How many buses does it take to get to the center of Petcha-province?

This particular weekend Dana Gruber and I decided that not another week could go by without some sort of hiking expedition. My original plans to explore Chang Mai put on hold until the week of Songkran (check it out people - huge water festival!),I began looking into hiking options slightly closer to home... namely Kaeng Krachan National Park. Kaeng Krachan is the largest natl. park in Thailand, with dozens of hiking trails, diversity of widelife, waterfalls and campsites. We were craving waterfalls...
Our bodies however...
apparently were craving sleep, because we missed our targeted 8:30am departure and meandered out the door in true Kelsey - wait just a sec while I go back for one more thing - style, at 10:30am. Still decent time, but factor in the half hour of waiting to flag down the right[ie: cheapest (orange) bus *which we only paid 45BhT for :-D ], plus 2 odd hours of travel time and it's well past noon by the time we rolled into Buri-ville. Add to that the adventure of having no real idea where we were going because we had jumped a bus - final destination bangkok, which dropped us off across the highway from Big-C superstore instead the bus-stop intersection in Petchaburi where our Lonely Planet handbook told us we could easily snag a tuktuk or a small local line (truck). So technically I knew where we were (close to the Thai school where I help Ajan Jim, my thai teacher tutor kindergardeners) and I knew the general layout of downtown Petchaburi. I was merely disoriented if you will.... mildly confused by the fact that there were NO MOUNTAINS to be seen. I plan on bringing a topographical map on my next trip anywhere.... so useful!
So it turns out there were mountains, and hills for that matter. It's just that they were 47km west (mountains) and 5-ish km north (hills) of our current location and hidden behind massive amounts of modern sprawl. Ick. We hopped of the main drag ASAP! No highway exploring for us thankyouverymuch. We'll take the alleyways everytime. And so we did. Hopping walls, traversing bridges, following waterways and operating off of only the most general sense of direction (north*s*e*west)

lots of walking was involved

Dana spotted this one. He held still long enough for me to take 5-6 shots

Tri-annual Temple Festival and we were just on time!!

We might have been a little excited ;)

This lily was a surprise. Dana wasn't convinced it was real.

We couldn't believe it, but I took both these pictures from the same canal!

Just for you mom.

I liked how this tower was both functional (at one point in time) and artistic

the color of flowers here continues to astound me.
This lily was in a pot on a bridge

Reminds me of the tree in Swiss Family Robinson. We wanted to walk from one tree to another, but decided against bc we were in a Natl. Park

Summer palace of the king.

So tall... CAN YOU FIND DANA??!

Making friends with Mr. Tall Tree....
betcha Curious George could climb it!

Curious as always...

cool spot of shady. perfect for escaping the mid-day sun

We found the temple festival! and stopped in at a Buddhist service. Sat quietly in the back and just soaked it all in

So those hundreds of streamers hanging from the temple aren't streamers... their small packets of money. Gifts of goodwill

I wrote a small note thanking the monks for welcoming us and unexpectedly, in return on of them handed me a small stack of slips of paper folded in half, each of them containing a thin piece of gold foil. These we were told to carefully separate and press onto the gilded orbs (from thousands of bits of foil) and Buddha statues. Each time saying a prayer of thanks

NEMO!!!

Steep climbs = brilliant views!

Thai oreos and a strawberry smoothie made with real fresh strawberries!
No joke, we watched the berry lady make it
Happy Day :)

Dana's initial reaction: "Kelsey did you just ask them to stop?" said in a tone of complete incredulousness.... We bargained, we settled in, and we drank in the city as it flashed by. So good to sit down!

Khao (mountain) Wang

Love these mosaics

partial view from hilltop to hilltop

shady spot where we stopped to picnic

Dana reveling in our adventure. Thailand!
We are in Thailand!

Yes the people here really are sometimes that short :)
We were not!

Climbing down... cave wat

Feb. 2010 - Phra Nakhon Khiri national park,
Khao Wang, Petchaburi

The entrance below is on a mountain (which may otherwise be referred to as a glorified hill) but by the time you have walked down the 8 odd flights of stairs to the cavern at the bottom it's difficult to remember that you are several dozen meters above sea level... more likely, your entire attention will be focused on the deliciousness of the cooling temperature around you instead, as you rapidly redefine any and all previous definitions of "deep shade".

Thailand is a steamy place.
Good shade is hard to come by.

