Mountain Top Experience

The morning called early, just like the last few mornings.  I haven’t quite been able to transition into this time zone.  My body thinks a 4:30 wake-up call gives it enough time to sleep.  It’s wrong.

But I wake up, write the blog and start the day.  Today, I’m writing the blog at night in hopes that I’ll be able to shut my mind down enough to sleep in tomorrow… we’ll see.

It was supposed to storm this weekend.  Big storm.  I looked outside and there was a small amount of precipitation on the banana leaves near our balcony but that was it.  I could tell the skies were mostly clear.  This was the break I was hoping for.  You see, there is this hike I’ve been wanting to do.  Our original plan was to dive today and hike tomorrow.  But since we canceled the dive and weather appeared to be mostly clear this would give us the perfect opportunity to hike.

I waited for Eric to wake up and work on his vlog before I mentioned it.  We needed to rent a scooter to do the hike and we had thought we’d start the hike at about 6:30 AM before it got too hot (that’s ambiguous – it’s always too hot, but there is too hot and TOO HOT).  Unfortunately, we had to wait for a scooter rental to open, which pushed back the start time.

We chose to go with Mr. Kord due to reviews.  They don’t require to keep your passport and are very reasonably priced.  They opened at 8:30 AM so we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel, loaded up our backpack with 2 gallons of water (recommended amount for 2 people on this hike) and some sunscreen, bug spray, long sleeve shirts, etc.  We then walked the 2 miles to the scooter rental and they opened about 15 minutes after we got there.  It was EASY to rent.  We chose their 3^rd option, which was 200 baht for the scooter rental per day (roughly $6) and then purchased an insurance policy for an additional 80 baht per day.  With that option they only needed a photocopy of our passport.  You see, these places will hold your passport hostage if you cause damage to the vehicle. I was HAPPY to pay the couple of dollars a day for the insurance.  Hey, you never know when something can go wrong.

After they gave us questionably safe helmets and asked if we knew how to drive a scooter (and we nodded because Eric drove one like 30 years ago in Greece. LOL.) We were off.   How hard can it be though?  There are like 8-year olds driving them around town.  Whoops, backup.  They did have to help us start it because Eric forgot it won’t start while the kickstand is down.  Honest mistake, anyone can make it. 😊

Here is Eric on White Lightning.  

You can see more about this experience on Eric’s vlog, found here (it may take a day or two for his vlog to catch up with my blog): Eric's Vlog
 

Eric did do a good job driving.  Slow cars and scooters generally drive on the shoulder of the road while faster cars pass on the right (they drive on the opposite side of the roads here).  It seems a bit like mayhem when around a lot of traffic.  I’m not aware if there are any traffic laws, but we did great.

Thirty minutes and a couple of wrong turns later and we arrived at the Khao Ngon-Nak Nature Trail.  Our goal was to reach the top viewpoint.  Only a measly 3.7 km away (a little over 2 miles).

We signed in at the Forest Service’s tent with our name, number in party, phone number and country.  The hike is free, but they do ask for a donation.  We were happy to donate.  After all, we brought enough water, but if we HAD to call one of the emergency numbers they gave us it’s best that they’re happy with us, right?

Being from the Pacific NW, we’ve done our fair share of hiking.  We’re not mountaineers by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve been up a hill or two.  Our classification of this hike: &*(%&&^& Hard!

If you like to train on a stairmaster, in a sauna, for 2 hours then you’d LOVE this hike.  I sweat in places I’ve never sweated before – or I should say, not so profusely.  I actually sweat through my shorts on my thighs.  Every ounce of my clothing was soaking wet within about 30 minutes.

The first part of the trail was a bit like a river bottom and I’m certain that it becomes a raging waterfall/river during the rainy season.  Note, do NOT hike this when it’s raining.  I’m pretty sure it’s a flash flood area.

The next part is the stairs… There are actual man-made stairs through part of it because the terrain is just too rough.

