The term ‘mountain climber’ can now be used to describe me. No joke. During sports week I agreed to travel with the teachers from Phon Tan to Loei for the upcoming weekend, figuring it would be an “adventure” and entertaining. They get very excited when I say I will do things with them and I did come to Thailand to spend time with Thai people so … here goes. All that was communicated to me before we left was that we were going camping on a mountain … now that could mean many things in Thailand and plans change like the weather in Ireland, so I was prepared for anything and everything … or so I thought. SeeSuda picked me up at 7am on Friday morning and we set off on our way. We spent all morning driving, stopped for lunch (where whiskey and soda was served, typical), drove some more and then randomly stopped for haircuts … don’t ask. We were escorted by someone’s friend to the national park from inside a town (where the haircuts were) and found that it had closed for the day … since it was now about 3pm. We then found a hotel, had some happy hour drinks, while sitting outside on mats, went to the night market nearby for dinner, and hit the sack. Thank god for that, as I would learn soon.
We awoke at 6am, showered, dressed, and headed out in search of caffeine and food. We arrived at the park a little after 7am to find that many people had already arrived and the crowds were just as they had told me, big. We checked in, walked over to where you ‘check’ your bags to be carried to the top of the mountain via a bamboo pole balanced on someone’s shoulder, and began what would soon be the longest and most difficult hike of my 22 years of life. THANK GOD I decided to check my backpack and not be a martyr.
This hike was literally 9km of a 45 degree angle UP. Oh. My. God. All I could think while we were climbing was that this was NOT for the faint of heart … and that Jim and Fran could not do this with me so it’s a good thing I’m doing it without them. Hahahahaha
Clearly Thai people know me well, or maybe I’m meant to be Thai but after the first kilometer I was greeted by a beer and a piece of watermelon (at 9:30am) … classic.
It proceeded to take us about 6 hours to finish the climb ... at which point i became a "conqueror" of Phu Kradaung
And THEN we had to walk along the dirt road at the top of the mountain another 3 or so kilometers to the visitor center. The road literally opens up to a giant field filled with tents … just rows and rows of tents as far as the eye can see.
Our bags were not yet at the top so we ‘gin khao’ (ate lunch, literal translation ‘eat rice’) and then waited for our bags … one would think that a shower would be exactly what someone would want after this epic hike, but as it turns out by the time our bags got to us the temperature had dropped at least 15 degrees and I was now quite chilled. The thought of getting into a probably dirty, campground shower, that only had cold water was the farthest thing from appealing at this point. I bought some tshirts, we rested in our tent, we ate dinner (gin khao), and then went to bed. I was the youngest person in the group by at least 10 years so my company was pretty dead at this point. Once again, luckily we went to bed so early because I was rousted from my slumber(or as much as I can call laying on the ground with a blanket in a tent in the freezing cold, slumber) at 4am … told to get dressed … I was freezing so I put on a tank top, l/s shirt, cardigan, jeggings, socks, sneakers (I know, fashion faux pas, but my feet were frozen and I had to hike down the cliff this day), and a scarf … (later I would realize this outfit was the worst choice EVER) and we packed up and went to go wait in line to check our bags and wait in line to use the bathroom … fun times when its going to still be dark out for almost 2 hours and its frigid. We then got breakfast which consisted of hot tea, coffee, and the most delicious egg dish everrr … it was basically and open face omelet served in the pan it was cooked in, with delicious ingredients such as, tomato, onion, pork that tasted like a maple sausage type thing, and cilantro. “Alloyyyy mak mak” (“delicious, very, very” in Thai) After breakfast we set out to attempt to see one of the waterfalls that is at the top of the mountain since the famous viewpoint was another 9km away and this was a lot closer … along the way I was warned that since the ground was wet I had to watch out for something that was going to bite me … this could obviously be a multitude of frightening creatures and was completely unsure of what exactly I should be worried about … awesome. We saw a baby waterfall and continued on to try to find the bigger one … as we are walking along SeeSuda stops, looks down at her shoe and goes “oh Kerry, this!” I look down to see a small black slimy wormlike creature slithering through her shoelace and shoe to her foot … she takes her shoe off and peels the creature off her foot to show me the small bite it has made … another teacher we were with, Mem, immediately started jumping around freaking out … They are trying to ask me what I call this creature in English and as I try to get a closer look I see one slither through the mesh of my sneaker and obviously freak out throwing off my shoe in the process, then as I’m trying to compose myself one tries to get into my other shoe which causes me to repeat the throwing of my shoe and now I’m in my socks in the damp dirt freaking out. We manage to get my sneakers back on sans frightening creatures and quickly move on to an place where hopefully there are none. Needless to say we did not make it to the waterfall because the signs got confusing and it was getting a little late for us to be exploring up there when we still had to climb down the mountain and drive home … we then decided to just go see the Buddha image since it was on the way back to the visitor center and head home. As we were sitting at the Buddha image I asked SeeSuda to type into my electronic dictionary the name of the creature, to which there was no translation and she tried to explain to me that they live in water but there is a kind that lives in the mountains and come out when its wet … I then typed “leech” into my dictionary to get the thai translation and of course when I showed SeeSuda she shrieked in excitement and said “YES!” … awesome … a leeched tried to slither into my sneakers this morning … hopefully I will never experience that again! We then set off to journey down the mountain along with the other hundreds of people who slept at the top on Saturday night and I actually saw a traffic jam of people going down a mountain … something I never thought I’d experience hahaha and it was during this journey to the bottom that it became VERY clear why I saw people wearing shorts sweatshirts or winter coats at 5am … It. Was. Freakin. Hot! The pants and long sleeved shirt were sticking so badly to me that all I could think about was getting to the bottom so I could change into a tshirt and flip flops for the drive home. We eventually made it down, with no falling or sliding (thank god) and I was able to change into my tshirt and flip flops … I was also handed a cold beer which made this all even better! Hahaha we then headed to the car to make the gazillion hour drive home … I was eventually able to fall into my bed around 11:30 … then another full week of teaching started bright and early Monday morning!
