Khao Yai

This weekend we went to Khao Yai National Park in Central Thailand, it’s the largest national park in Thailand and it was great!!! We camped the first night in tents and went on a night safari, then the next day we trekked through the jungle for 5ish hours and saw waterfalls and a big hornbill bird. At one of the waterfalls there was this bramble hanging from a tree that swung over the waterfall pool and we all swung on it! Then later that day we went to a winery, the largest in Southeast Asia and Thailand… it was really cool! We did wine tasting and saw the winery and how wine is made and then had an amazing 4-course meal!!! It was in the middle of the vineyard and was so beautiful! That night we drank at the resort and played dominoes and wandered over to the campground next door and met some Thai civil engineers that were really nice. Then the next day we hung out at the resort at the amazing pool and then it was time to leave to go to the train station. The cab that was supposed to pick us up was 15 minutes late and so we were really in a time crunch to make the train, so the cab pulls up and there are 6 of us that need a ride, anyway the car that pulls up is a small Honda civic hatchback. We all couldn’t fit so the people that had to make the earlier train got in (and so did I because there was enough room) and then we try and get the driver to get going but hes discussing something with all the hotel staff and won’t get in the car even though we kept pointing to our wrists to tell him we needed to go. So finally he gets in the car and SO DOES HIS FRIEND, his friend sits in the front seat with one of the girls (so she’s pretty much on his lap) and we finally go. Keep in mind we’re in Thai wine country so the roads are really windy and he’s going 100 km/hr on them, all of us girls in the back start feeling woozy, so finally we get into the town and the car pulls over on the side of the road at some shack and the driver gets out. We sit there for about 10 minutes trying to get them to drive us, we had to call our friend who speaks Thai to tell them we’re in a hurry and they tell us they’re going to charge us 150 baht each x 4 (around 5 US dollars) which is such a rip, and by this time we’re very irritated, so finally A DIFFERENT GUY gets in the car and drives us to the train station. We gave the guy 200 baht and booked it. He started yelling at us in Thai and came back with his wife and kid and just stared at us, never approached us but just stood there. Anyway, while all of this is going on the other two guys are back at the resort and the taxi’s friends are there pissed that we didn’t pay them enough. So the guys have to pay them more money and the manager of the resort ends up driving the to the train, barely making it. We finally make it to the train and end up getting third class because the others are full. So we get on the train and go straight to the snack car and keep buying beer until we make it back to Bangkok.

Update!

Okay, so last weekend we went to the old capital, Ayutthaya, which was really cool. It has all these ruins of old temples all over, we rented bicycles and biked around and saw all the ruins. This weekend I'm off to a national park to go camping and visit a winery!

Ayutthaya:
Took the train there (15 Baht) and then rented bikes for 40 Baht, some of the Wats charge to get in (around 40 Baht) and took a mini bus back to BKK (victory monument BTS) for 70 Baht