Loy Kratung/Phu Kradueng

      Ok, so I left off with a long blog that had to deal with a month full of stuff. I'm gonna try to do better from now on. So here is my first installment of improving my blog updates:

     Last weekend (the 10 through the 14) I went on a long trip to a place called Phu Kradueng. If you look it up it's a very spectacular mountain with great views, and I hope to not let you down with pictures of my own.

    The first day we arrived we had to spend the night at the base of the mountain, because they allow no hikers up the trail after 12 in the afternoon. Even though this seemed a little annoying, it was actually a great opportunity. The day we arrived at Phu Kradueng was the same day as a national festival in Thailand: Loy Kratung. Now I don't know how many of you readers have watched The Hangover II but they have the same thing at the very end of the movie. I don't really know what it stood for, but we went to the a festival near us and celebrated it with the locals. There we got to see a beauty pageant, play some fair games, and float off candles. Here are the pictures:



This is one of the exchange students from Mexico. She got to participate in the beauty contest, and I think she won second place.



I couldn't really take a picture of myself doing this, but my friends did. I'm sure they will be posting the pictures on facebook later, so be looking. 

All of the floating lights behind me are lanterns that people have lit. It was really cool to see the sky lit up by stars, the full moon, and these beautiful candles.

I thought this was a really cool picture, because it shows the fireworks we saw but it also shows one of the lanterns floating right next to the bright explosion.

     After the festival we went to a little resort and went straight to bed because we had to wake up by 6 the next morning for the hike up Phu Kradueng.

    The next we arrived at the base of Phu Kradueng and dropped our baggage off (we were having porters carry it up the mountain for us, yay!!!!). We started our trek up the mountain around 8 in the morning, and 5 hours (yes I said 5 hours) later we arrived at the top. The trek consisted of small slanting slopes to considerably steep slopes that I almost had to use my hands to climb up. And sometimes there was only sheer rock cliff that had stairs built onto it. Then when we got to the top of the cliff and felt all accomplished we learned that we had another 3 kilometers (a little under 2 miles) to where we were actually sleeping. We then went on our way and finally got to our camp and had dinner.

They had this map at the bottom. For me a little intimidating, but for this Japanese exchange student he almost seems happy for the long hike up.







This was one of the more rockier sections. The climb was no walk in the park...




Along the trail there were stopping points, and some of the points had great views. This is one of them.




This part was so steep and uneven they had to put a hand rail.



At the top they had something unexpected: Pine trees. I have seen them no where else in Thailand, and they immediately reminded me of my home in the USA.

   The next day we woke up early and headed for a cliff where we could see the sunrise. I apologize in advance for I have no pictures of the sunrise, but it was beautiful and some pictures might surface on facebook. After the sunrise we headed back to camp and got ready for a day long hike to the other side of the mountain. Phu Kradueng has probably 1000 acres of relatively flat land at the top, so we got to walk a lot at the top. Around lunch time we reached our destination, which was another cliff with a great view. After we ate lunch we walked back to our camp on a different trail that followed the cliff edge. Along the way there were many stopping points with different views. The last one we stopped at and watched the sunset (Yes, I got to see both the sunrise and sunset in the same day). After that we headed back to camp, had some dinner, and headed to bed for the next day.



This is the map of Phu Kradueng. The right side is where we started for the day, and the left is where we ate lunch.




These two French exchange students pose for a picture in front of a pond along the way to our lunch site.



This is the most famous cliffs of Phu Kradueng. You will see it if you look up the mountain in google images. It was a long way down where I was looking.



I love this picture. The sun was setting, and some one pulled out my flag. Sage, and exchange student from the USA,  just happened to be in the right place, and now I have a wonderful patriotic picture for him.




This sunset wasn't extremely pretty, but combined with the view it was still amazing.

      The next day we were suppose to all go to some waterfalls together, but I slept in. When I woke up everyone but a few people who had the same idea as me were gone. I got up, took a shower, and ate some breakfast. Then just laid around and talked to the other people who stayed behind until lunch. At lunch everyone returned from the waterfalls and said how wonderful they were. So this made me really jealous, and I headed out on my own tour of the waterfalls by myself. Along the way I saw a somewhat scary sign, many waterfalls, and trails that reminded me of my backyard back home. After the waterfalls I headed out to the cliffs to try and catch another sunset.

