Irish Pub down the way called Robin Hood. It was there that we rung in the New Year, and it was very exciting to count down to midnight in Thai. Neung, sawng, saam, see, hah, hok, jet, baat, gau, sib! I had never counted down in another language before, but I sure hope I get to do it again, as it was a completely different experience than using those boring old English numbers. I ended the night very hungry and while walking back to my hotel I loaded up on 2 slices of pizza and a delicious kebab. The night ended for me in my hotel room, slightly tipsy, eating a kebab and watching Baby Mama on TV, laughing hysterically.
The next morning is when my New Years adventure began. I caught a bus to Khao Yai National Park where I was going to go camping and hiking for a couple days. Once I arrived at the entrance to the park, I realized I had no way of actually getting into the park, as it was 14km from the entrance to the park itself. I got lucky when a bunch of Thais picked me up and I sat in the back of their pick up truck (the first of many from this trip) and they hauled me the 14km up the mountain and through the curvy roads. We passed beautiful scenic views, monkeys, and tons of greenery along the way until we came to the campsite. My new Thai friends invited me to have dinner with them and I experienced Thai hospitality first hand as they stuffed me silly with some yummy grilled treats.
They also gave me lots and lots of whiskey. I was having a great time with them, we communicated the best we could despite the language barriers and they were very excited to be spending time with a farang (westerner). I went to bed early, because I wanted to wake up at the crack of dawn. My tent was tiny and the morning mist made my tent very wet so I woke up with wet socks. But I didn’t let that stop me from having a great day, as I grabbed a quick breakfast, put on my hiking boots, my shades and my trusty bandana and hitchhiked again in the back of a pickup truck.
Campsite at dawn
I was heading off to a hike that would lead me to the parks most famous waterfall, which was also in the movie “The Beach.” It was a fun, but exhausting 2 hour hike over rocks, fallen trees and I passed signs that said “beware of crocodile” along the way which made me slightly nervous. Once I got there, it was a sight to see. The waterfall was beautiful and looked just like I had imagined. I took some pictures and thought I should probably get a picture of me too. I realized that Thai people cannot take a good picture
with a fancy camera. I tried asking a bunch and they either declined or would take a blurry picture of just my face. After many unsuccessful tries I just decided to do the self-timer and that worked out much better for me. A family picked me up on my way back to the visitor’s center where I grabbed a quick bite, walked around for a little and then headed out of the park. I’d say I walked about 5 km or so before someone picked me up on the side of the road. I was tired, hot, sweaty, dirty and smelly, but that didn’t stop 2 Thai ladies from letting me sit in the back of their truck as we drove the 40 km back to town where I was to catch a bus to Bangkok.
The bus back to Bangkok was long and boring, we hit bad traffic and the 2-hour bus ride turned into a 4.5-hour bus ride. But the weekend was so much fun, I wasn’t going to let a silly thing like traffic bring me down. I felt like such a drifter this weekend, and it was really great to just spend some time alone out in the jungle. I’ve been meaning to take a solo trip since I got here and this was perfect, exactly what I wanted and needed.
That my friends, is the Thai Jungle
Haew Suwat Falls, the waterfall from "The Beach"
I took this picture while I was in the pack of a pickup truck zipping down the road. Still beautiful, no?
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