Sawat dee kha from Myriah Sujansky

Bangkok is huge but after getting situated and used to the crazy streets it
didn’t seem so scary. We visited two temples during our stay. The first
temple Wat Po had the reclining Buddha- it was absolutely massive! Wat Doi
Suket was a long hike up but the views were incredible. You could see all
of Bangkok- the more rural areas and the skyscrapers in the background. We
used all different ways to get around the city: train, tuk tuk, boat and
foot.

Leaving Bangkok we travelled to a small town, Sukahthai. Here we stayed in
a beautiful little guesthouse down a long gravel road. The place was
beautiful except the heat got to us all while we tried to sleep with no air
conditioning! We biked through the ruins of temples and learned about the
history of the area.

Then we were back on the road once again and on to Chang Mai. Chang Mai is
a smaller city than Bangkok, a little less crazy. Here we explored the
night markets and got to eat Western food. We went rock climbing about a
half hour away from the city and camped out for the night. The first day of
climbing was nerve racking for us all. However at the end of the day we had
all climbed some pretty frightening rocks, and all repelled into a cave
about 30 meters. By the end of the day everybody felt we’d accomplished our
goals and were getting over our fears of heights.

We camped out and had an awesome time with each other and the instructors.
We learned some Thai, learned how to make sticky rice at a campfire, and
made floating lanterns. The next morning we were up bright and early (5:30
am) to get our lunch from a local market. It was quite difficult as there
was a language barrier and it is very hard to tell what is in different
foods here. After we visited a tourist cave and then hiked to a quieter
cave. Here we went through an obstacle course of climbing and repelling
until we made it all the way down the cave- a long way down! We ate lunch
in the dark cave and then explored around; lots and lots of bugs! We were
all tired by this point and we knew we still had to climb back up the
cave. With how tired we were, we all made it out exceptionally fast. We
felt accomplished. And dirty. Showering that night was the best thing ever
and we each had a large pizza to ourselves that night (and by large I mean
American large).

- Myriah Sujansky

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