Road trip to Khaoyai August 4, 2007

Last weekend we had a long weekend. Natalie and Amy planned to go to Khaoyai by bus and they asked me how to get there. Once I heard their plan I really wanted to join them, but from what I knew about Khaoyai is that it’d be more convenient if we had our own transportation. After telling them about my idea, we decided to rent a car and drive it to Khaoyai! Hooray! I loved that idea! Road trip!!! Awesome!!!

The first mission began on Saturday morning when I called the car rental company at 7.30 am and found out that they would not open until 8 am. At 8.15 am I called again and found out that they didn’t have the car we requested for (there was a promotion on Toyota Vios, a lot cheaper), the receptionist suggested that I check with another branch. I called another branch and they had the car we wanted for 1,100 baht/day (included VAT 7%) but they wouldn’t allow us to rent a car until we faxed in the copy of a driver’s license, ID or passport and credit card. I called up Natalie and told her I needed her documents!

Natalie came to my room around 8.45 am with needed documents, then we went down to the office on the 2nd floor to make a copy of them and we found out that the office would not open until 10 am. We waited… waited for the time the office would open and at 9.45 am we went down again and saw the office was open. We asked the staff to make the copies for us and then fax to the number of Car rental company. The answer we got from the staff was “Sorry, our photocopy machine has been broken and we have no plan to fix it.” — Crap!!

The mission continued with Natalie and I looking for a shop with a photocopy machine to copy all those documents. We walked to a shop not far from our apartment and saw that it was closed! I thought “Sh-t! What should we do?”

We walked back to my room and I came up with the idea that we should scan the documents and print them out and then fax them to the rental car company! Around 10.30 am, we’d got all documents faxed already. I called the company to check if they had received our documents or not… they got them and told me they would call me and let me know when we could go to get the car. Yippie! All we had to do was wait for their call.

At 11.00 am, everybody was ready and also hungry. We went to a small restaurant nearby to have our lunch together. It was almost noon and I hadn’t received any phone call from the car company. — that’s weird. I decided to call them and the answer from them was “Oh! Your car is ready, you can come to our office to get it.” — I thought ‘Damn it! Why didn’t you call me and tell me that the car was ready?! What if I didn’t call you, would I know that it’s ready!?! — Calm down Jane… This is your holiday… Don’t stress out’.

The procedure for renting a car was easy and we rented the car for only 2 days instead of 3 days as we thought we had to. We paid for the rental which was 440 baht each. — That’s cool and quite cheap! First mission completed.

It took us about 3 and a half hours to get to Khaoyai as we took road No. 1 to the north of Bangkok and then changed to No. 2 to Nakornratchasima. There was a little traffic that slowed us down a bit, but around 4 pm. we arrived at the place we wanted to stay. Checking in for 2 rooms, my room cost 500 baht per night. It’s pretty good deal, the place is called “Khaoyai Garden Lodge”. I found it from Lonely Planet book and it was really as good as they had suggested in the book.

The next mission came with Amy’s idea, she wanted to see vineyards. I asked the resort staff about the nearest place where we could visit the vineyard and test some wines. She suggested that we go to the Pakchong area. — Okay, Pakchong vineyards, here we come!

It was a rainy day, and we didn’t really know where to go. I looked at the signs and thought we should go to this little road… we ended up seeing nothing at the end of that road. I started asking around, “Where can we see a vineyard?” The answers I got were different! But we did try every answer until we ended up at a place where they had wine tasting… but we arrived there too late, and they had already closed. The lady at that place told us that we could check at the office as they were still open and maybe we could find some wine.

We drove to the office to find out that they didn’t have wine there for sale.  We had to drive back to their souvenir shop we had driven past. We came to the shop only to find out that the shop had just closed about 5 minutes earlier. We saw bottles of wine in the fridge but we couldn’t get them. We were 5 minutes too late. — Crap!

We decided to come back again the next day as our mission had not been complete yet. We went back to our resort and rested (Only Jeremy and I did take a nap. Nat, Amy and Vic rested themselves with some beer in a pub nearby). That night we had dinner at our resort, but I wasn’t too hungry.  I had only deep fried vegetarian spring rolls– it was good though. Jeremy decided to go to sleep early because we planned to get up early tomorrow for our trekking tour!

The second day on the trip, we got a tip from an American who works there saying that if foreigners show a card with their picture on it and tell the entrance booth that he/she is a student, the entrance fee will be 200 baht but if you have no card with photo as a foreigner, you have to pay 400 baht to enter… BUT! but if you have a work permit (for Thailand of course), you pay the same fee as Thai people which is 40 baht. — Good to know, isn’t it?