Destination Wedding: Bringing India to Thailand

Don't ask me how we did it, but we poor and humble Webster students were invited to an Indian wedding!! Well... simply put it's because we know where the party's at in Hua Hin. Ergo, on day three of the epic 5-day ceremony that took over the neighboring facilities of the Sheraton, the 20-somethings of before-mentioned wedding were looking to venture out into the local scene and lo-and-behold there we were, the perfect tour guides. Add 40 or so odd Indians to a group of 36 study abroad students and the dance party never stops. It didn't matter where we went actually, because we brough the party with us. But our friend Ghassan was MC-ing at one of our favorite late-night stops so we steered that direction and combined Indian pop with Ghassan's own flavor of house music until the wee hours of the morning. Impressed by our energy and fun-loving spirits, the brother of the groom (among the group who had joined us) requested that we join them for the wedding reception (the ceremony itself being very private).
The next day, the already beautiful Sheraton had been transformed into paradise with flowers perfuming the air and bringing color to every lamppost, fence, pagoda, table and walk-way.
**For those that haven't been put through listening to my rave... the Sheraton hotel in Cha-Am is an incredible piece of architecture and landscaping featuring elegant villas inter-connected by a 1.2 kilometer long pool (the longest in all of Asia) that resembles a more classy version of SixFlags's Lazy River complete with cascades, fountains and impromtu jet which create jacuzzis. All of this looks out over the beach westward into the setting sun. Magnificent. and oh so expensive!**
The family of the groom, as we later found out, had flown 400 friends and relatives from Delhi, Goa, Mumbai, Dubai, Australia, Canada, etc, so on and so forth and put them all up in the Sheraton.

Shaidep - the rock star in residence

Thai performers

Escape to Monkey Mountain

This Saturday may also be found as entry # 3 in
-Top 10 Ways to Acquire an Epic Sunburn-

Monkey Mountain is also known by the natives as ภูเขา ตะเกียบ (khao takiap). A literal translation of this makes no sense to me because monkey in Thai is ลิง (ling), whereas takiap is the word I have been taught to use for chopsticks. Regardless of the Thai concessions for the sake of tourists everywhere, the hill as it should rightly be called, has a stunning view of the ocean from any of the much abused railings found along its winding streets. But the origin of its english name are obvious. Monkeys own this place. They laze about in the shade, sprawling across sidewalks, rooftops, fences, trashcans, and the classic perch: tree branches. Any escape from their dominating presence has to be carefully manufactured...
A) Don't be holding bananas, waterbottles, or anything remotely smelling of food
B) Hightail it towards the closest body of salty water
So after the monkeys had gone from cute... to thoroughly getting on my nerves (more on that below), the shoreline was explored, and waves pummeling the rocky cliff-face were duly appreciated. (I can sit endlessly listening to the tide's journey in and back out to sea.)

Mermaid pointing down the coast back towards Hua Hin.

Hua Hin, off in the distance

My friend Ping demonstrating his skills at mimicry


Scampering from sunshine towards the refuge of shade...
If only I had been so wise!

I wanted to ring the bells, but at first this mister wouldn't let me by.
He kept charging me... I think interested in the camera I held in my hand.
An attempt to pass him using the little gulch on the right-hand side turned out to be a major mistake.
He took a swipe at my hair!
I have decided I side with Lowando... being from South Africa, monkey and other zoo-only animals for the rest of us are a daily occurrence/"nuisance" to him. Monkey in particular he abhors, describing them as vicious, theaving little monsters for whom having thumbs = the source of great havoc for the rest of the world


This bugger stole my waterbottle!!

Boy from Vietnam who asked me to take his picture.
He wanted to pose "American style"

On our way to Monkey Mountain, Ping stopped by a fruit stand and after bargaining extensively with the owner procured a bag of bananas weighing AT LEAST 5 kilos. If you are having trouble with measurements think of it visually... this bag's circumference was about the same as the circle created by my arms when I interlock my fingers and about knee-height tall. This bag he dutifully loaded onto the minimal floorspace of his motorbike and off we went.
Arriving at the peak of Monkey Mountain, lining the road on either side were dozens upon dozens of, you guessed it, monkeys. Ping grinned at me as we drove down from the peak toward the temple and told me to glance behind at the horde. "What horde?" says I..... ha! oops. At first glance I tallied 30 quad-pedal primates pelting down the hill after us. but upon second glance that number had easily reached 45. Ping parked his bike and I BOLTED!!! and none to soon. That entire crowd plus the two local curs tore the bag to shreds and emptied ever last peel in under four minutes.
The picture above is actually approx 45 seconds after impact. I was too stunned at first to do anything other than absorb the scene.



They should come with the sign... "We make messes"

Apparently firecrackers taste good?
Next time someone asks whether or not animals have addictions...
you can answer in the affirmative --> Monkeys, sadly enough, are known to smoke