Hey guys!!!

I’m back again!!! Just got back from another road trip. Since we moved locations to Nong Khai our road trip was around a large part of North East Thailand. We jumped on our bikes on Saturday morning at 6 am with hopes to make it to the Phu Kradung National Park by early afternoon. The trek should have taken us 3 hours at the most giving us enough time to spend half a day at the park. After getting seriously lost only 50 km outside of Nag Khai the trip actually took us 11 hours and we didn’t even make it to Phu Kradung. Even though it was a long and HOT day of driving we still had a great time. We drove with great company and the scenery in this part of the world is amazing. After 11 hours of driving all we wanted to do was get some sleep. We found the most expensive hotel in the city of Loei for 12 bucks a night and slept for 14 hours. It was hands down the best night of sleep I’ve had this entire trip. Sunday morning we woke up well rested and decided to try again for a near by national park.

Sunday was much more successful. Seeing as we went to bed the night before without dinner our first mission was to find food. After driving for about 20 minutes we stumbled upon what looked like a huge market on the side of the road. There must have been a couple thousand people at the market with hundreds of food stands. A congregation of this many people in such an isolated location seemed a little odd but we went in any way. Little did we know we had just found an annual fair were locals come together do demonstrate good merit by handing our free food. That’s right, EVERYTHING WAS FREE. This was just what we needed to get our spirits back up. Not only was everything free but all the locals absolutely loved us!!! We were the only white people among thousands of Thai’s making us celebrities. We took countless amounts of pictures with random Thai people fascinated with “The American’s.” While walking down the main stretch of the fair we were swarmed with people from different food stands with their hands full of all different types of food. We loaded up!!! We stayed for about and hour and left with bags of food around each arm and our backpacks full of noodles, rice, fruit, etc.

After we left the fair we found a great place to hang out for the after noon called the Na Yung Nam Som National Forest. We decided to venture off the trail and use the riverbed to explore the forest.  1km into our hike up the river we found a 20 m tall waterfall. After about 2 hours of hanging out by the water fall and snacking on the food we packed from the fair we trekked back down the river bed and noticed huge thunder heads forming in the direction of our next destination. The storm looked like it was moving pretty fast but we didn’t realize how fast it was moving until we arrived back at our bikes and the sky overhead was completely black. 5 minutes into our bike ride the rain had started dumping on us and we were soaked. We pulled off the road and took shelter under a tree for a couple minutes to regroup and decide weather or not we should keep going. The first sight of lightning quickly adjourned our meeting. We were in the middle of nowhere and 80 km from the nearest town We had no choice but to jump back on our bikes and continue riding through the storm. I cannot describe how intense it was driving a scooter as we watched lightning striking all around us. The sky was lighting up every thirty seconds and we still had a long bike ride ahead of us. We arrived at the small town of Ba Phu, just 40 km outside of Nong Khai completely soaked and frozen and decided the conditions were too dangerous to continue. We found a small homestay just off the highway for $8 per night and let our bones rest there till morning. We woke up on Monday at 6 am to clear blue skies. It was a gorgeous morning to finish the 40 km bike ride home. The group made it back to Nong Khai with 15 minutes to spare before our first class of the day.

Even though not everything worked out quite as we planned during this road trip it is a journey we will never forget. We saw a beautiful countryside, filled our bellies at a free fair, hung out in waterfalls, and road through a gnarly thunderstorm. We are all safe and sound and recovering from our long weekend of traveling. Thanks for listening everybody. Love you all!!!