We were up very, very early so that we could go climb the mountain. We had spent last night packing, very lightly since we would be carrying it up the hill ourselves. I packed a black duffel bag with my stuff, as well as my roommates stuff, and we headed down for breakfast. Well, he headed to the little shop where we would be having breakfast. We had Jok, which is pretty much rice soup, with ground up meat, and a few other things mixed in, and nasty coffee. I'm sorry to say, I do not like their coffee here. Its that instant stuff, "Just add Water" and its not good. I can't wait to get a good cup of coffee when I return.
Anyways, on our way back to the room, I saw an awesome picture opportunity and took it.
The mist and morning sunrise creeping over a pond and its bridge. Pictures honestly don't do the sight justice.
A farther out look at the same picture, but this time with the reflection on the water. I thought that it was a good picture.
The morning was quite chilly, which wasn't all that fun, and we were all bundled up warmly. We were told that as the day goes on, and the higher we climb, we will get hot, so to dress in layers. After we loaded up all out stuff into the trucks, we headed off. The same driver that hit the wall last night was driving, though this time he was suffering from a hangover. It was good though, no accidents occured. Apparently he has a restaurant (food stall is a better word). He was going to hike up the mountain with us, and then give us a slight discount on the food. Which was pretty nice since food is expensive up there, and you will see why, if you read more.
This guy is getting ready to carry this load up the mountain. These guys will carry 60-80 kilo's or pounds...I can't remember....how much does two propane tanks weigh?? Well they will carry a lot of weight up the mountain for very little pay. This guy will be carrying food and water up the mountian. For the most part, each of these people will go up and down the mountain twice. Thats a lot of work, for such little pay. I almost didn't believe that they could carry the weight, because they all seemed to be scrawny little guys with not a lot of muscle. But, I was wrong. Very wrong.
Another load that will be going up the mountain. You can see that that would probably be quite the heavy load. Men and women alike carried these up the mountain.
So we ended up being lazy, and paid 15 baht per kilo (so earlier, I guess it was kilo's not pounds) to carry our bags up the hill. My bag was only 8 kilos, which is decently light. Some of the other girls need to learn how to pack, and theirs was ... heavier...like double the weight of mine. This is one of the guys carrying the luggage up the mountain.
Bikes! At the top of the mountain, there were bikes that could be used (I'll talk about this a bit later on). These guys would carry up the bikes (unassembled of course) and they would be assembled when the person got to the top.
Starting out. You see these faces? These are the chipper faces of a bunch of teens who have absolutely no idea what is in front of us. All we know is that it is going to be a 5.5 kilometer hike that climbs the southeaster flank of the mountain. It will take us roughly....7 hours to do it, and thats if we are doing pretty good.
By the first stop, most of us were tired. Not going to lie, I was out of breath. The Brazillian (Fernanda) decided that we were trying to kill her by doing this labor. I was pretty happy to hit the resting points. This picture is of Kim trying to hold up one of the loads. She was able to do it, but decidd that it was very heavy, and her climbing the mountain with this, would never happen.
Remo being the big, strong man he is attempted, and could do it with ease, but admitted that if he had to climb the rest of the mountain with it, he would probably fail.
And then there's me. I have no idea if I would be able to climb the mountain with this on my back because I was too short to lift it off of its resting posts. This caused for great laughter on my behalf, but I took it in stride. I ended up lifting it with my arms, and decided that it was decently heavy, and I probably wouldn't make it 10 feet. The red suitcase at the bottom of the stack nearest you (when looking at the picture) Thats our suitcase. We decided that we had better hustle our butts up, because it would be pretty embarrasing if our luggage made it up before we did.
Here's a picture of some of the women carrying their loads up the hill. I was impressed with their strength. I definately could not do it.
Fernanda saw the chair and decided she had enough. She was going to sit in the chair and we were going to carry her up the hill. Not really, but it did prove to be a cool photo. If you wanted, you could have four strong men carry you up the hill in this, but it would cost you money, and its kind of frowned upon. It is mainly used if you get hurt at the top, and are being brought back down. There are no roads, so no cars to help you, and they have a helicopter in case of a drastic problem. For the most part, you are hiking.
This is Emi and I putting a stick against the rock to hold it in place. It's some sort of tradition, but I'm not totally sure what I am doing with my face..kind of random. Haha.
A part of the hike. We decided to bypass all of the luggage and food carriers, and the majority of the hikers by taking this route. It was very steep, and hard to climb, but we didn't have to worry about a lot of people being in our way, or us being in their way. We could take it at a slower pace (since some of us fatties, me included, were starting to feel the burn.)
We were warned about wild elephants, if we see one, run like hell. But sadly, or I guess luckily, we didn't see any. The only trace of wild elephants that we saw was this. A big pile of elephant poop. And yes, I felt the need to take a photo of it. According to P'Boy, it was quite fresh, a few hours old. I'm not even going to ask how he figured it out.