We were ready around 9.30 am after having huge breakfast, so we hit the road again. We drove slowly and stopped at every view point on the way to the National Park tourist center. After checking the route for our trekking to a nice waterfall, we checked out their souvenir shop and I got the leech socks and mosquito repellent spray. — I was ready for trekking in the jungle, Baby!

We saw a sign next to the center that there was a small waterfall which was 200 meters away, we thought it’d be fun to see it, warming up a little bit. It turned out that we took the wrong… long way. It was definitely longer than 200 meters, it was more like 1 km… but finally we found the water, and it was a small one. Hot and sweating, we walked back from the other way and it was…yes… 200 meters to the center! — I felt so stupid but hey! It’s a little workout anyway.

It was almost noon, and we were still at the tourist center, so we decided to have lunch at the restaurant there. They had very few shops, selling mostly the same kinds of food — somtam (papaya salad), grilled chicken, larb, noodles and rice with anything you want (made to order). We had somtam and larb, I wasn’t impressed with their food. — maybe I chose the wrong shop.

In the afternoon, everyone with their stomach full was ready to go trekking. We picked the trail No. 3 Orchid Campsite – Haew Suwat. — Distance: 3.1 km. Walking time 1.5-2 hrs. Blue trail. From the campsite, the trail-head is located by the toilet block. (Not a good place to start, I know) At Kaew Suwat (name of the waterfall), it is near the restaurants. Concreted trail, easy to follow. <– Not true, only few meters with a concreted trail, the rest was dirt and muddy and sometimes it’s not easy to follow!!! We drove to the Orchid campsite and parked the car there and headed to the trail.

As the staff told me that this trail is easy for trekking, that’s why we chose it, but it turned out that it was not that easy. I was cut by a sharp thorn because it was very slippery and I tried to grab something near me, but what was closest to me was this sharp thorn. Ouch! I didn’t want to think about it. I still have a scar on my right index finger.

It took us less than 2 hours to reach the waterfall where, located right at the parking lot, many tourists drove instead of trekking like we did. When I reached there I was too tired to walk down to see the bottom of the waterfall. We only stopped at the top of it and thought this was it. Enough!

To get back to our car, Jeremy and I hitch-hiked back to Orchid camp and Jeremy drove back to the waterfall to pick everyone up.  This happened to be Jeremy’s first experience driving in Thailand!  He wasn’t used to driving on the left side of the road, and was a little nervous, but he did very well! Covered with mud and dirt, we decided to check out the vineyard and wine shop before it was too late. We arrived at the same shop we went yesterday and we saw the staff at the wine counter.  We made it! Our mission would be complete — we all thought that.

Unfortunately, what we could get from that shop was only grape juice and some snacks. It was a religious holiday, and they couldn’t sell alcohol! Dying to get some wine, Nat, Vic and Amy looked all over that area to find a shop that could sell some to them. Luckily, someone saw a wine display in front of a shop. We drove to that shop in the rain and they bought one bottle of red wine each. I got a bottle of grape juice. — trying to be good Buddhists, Jeremy and I chose to avoid alcohol.

We went back to the resort, cleaned up, and it was time to relax. I got the first aid kit from the resort staff and a band aid from Amy. Those worked well, no more bleeding. It’s time for Nat, Amy and Vic to test their wine. I didn’t try any of the wine, but from what they told me it sucked, and I believed them! Cheap wine from a Thai vineyard, what did you expect?

At dinner time, the restaurant at the resort was packed with customers, both Thais and foreigners and I had to wait for more than an hour, Vic had to make a scene before I could get my dinner. — Not very impressed. That night we had a little music session as Jeremy and Vic brought their guitars along. We sat by the pool under the full moon and a little cloudy sky chatting, singing, and getting to know more about each other. Around midnight I went to sleep.

The last day in Khaoyai, we left early as we had to return the car before 1 pm, but it took us only 2 hours to drive back to Bangkok. There was no traffic at all! We arrived before noon and returned the car and took taxi back to our apartment. We still had some money left from the trip fund (1,000 baht from each other which we used for the car rental fee, gas and express way and toll fees). We spent them all at a fancy Japanese restaurant. Everyone loved Japanese food… sashimi, sushi…umm. That was the perfect way to end our trip.

I’m looking forward to the next road trip! Anyone want to join me?