Erawan National Park, Thailand

September 27th

Wake up at 6:45am, didn't have the best sleep. All night long down the river there is karoke, and it is the worst thing imaginable. I put in my head phones to try and block out the sound, it helped. Get my things packed as I decided that I am not staying here another night but going to Ayuthaya after the falls. I wake up Nate and we bring the bikes back to the place, the lady there was so nice and gives us a ride to the station for 30baht.

Got there just in time for the 8:20 departure, it takes about 2 hours to get up, so want to get there early. Get to the bus and the man tells us not leaving til 9a. Damn could have sat and ate breakfast.

The bus finally leaves at 9:14 and I was wondering way so late. The ride up to the falls is nothing special but you could stop off at some parks or tourist attractions.

Enter into the park and and pay the 200 baht fee. The trail is pretty easy to follow. The first tier is only 10mins away and the second is another 5 mins. The whole distance is 2.1km. The 3rd tier has a huge waterfall, pretty impressive. I go to the 4th and there are a couple of rocks that you can slide down, I will be coming back down to do that.

Nate meets back up with me and right before we get to tier 5 he says he is not going up. Ok, he might be a little nuts. I go on and get to tier 5, spectacular. Then 6, think this is getting better and better. Nate should have come up. I go around a corner and there is a fall with a cave. Then I leave my bag as it is a steeper route up this way towards 7. It is like crawling out of a dark tunnel, 7 is out in the open with trees covering it. Pretty amazing how each waterfall is completely different. There was a butterfly down by tier 2 that I tried take a picture of and the same kind was at the top, got a pic of it!

  

I don't spend too much time up there. Want to Get my pack and go swimming some more. When I go back down I started to get a little worried I wouldn't remember where I had put it, there were more waterfalls on a different route down. I walk a little bit in and see tier 6 below, success I grab my bag.

The tier that I really wanted to swim in was 3, but wanted to slide down the rocks at 4, head there and go for a ride. It was so much fun! I screamed a little. Then I had to capture the moment and take some photos, setup the tripod. There were two young guys yelling for me to hurry when they saw the flashing red light, made me nervous but it was just the timer.

After I heard some thunder and went to 3, getting closer to the bottom is better incase it does rain. At 3 there more people than before, but left as soon as the heard more thunder. I saw for a bit and then the showers started coming down. Already put my waterproof cover on the bag so everything was protected. Walk to the bridge and see Nate. Go to change out of my suit and run to catch the 2pm bus. Made it and was the only one leaving at that time.

Get back into town and immediately look how to get up to Ayuthaya. Couple of options but the best is to head back to Bangkok and take the train from northern terminal. Crap really didn't want to go through BKK. Book my mini van ticket for 130B and say bye to Nate.

The ride down I slept, supposed to be two hours but am well aware of the traffic getting in and out of bkk. It was a mess, got dropped off at Victory Monument at 7p (not 6) and had to take the subway to the train station. Asked a girl and she let me know I had to take BTS to the MRT which seemed different to what I originally thought.

Go up and talk to the change man and he told me what to do, buy my ticket and another woman comes up to me and says that I go up stairs and get off at Silom and cross over to the other train, when I do all this I am so grateful, because the next train came exactly when we arrived and I ran over to it without much thought. She saved me a good ten minutes. Then I get off to make the transfer to MRT, the walk way was quite nice all covered, it was pouring rain outside.

Make it to the train stop and it took about 30mins all and all, I buy the ticket for the next train leaving at 7:50pm. The 3rd class ticket was 20B and would take 1.5 hours. There were more stops along the way the listed on the schedule, so I asked someone and he said he goes to Ayuthaya. Then there was a delay for our train and I watched the next one pass us while sitting on the tracks. It seemed like we were going to have to transfer trains when the 2nd train was coming to pass us. I was thinking cool I want to jump from one train

to the next, but we didn't. Ours started to go and we left before the other one. Think something was wrong with the engine.

Finally make it to Ayuthaya at 10p. Don't have place to sleep and the guy that I was talking to walks me down a street to a guesthouse and boat transfer, thanks guy. The people try to get me to sleep at the "guesthouse" really rundown shack and I say I have a room already. Leave and walk back to the train station, the ferry was closed already. Some European travelers are coming out of the station and I ask them where they are staying. They give me the name Makador and I have no idea, hope it is on Soi 1 with the rest of the backpackers.

The owner comes to pick them up and we ask if there is room for one more. We hop in and they tell me some stories about their ride from Erawan Waterfalls; apparently they couldn't get on the last bus and asked some people that had a party bus for a ride. The party bus was decked out in lights, dj playing music, and booze. They were pretty funny people one from Holland and the other from Spain.

We get to the place and it is late, book the room for 400b. There is no Internet and pouring rain. I take a shower and hit the hay.