This is the somewhat scary sign. I always thought elephants were peaceful creatures. Sadly enough I didn't get to see any of the wild elephants.

This is only one of the trails that I found that reminded me so much of my backyard at home.

For you Culver-Stockton fans, I actually brought a Culver-Stockton T-shirt with me to Thailand. This is how I represent my future college standing in front of a waterfall.

To be honest, I think that this sunset it much better than the first one. I also stood on a different cliff for this picture.

    Just like the previous days I went back to the camp, ate dinner, and headed back to my cabin for some sleep. Some things I haven't mention yet: The nights on top of the mountain were really cold, maybe around the low 40s in Fahrenheit. All combined I walked probably over more than 50 kilometers (30 miles) over a 3 day excursion. And lastly, the mountain top was covered in leeches! I got one between my toes! But I only got one. Other people got like 5 or 10. We learned pretty quickly how to deal with them, but it lead to checking ourselves each night before we went to bed.

    The last day finally arrived, and we had to wake up early again! We had to go out around 6 and drop our bags off with the porters who would take them back down the mountain. After that we had two hours to eat breakfast and get ready for the climb down. We set out around 8 with the first 3 kilometer hike to the trail that led down the mountain. At the trail I met up with Sage, the one from the USA, and Kin from Japan. To my surprise the three of us headed out first and stayed in front of everyone the whole way. We didn't sprint, but we did move rather fast and got a good time. What took me over 5 hours to get up, took me only an hour and a half to get down! We got to the bottom, and to our disappointment had to wait over an hour for everyone to show up. Then we had to wait another couple of hours for our rides to finally get there.

I found some watermelon for sale along the way. I thought it was quite impressive eating while walking/running down steep slopes.

The first ones.

Ahhh! So proud of that time seeing as we started at around 8:30 down the trail, 9:50 was a pretty good time for me.



Some of the exchange students surrounded the Phu Kradueng sign in exhaustion, after their long hike down the mountain.

      After everyones' ride got there, we all said our goodbyes and headed home...

Laos and a Group of Mormons

       Last week I got to be special. My host dad took me on a day long trip to the bordering country of Laos. It was special because it is very hard and complicated for exchange students to travel outside of Thailand once they enter the country with the exception of their return trip back home. But enough with the explanation, on with what I know all want: pictures...

The customs line to get into Laos.

We decided to walk and take public transportation then trying to get the car through customs.

The building behind me is like the Arch du' Triumph in Paris, France (only much bigger).



This is one of the views from the top of the "Arch du' Triumph" building. Behind me is the Laos White House. It houses Loas' government body.



Inside the "Arch du' Triumph" building were many places to buy souvenirs. In fact each level of the building had different stalls.

When I first saw this view it was really strange for me. For you Americans the cars are driving on the right side of the road. But for someone who has been living in Thailand for 3 months these cars are on the wrong side.



After the "Arch du' Triumph" building we went to the most well-known temple in the capital of Laos. I think my host dad is becoming a good photographer because he took most of these pictures, and they turned out really good.



After the temple we went back to the boarder and went to "duty-free" shops. My host dad bought some stuff for friends. Inside one of the shops they had cigarettes for sale, and on almost all of the boxes they warnings such as pictured above. I think America could take notes...

This is a picture of our trip back across the boarder on a public buss. Behind my host dad is the river separating Laos and Thailand, just like the Mississippi separates Illinois and Missouri.

   Now on to the other part of this post's title: A Group of Mormons. One day I was walking through one of the popular hang out spots in my city, and I heard my name called out. I looked around and saw no one that I knew, but then I saw a guy waving at me. He was dressed up in a nice shirt with a tie and had a partner sitting next to him. I went up to them (being my friendly self and all) and found out that they were missionaries sent to Thailand to teach English. After a little more conversation I found out that one of my Thai friends was taking lessons from them, and he had showed them a picture of me. Well I was really intrigued, so I talked to them for a little while, and when we got to our goodbyes they invited me to come play some football (soccer) with them at a nearby university.
    Well the day came and I went to the university, met my Thai friend, and began playing football (soccer) with a whole group of Mormon missionaries. (I thought this might be interesting to people from home seeing as we live so close to Nauvoo, a major religious spot for Mormons).



There were six missionaries all together, but one had to take the picture. My Thai friend is the one with the red sleeves

       Well my next trip is a five kilometer hike up a mountain. Wish me luck.