Khao Sam Roi Yot

Last weekend was called blessed among weekends. Four and a half days of schoollessness provided this newb teacher some much needed r&r. So Jon and I hung around Bangkok on Thursday and watched the new Batman movie.

Ah-stinkin-mazing.

We quickly realized our growing irritation with the nastiness that is this concrete bowl of a city. So we hopped a bus bound for Pranburi. We then (in an exceedingly wise and safety-conscious state of mind) proceeded to hitchhike from Pranburi to Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. Thankfully Jon was there the whole time. He’s about three times the size of an average Thai person, so if anyone messes with me he can just dropkick their face off. Doesn’t that make you feel better mom?

Once inside the park we explored a hiked across a beach, through some thorny woods, across a desert (uh, not kidding), through a rice paddy, down a road, through a village, and finally into a cave. A chronologically arranged mess o’ pictures can be found below.

After our spelunking we decided to find food and get some sleep. We ate dinner in the village and *gasp* for the first time in the 4.5 years I’ve known him Jon didn’t finish his food. I ate all of it and we went to check bungalow prices. But, due to incorrect skin color, the guy wanted an outrageous amount of money for a little one room shack. Jon and I protested this injustice by sleeping outside. By the time I’d fashioned a ridiculously (un)comfortable pillow out of random junk that would have put Bear Grylls to shame, I remembered the park’s malaria problem. We ran and grabbed some mosquito repellant from our restaurant friends. They felt so bad that we were sleeping outside that they told us to sleep in the village’s Buddha-pavillion-shrine-thing. There’s nothing quite like hard teakwood floors for a mattress, but they also provided some anti-malaria incense and drinking water.

Some nearby college kids decided to celebrate the full moon by getting drunk on the beach and an old man ambled up to our pavillion, helped himself to some of my Sour Patch Kids, and randomly burst into song right before I chased him away, but other than that the night was uneventful.

We woke the next morning, took a quick dip in the ocean, ate some fruit, and hitchhiked outta there. We grabbed some incredible Indian food (again…Jon didn’t finish. Weird right?) in Hua Hin and then hopped a bus back to BKK.

Now there are two possible reasons for you reading all that: 1) You love me way too much. 2) You’re so bored. I guess it could be both. Regardless, there’s your update, pictures, and even a goofy video.

Love you.