H.M. The King's Birthday

As I have come to learn in my 2 months of being here, Thais love a good celebration. The semester thus far has been littered with holidays and time off, which have turned into opportune travel times. December 5th was the Kings birthday and also a national holiday. However, because it fell on a Sunday, the holiday was celebrated on Monday which meant no school for us. (In addition to no school on Monday, we had no classes the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday prior so our school could throw an exhibition to celebrate the King.) After much deliberation, we decided our first three day weekend was a perfect time to hit the beach. We knew we couldn't travel too far, so our destination became Koh Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand that is close to Bangkok. It is a big tourist spot for Thai people in Bangkok because it is close, but has the beauty of a lot of the beaches down south. We left after school on Friday, traveled to the ferry town of Ban Phe, spent a night there, and arrived on Koh Samet early Saturday morning. We spent two and a half glorious days in the sun, relaxing and celebrating.

Playing an English quiz game about the King during the Exhibition

Olivia relaxing on the beach at Koh Samet

Everyone at dinner

On Sunday night, at midnight, everyone was handed a lit candle as they played the King's song over loudspeakers. They also lit a huge sign on the beach that said Long Live the King. The song played and everyone sang until the large sign burned out. It was a pretty amazing opportunity to see such devotion in all these party-going Thai people. They really do love their King and I'm so happy they let us join in on the celebration.

We returned home from our mini vacation with a short, 3 day week of school. December 10th was Constitution Day, another national holiday, so we didn't have school on Friday. After our crazy weekend on the beach we decided to take it easy and head to Khao Yai National Park to do some trekkinng and adventuring. Let me tell you, it was an adventure. We got there late Thursday night, so we spent Friday morning relaxing. Friday afternoon we had a half day trip where went swimming in a natural spring, explored a cave, and right at dusk watched something like 3 million bats leave their cave for their evening feeding. It was insane.

Olivia, me and Chelsea swimming in the spring

A short portion of the never ending line of flying bats

Afterwards we headed home and to bed to prepare for our full day of hiking. We woke up at 6am on Saturday and headed into the National Park for what promised to be an adventure.

Chelsea, Olivia, me and Ciana

We were driving along the windy road and then stopped it was seemed to be a very nondescript area. We then headed into the woods. No trail, no nothing. We were lead by a Thai guide named Jib, who was amazing. He has been leading tours for 10 years and knew the woods like the back of his hand. We looked at many different bird and plant species, working our way to a thundering waterfall. Once we got there, he assured us it was safe to jump, so I took the plunge. It was amazing!

After climbing up along the side of the waterfall, we all enjoyed a snack and then keep trekking. We were traveling along the river and let me tell you, it was not easy. We were jumping between rocks, climbing up rock cliffs and assuring each other this was, in fact, something we could all do. On the way we were lucky enough to see a Gibbon! This is one of our closest primate relatives and are not easily spotted, so I was SUPER excited to see one. We also made pit stops at two more waterfalls along the way, the second of which was in the movie The Beach. It was so beautiful, but filled with tourists, so after our photo opp we decided to leave.

Literally scaling the side of a small rock cliff

Gibby the Gibbon!

Us at the second waterfall

The whole tour at the waterfall from The Beach

Afterwards we had lunch in the park and relaxed for a little, before starting our elephant siting adventure. Jib warned us that the likelihood was low because SO many people were in the park that weekend, but we would try anyways. Sure enough, after about half an hour, we spotted 4-5 elephants along the side of the road. We slowed down to drive by, when one of the elephants starting charging our car. It was nerve wrecking to say the least. But then, we turn around and try to drive by them again! There is now a traffic jam of all the cars that are too afraid to pass, but we pass them all and head for the elephants again. And what do they do? They charge...again. Our driver threw the car in reverse and started backing into all the other cars. Once we joined the other cars the elephant hung back. Finally a ranger car came and drove straight at the elephant, which forced it off the road, making it safe for us to drive by again and return back to the hostel.

The elephant before it decided to charge our car

All in all it was an exhilarating and exhausting day, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I look forward to going back sometime later this year.