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.
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n 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!!!
Sawadi Krap to all my faithful listeners. We just had another amazing week. Before leaving Nong Khai about 17 of us from the program packed our bags, grabbed our passports and jumped on a bus to spend a weekend in Vang Vieng, Laos. Many of you have probably already heard of my weekend in Laos so I apologies for being repetitive. For those of you who haven’t heard, LAOS IS AMAZING!!! I’ve never seen a more beautiful country in my life. The mountain ranges in the part of the country we stayed are breathtaking. Vang Vieng is considered a Backpackers haven and is known for the river running directly through the town. Our first day in town we rented inner tubes from the Cartel and floated down the river for a couple hours. We finished the day checking out a live band at a bar just down the street from the hotel. The next day we rented a mini van and a tour guide for 3 dollars per person for the day and he took us around to a couple caves in the area. When I say “tour guide” I mean he took us to the caves and just set us free. The first cave we went to has a fresh water spring with some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen. The caves were also gorgeous!!! Unfortunately the caves are obviously pretty dark so none of the pictures we took turned out too great. It’s the memories that really count anyways right? Hiking to the back of the cave took nearly an hour seeing as only a few of us had flashlights. At least we all made it out safely. Later that day we all checked out a couple of the local bars closely packed together on an island in the middle of the river. After eating dinner and ordering a couple drinks we hiked down to the river and watched the sun go down. As the sun went down we could see off in the distance a huge thunder cap making it’s way towards us. We sat there watching the lightning for two hours before the storm actually reached us and forced us under cover. Definitely the coolest storm I’ve had the chance to watch. The next day we woke up bright and early and took a 5 hour van ride putting us back in Nong Khai. 
