Mountains, Camping, and Waterfalls

The past couple of days have been an adventure! Yesterday we drove up the tallest mountain in Thailand. It's called Doi Inthanon. Part way up the mountain are two Chetis. They were built for the king and queen on their 60^th birthdays. From far away they look like temples, but they are just gifts to the king and queen. They each have beautiful gardens behind them and have a wonderful view of the mountains. Inside each of the Chetis are statues of Buddha and inside the queen's Cheti are colorful murals. 

After we visited the Chetis we drove farther up the mountain to a campground with rows and rows of tents. There were 7 of us girls all packed up in one tent and we definitely needed to body heat to stay warm! It got pretty cold where we were staying.

The next morning we drove part way down the mountain for breakfast. Thai people don't really have the same kind of breakfast food that we do. They eat rice soup, which to me tastes like chicken noodle soup with rice. On the menu they actually had “American Breakfast” so most of us got that. I had an omelet with mushrooms that tasted a bit like it had been deep fried...

After breakfast was the adventure to find the waterfalls. There are several waterfalls that you can visit and we stopped at 3. At the third one there was a pretty good sized swimming hole so we all jumped in and swam around. It was freezing cold, but after a few minutes your legs go numbe, so it's no big deal. There was one part of the waterfall where the rocks were very slippery and soft from all the water. We had the great idea of going down it like a waterslide and it proved to be a fantastic idea. I think it has been my favorite thing so far :) So much fun! After swimming by the waterfall (in Thailand, in January!) we went to a restaurant for lunch that served food right by the waterfall. They actually had these bamboo table things that were on top of the water on rocks and stilts, and then little tiny tables that you sat in front of. We had fish and chicken with sticky rice and then we had sticky rice with bananas for dessert. Delicious :)

The taxis here are called songthaews. They're basically a pick up truck with a cover on the back that has benches on the inside. We rode in songthaews all the way up and mountain and back. On the back end of the songthaew there is a platform where you can stand, a couple of the other girls and I stood on the back of the songthaew for most of the ride home. It helped dry out our bathing suits and give us pretty awesome hair...

Tomorrow morning we start our Community Development class, which should be a lot of fun and very interesting. There's also a Buddhist temple just down the road that a couple of the girls and I want to visit. I hope everyone is doing well!