Waterfalls

I had the most amazing night's sleep yesterday; think I must have drifted off around 9.00 and then woke up at 8.00! I cannot say I did not get enough sleep; I did need it though. Breakfast was once again amazing, but once again I got banana pancake instead of pineapple like I had asked for.

The truck left the hotel at 9.30 this morning to go to Erawan National Park, which is home to an amazing waterfall which has seven different levels. On the journey, we played a game of Heads Up which for those that don’t know, is when you hold the phone to your head and people must describe what shows up and the person with the phone needs to try and get it correct. When the novelty of this wore off, I just sat there reading another book; it is amazing to get the chance and read again, I think this is my sixth book now of the trip. We had been told to wear trainers today as apparently it was about an hour hike up to the seventh level and I am relieved that I listened to this advice as my sandals would not have coped

with the terrain. The first and second levels came round rather quick with not much of an incline as well as not too much of an impressive waterfall. As this was a national park and to prevent litter, at level two, they had a kiosk place where they checked your bag and took any food from you as well as labelling your water bottle and making you leave a deposit which you would get back when you showed the bottle later on – I thought this was quite a clever idea to minimise rubbish. The first few levels were well-maintained paths with a couple of stairs also built in but after, I would say level four, the terrain was more natural and forced you to scrabble up more. I was wearing my swimming costume with a pair of shorts and by the time we reached level six, my swimming costume was soaked through from the amount of sweat coming off my body, it was honestly quite horrible, although everyone was in the same boat, so it made it slightly better. Along the ascent, we saw quite a few monkeys in the trees which were very rather curious creatures trying to steal someone's Go Pro on a selfie stick at one point. When we finally scrambled up the final few bits of rock and made it to level seven, to say it was a relief is an understatement; by this point, I was sweating so bad and needed to cool down in the water. Due to it being the dry season the waterfall was not overly impressive but the beauty of the pool around it was lovely. There were loads of fish in the pool and lots of people squealed as they went

in the water since the fish enjoyed nibbling at your dead skin, normally on your feet, although a couple did try to bite my legs and bum! So basically, this was a free massage which I quite enjoyed although I can’t say the same for everyone else, to be fair to them, the fish did make your feet tickle. I sat on a rock letting the fish nibble my feet for a good half hour whilst also being designated photographer of others due to my phone being waterproof; I could have sat there all day. The water was not totally clear, but you could see some of the fish moving in the water as well as at the bottom in some of the shallower waters. We all decided to begin the walk back down through the levels and check out another of the pools. I found the descent easier as I could just jump down the rocks although I could feel it in my knees by the bottom; oh yeah, whilst I am on the topic of aches, my elbow aches from the kayaking yesterday.

We decided to stop once we got to level 4 as this was quite close to where we would be meeting for lunch, so we would not have to rush to get out. At this level, there were also 2 natural water slides, 1 larger than the other; there were still fish in this 1 but where the water was deeper, so you were having to tread water to stay afloat, they did not come near you. Me, Jack and Daisy all climbed up the rocks to the top of the slides and took it in turns to come down;

this was so much fun, we just kept going up and doing it over and over again until it reached 2.00 and we had to make our way down to level 2 where we would be meeting the rest of the group. After all the activity of the morning, I was rather hungry so was grateful when we got back to the carpark and I was able to find a cheap toastie to fill the gap in my stomach.

The journey back was even less eventful than the one there with people just sitting in silence whilst I read my book; we must have got back to the hostel around 4.30. Tonight, for dinner we would be going to a BBQ with karaoke; the BBQ was quite expensive, and I tried to get out of it and then just join for the karaoke but apparently, they had already booked us all in, plus everyone else was going so would have meant having dinner alone. The food at the BBQ was very nice however and was unlimited; I had chicken wings, rice, chicken pad Thai, skewers and some spring rolls. The karaoke took a while to get going but once it did, most people had a go at singing with Lucy A. and Jack having decent voices which was a bit of a shock. There was only our group in the bar, so the karaoke died out by around 9.30 and whilst some made their way back to the hotel, others made their way to the bar we were at the other night. I did initially join the group that went to the bar but as I had decided I was not drinking tonight and there were only 7 people in the whole bar, I decided I would be happier if I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening packing and relaxing ready for our journey back to Bangkok tomorrow.