That’s followed by God-made stairs.  These stairs are all tree roots and range from 6” steps to 2’ steps.  And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on.  I'm beginning to think the 3.7 km was as the bird flies...

We heard the strangest sounds walking through the forest.  We weren’t sure if it was insects, birds, monkeys, etc…  It was LOUD.
And check out these camouflaged trees and vines - pretty cool. 

OK, 3.7 km is NOT that far.  We should be there by now, shouldn’t we?  We pass some people coming back down and they were kind enough to say, “only 1 more kilo”. We smiled and thanked them and felt our motivation increase.  Soon we passed another group of people and they said, “One more kilo.”  We chuckle and smile and feel our motivation waiver.  Soon we passed another group of people and they said, “One more kilo.” I chuckled weakly, looked over my shoulder at Eric and felt my motivation dive.

Then we turn a corner and see THIS sign.  We laughed out loud and shook our heads. 

We’re still climbing the natural stairmaster at this point.  And it doesn’t end – it just turns into huge boulders at the end.  So then we’re bouldering.  BUT!  And this is the point.  IT. WAS. WORTH. IT!  It only took us two hours to hike up and one and a half to hike back down.  The 1.5 down is a testament to how hard it was.  We can usually shave of 50% on the way back down.  But, if you're ever in the area, you should do it!!!

Would I ever do it again?  Heck no.  For me, it was like running a marathon.  One and done.

Now, I knew about this certain rock that people have nicknamed “Pride Rock”.  I REALLY wanted to take a picture on it.  BAD.  But, they had it barbwire around it ☹  I guess one too many people fell to their death or something.  Yes, I did contemplate climbing through the barbwire and getting my picture on it.  That was the whole entire reason for hiking this thing.  But I knew Eric would tackle me and I didn’t want to be that idiot that fell to her death for a picture.  So just mentally picture me sitting on the top of “Pride rock” in the picture below.

And here are the other jaw dropping and breathtaking views.  And these images don’t do it justice!! For one, the water isn’t the right colors.  We could see variations from light green to aquamarine to deep blue.  

After we finally made it back to the parking lot with 1 liter of water left (yes, we planned well and had enough!) we signed out on the registry and headed to find a cold drink and food.  It’s 2:00 PM at this point, very hot and we were ready to relax.  We stopped at a restaurant after a slight altercation with a tuk tuk.  I’ll let Eric talk about that in his vlog.  No humans or animals were injured during the making of the altercation.

This little road side restaurant wasn’t the best food, but it was very pretty – the food and the view.

We then head towards home, took a dip in the pool and a short nap.  Even though we were both beat and probably would have been happy to sleep all night we decided to go out and eat some dinner.  Our goal – some really good Thai food.  We started at the Frog Bar, just so we could watch what was left of the sunset and enjoy the live music playing.  It was a great venue.  Sandy floors, fun music, beautiful view and the worst watered down pina colada ever.  But hey, the rest of it made it not so bad.

Afterward we decided to follow googles recommendations for highly rated food near us.  We decided to try May and Zin which was a short 2-minute walk away.  Thank goodness because my feet HURT and my legs were tired and my achilles was barkin’ at me. Whine whine whine. 😊

We found it in a “food truck/ outdoor food court” area. The food was super cheap and really good.  We ordered two noodle dishes and it was 160 baht total.  That’s less than $6 for both of us.  They also threw in some mango for dessert.  YUM.

Afterwards we ordered mango sticky rice again – soooo good, but maybe just a little too sweet.  I am sweeted out at this point and we’re really ready for bed. 

We came home on our trusty steed White Lightning and decided to do our blog/vlog tonight so we can sleep in tomorrow.  (I hope).

Don’t forget to check out Eric’s vlog found here: Eric's Vlog

Comment from a day later.  OK, I might hike it again.  I've had time to sleep on it and the view is a better memory than the pain.  It could happen...  Also, if this hike were in the Pacific NW it'd be rated as moderate to hard.  I think the humidity had something to do with our rating.