The stairs of death. Well, this was the last leg of the trip up, and these stairs were not all that pleasant to climb up. My legs were burning, and I could only imagine what the people carrying all of this stuff were feeling.
An up close look at the guys carrying the luggage up the stairs. I was scared to climb them with just my backpack on my back. Climbing those stairs with 60+kilos on my back, would probably scare me to death.
Finally! We made it. The eight of us conquered Phu kradung mountain. The trip up was hard, but the feeling that we all got when we made it to the top, man, there's really no words to describe it. It is a total feeling of accomplishment, and I was really proud of myself in all of my laziness to be able to make it. And that is the sign. The Youth Exchange Program District 3330 RI Sign. We take this thing everywhere, take photos with it, but deep down, none of us like that sign.
The sign that proves that I made it. If the pictures weren't enough, now you know. Haha I conquered the Phu Kradueng mountain, climbing 5.5 km to get to a height of 4,318 feet above sea level.
Here is some information about the rest stops, cause I found it interesting and you can read a bit more, to get a bit more font into this blog. The trip starts from the main park office in Amphoe Phu Kradueng, at an elevation of about 300 m. There are a total of eight resting plateau's on the way up, and at each there are people selling food and drink. The higher you got, the higher the prices. These were the eight stops:
- Sam Haek (ซำแฮก) - This rest area is located approximately 1000 metres from the starting point, on an intermediate plateau immediately above a very steep section of the trail. Most Thai visitors believe the word haek (แฮก) means "to be out of breath", "to pant", because of its resemblance to the sound made when out of breath. However, the real meaning is sacred or holy object in the local dialect.
- Sam Bon (ซำบอน) - This rest area is approximately 700 metres from Sam Haek.
- Sam Kok Kork (ซำกกกอก) - This rest area is approximately 440 metres from Sam Bon.
- Sam Ko Sang (ซำกอซาง) - This rest area is approximately 200 metres from Sam Kok Kork.
- Sam Kok Wa (ซำกกหว้า) - This rest area is approximately 580 metres from Sam Ko Sang.
- Sam Kok Phai (ซำกกไผ่) - This rest area is approximately 460 metres from Sam Kok Wa.
- Sam Kok Don (ซำกกโดน) - This rest area is approximately 300 metres from Sam Kok Phai.
- Sam Khrae (ซำแคร่) - This rest area is approximately 450 metres from Sam Kok Don.
The last 1300 meters from Sam khrae to the top is the hardest and steepest part of the hike. There are ladders and ramps at parts where it would otherwise be impossible to walk. Once you reach the highest point of the trail, you are at the edge of the summit plateau.
We still had a 3.6 kilometer walk over "flat" terrain" to the Wang Kwang visitor center and campsite, where the tents and lodging buildings were located. We chose to bike, because it was faster, and none of us really wanted to walk much. The bikes....well they were very uncomfortable, and by the end it felt like someone had beaten me with a stick on my butt. Needless to say, I was sore.
We paused here, which is 2,500 meters from the top of the mountain, and then another 2,000 meters to the place. We took a slight detour so that we could see this cliff.
All of us resting at Mak Dook Cliff. It was much needed, and much appreciated. Haha. The ground was much comfier to sit on then the bike seat was.
Fall has sprung...okay wrong saying, but you get the point. It was really cool to see some of our "fall colors" even though I am so far away from home. This is the maple tree that can be found here, more pictures at a later date.
This is a 3D map of the mountain. You can kind of see where we climbed and stuff. We took about 7 and a half hours to climb the mountain, which was decent timing. We were all hot, sweaty, and tired, but none of us really wanted to go to sleep. Though exhaustion plagued us, we decided to walk around for a bit, trying to lessen the chance of being stiff tomorrow, as well as see the area. We soon went and had dinner, moo ga tat, and headed back for showers.
Showering was a unique experience. I was brave and took the first shower. Well, it wasn't really a shower, more of a garbage can of water, with a bucket you dumped over yourself. We were warned it would be cold. I didn't think much of it, and dumped the bucket on my head. I was frozen. It was like showering with ice. I washed what needed to be washed, and then hurridly dried off. I think my favorite comment was from Remo who said, "Does anyone else feel like their nipples are going to freeze off?" Akward Remo, very akward.
We chatted until 10 o'clock when the power got shut off. We were up a mountain, we weren't expecting much, and headed to bed. Tomorrow we were going to be getting up early (around 4:00) in order to see the sunrise. I'm looking forward to that, but at the same time, not because its 4 in the morning.
So that was my day climbing the mountain. My time on the mountain had me doing a lot of excersize, not saying that it's a bad thing, but let's face it, I haven't been excersizing since I got here, so it was a shock to my system.
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