This day will go down as one of my most memorable experiences from my 40 days in Thailand.
We began the day by taking a longboat out on a beautiful trip across the lake, I’ll write more about the lake and longboats next time but it was really beautiful. We were lead by Bau and stopped off to pick up some fresh fish along the way.
Our longboat driver Gary... Okay Gary wasn't his real name but I think it fits.
After that we arrived on a secluded island. We hiked inland for about 20 minutes and then set up camp. It was a beautiful day, with sunlight filtering through the surrounding bamboo trees, and a sparkling river flowing nearby. Bau and his other Thai friends began preparing something. They started cutting down some bamboo sticks, and gathering large leaves which they washed in the river.
Building a nice little fire
We soon learned they were preparing an all natural barbeque for us! After building a fire, preparing a bunch of longer bamboo poles and cleaning the large leaves off they got a bunch of rice and scooped it into the leaves. They folded the leaves over the rice to contain it, then they slide the folded leaves into the bamboo sticks.
Loading rice onto the large leaves
They placed the sticks next to the fire and then allowed the heat and steam to rise through the bamboo sticks cooking the rice. It was really cool. They then barbequed us some fish and created plates for us to eat off of using more bamboo. While the meal of rice and fish wasn’t anything spectacular, having it cooked freshly with all natural methods creating no waste, and eating it off of bamboo made it feel really special and delicious.
Totally beats a Barbeque
*try to find picks of holding the fish!
To we headed further inland to find as Bau called it ‘The Sexy Cave’ We took a nice group shot out front, you can tell it was early in the trip because we all look calm and untanned in the group photo.
Sexy people infront of the sexy cave
This cave was absolutely phenomenal. I went into some ‘caves’ in Canada before but they all seemed like fake caves after going through this one, this one was the real deal. It took us about an hour to move through the cave. The landscape inside was amazing.
Leaving the light of outside behind
Entering the darkness
Can you see the face!?
It was pitch black but we all brought out headlamps, and the guides brought bigger lights. About halfway through the cave however we did shut off all our lights to experience the immense darkness of it all.
The cave contained a few creates as well, from spider and crabs…
Watch where you step!
To hundreds of bats!
Only one of us had a bat phobia but she was very brave!
One of the most thrilling parts of the cave was that we had to go through waste deep water at times, it was so refreshing and spooky!
This part was spooky and exciting!
Then we had to climb down steep cliffs using ropes and dive into even deeper water, we actually had to swim through this part! It was quite scary but so much fun.
We had to do a bit of swimming!
Learning how the limestone formations were slowly created over tens of thousands of years (or more) really makes you realize how amazing the beauty around you truly is.
Incredible limestone formations
Interesting hue!
Eventually we made it through the cave, glowing from the experience. We road back to smiley’s with smiles on our faces! (man this blog is cheesy sometimes haha 
)
It’s amazing how in our modern world, with all the different forms of entertainment and all the technology we have that one of the most fun experiences in my life came from something completely natural that has existed for millenniums. It seems a little backwards that in order to have the fun exciting experience of camping or spending time in nature we have to get away from all the things we created. We have to remove all the mess of modern life to enjoy what has always existed. If you’ve been stuck in the city for most of your life I highly encourage you to go camp out in nature for a while, sit around a campfire, go skinny dipping at night, throw a Frisbee by the lake, you might be surprised by how refreshing and enjoyable the experience is.
That night we headed back for our first big awesome themed party as a group. It was a hippy party! So we all rocked some awesome costumes.
My friend Tim had the best costume
We met up with the other Free and Easy group who dressed up as space people for the party! It turns out Hippies and Space people love to drink and have an amazing time together!
Can Hippies and Robots get along!?
Yes they can!
We had an amazing buffet then played a bunch of awesome drinking games like flip cup and beer pong, and of course people did the robot.
Their antennas let them communicate telepathically
Error, too much awesomeness
My group got together and took one of my favorite pictures of all time! What a phenomenal night!!
This photo will warm my heart for the rest of my life
Needless to say I got a pretty drunk that night. Somehow throughout the night I lost my dreads, and my sunglasses and ended up puking over the balcony railing… pretty drunk.
"Give me your beer!"
"Cheers! hey where are my sunglasses?"
It was an incredible day and awesome night. To this day my blue hippy pants is my favorite wardrobe item.
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