Pak Chong

Pak Chong and Kao Yai

We left the Issan and traveled back west. Mike had a friend named Bro. Ooy who told us he had business in Pak Chong and could take us there. Well he ended up being a little liar, but we were happy about it because it meant he took the day off to spend some time with us. We hired a taxi for the 1.5 hr drive from Buriram to Korat, where Ooy met us and drove us the other 1.5 hr to Pak Chong. He was so nice to do this for us and he was fun to talk to because he had perfect English! Along the way we stopped at this awesome restaurant overlooking a lake. Ooy had brought a friend a long as well. 

 The reason we were traveling to Pak Chong was because it is the closet city to the Kao Yai National Park. I was excited to go and we had booked a tour for the following day. Well, Bro. Ooy ended up taking us there that day for a little exploring. I was so excited at my first monkey siting. I loved the coloring around the eyes. 

Our destination in the park was a huge waterfall- so we thought. To get there we took a small hike through the very humid and hot forest to get to about 200 very steep stairs leading to a lookout. 

Not going to lie, I was very much not impressed with the waterfall. We were there at the end of the dry season and what is normally a huge waterfall that would have gotten us wet on the lookout, was nothing more than a trickle. We could only imagine what it should've looked like. 

The road through the park was very curvy and had dense forest on both sides. We didn't site any wild elephants :( But did catch a few crazy smaller critters. This spider was huge, about he size of my hand!

Leaving the Kao Yai- a typical site in Thailand. 

Despite Bro. Ooy's excellent driving, I felt car sick after our excursion through the jungle and could not stomach the idea of being at the mercy of another crazy driver the next day for a tour. Plus I was not excited about any more waterfall outings- so Mike and I canceled our tour and decided to leave up north a day earlier. We got to spend some time exploring Pak Chong.

Everywhere we stayed the owners had a dog- or more. The place we stayed at was run by a great German guy and his two dogs. The place was a steal at $6 a night, but lacked a/c. We left just the screen door closed and the dogs would push it open in the night, walk around the room, and then go back out.