in the land of smiles.: erawan falls.

Ok so i’m sorry I haven’t update this thing in a while! Life had been pretty low key recently and so I didn’t have much to write about, but this past weekend I ventured out to kanchanaburi and finally have some fun stories for you!

Friday after school Bradley and I took the train to the BTS station and headed to victory monument to catch a minivan to kanchaburi. I had been to Kanchaburi before when OEG took the whole group there during orientation; my last weekend there was filled with bamboo rafting and elephant riding, but this time we were headed there to check out the waterfalls. We met up with the girls and hung out Friday night just catching up. We kept it pretty low key since we were waking up early to catch the bus to Erawan National Park.

Saturday morning we woke up, grabbed some breakfast and headed to the street to catch the bus to the national park. The bus was packed and the 7 of us had to stand for most of the 90 minute ride to the park. Once we got to the park we piled out and began our trek to the waterfalls! The Erawan falls are named after the erawan, the the three-headed white elephant of hindu mythology…the seven-tiered falls are said to resemble the erawan. We decided to power through to the top of the falls and then take our time coming down and checking out the falls and swimming in some of the pools. The falls were BEAUTIFUL each tier was unique and beautiful. On our way down we took our time and stopped and swam in falls 4 and 5. There are fish in each of the pools which was a little weird because if you stood still in the water, they would come up and start nibbling on your legs and feet! So we made sure to keep moving the entire time…we had had our fill of fish nibbling our feet when we got that done on khao san road! The pools were filled with other people….and by other people I mean lots of Europeans who were in itsy bitsy speedos…..At the 4^th tier there was a large rock that you could slide down into the pool so the girls and I took turns sliding down and it was a blast! All in all it was a great day hiking and being with the girls. We caught the bus back to our hostel and spent the rest of the afternoon napping and reading books on the grassy area in the middle of the hostel.

That night we got a delicious dinner from a little restaurant. I had a really good curry that was filled with vegetables and tofu…yuuuum. The rest of the night was spent playing drinking games and checking out the night life. The girls and I found a little bar that sold 10 baht shots (about 40 cents) and lets just say we spent more time there than we needed to. Needless to say we slept in the next morning! Check out was at noon, so we woke up at 11:30, packed our bags, grabbed some lunch, and headed to the bus station to part ways. Its always sad to say bye after such a great weekend, but most of us are reuniting in a few weeks when we’re going to check out koh chang during our next long weekend.

The only other exciting things that have happened in the past few weeks has been my trip to the thai orthodontist to get my retainer fixed, random trips into Bangkok, planning for summer break, and anxiously counting down the days till my friends from the states get here ! (25 days!)

I’ll keep you updated on summer plans as they evolve…

love you all!