Rosie and I don’t really like looking at temples and churches so Bruce thought that a trip to the countryside with a nice boat ride to a beach and then a strenuous climb up to a cave would be more fun. We enjoyed the experience a few years ago so I thought it would be a good trip to take the group on this year.
We piled into the party bus full of energy and enjoyed the trip to Sam Roi Yod National Park and went up to the information booth to book our boat to take us around the mountain to the next beach. We were devastated to find out that it was too rough for the beach and hence we would need to walk over the mountain. After a bit of discussion, we decided that having come this far, we had to push on. Julie made the wise decision to stay while we trekked off.
Rosie wanted to stay also, but we convinced her of the error of her ways and off we all went climbing up step after step after step for 450m. Then a nice walk along the beach for 500m and then finally we got to another steep 450m uphill climb to the cave. To say Rosie wasn’t impressed would be an understatement. When we finally reached the tranquility of the cave, all you could hear was some rude Australian women swearing and abusing her partner.
Once in the cave, four of the participants thought it was well worth it and were amazed by the sunlight streaming down onto the small temple built inside one of the chambers of the cave.
The walk down wasn’t so bad, but the walk over the mountain was still a bit of a strain. To celebrate our successful climb, we went to lunch at a nice beachside restaurant. We ordered 3 beers but only got two, we had to wait for one of the workers to go down the road to buy some more beers for us. The lunch was fantastic as always and all up it was another great day in Thailand.
