Apparently in Thai, "waterfall" means "semi-stagnant pools of water." The climb to the top in the heat and humidity was effing ridiculous. It was just staircase after staircase up into the jungle. Of course we're guys, so there's no way we're going to stop before we get to the end. Finally we get there and there's nothing of interest and we're both exhausted. I took this picture of myself right after we got to the top--I think it captures the way we both felt:
Coincidentally this is the same way I look after five large Changs.
We saw this sign on the way up. No...tapirs? When I figure out what this animal is, I'll remind myself not to bring one.
In short, the waterfall sucks. Don't go there.
Yesterday we visited Wat Chalong, which as you might expect, is a wat in Chalong. There's a complicated Buddhist ritual you do when you go there involving all kinds of paraphernalia. This ends in a fortune-telling thing where you take a cup full of numbered sticks and shake it until one falls out. This is not as easy as it seems. Not at all. Finally after 8 tries, I got number 21 and went around the corner to get the corresponding fortune, which of course was only in Thai.
"What does it say?"
NTB's gf: "It is bad"
"Yeah, but what does it say?"
"This very bad."
"WHAT THE [censored] DOES IT SAY?!?!
And she still wouldn't tell me. Thai women are stubborn like that. After that we walked around the complex and went into some of the buildings. I tried telling NewTeaBag that it's good luck to go up to the Buddha statues and rub your feet on them, but he didn't fall for it.
A rare glimpse into Thai perception of farang. Some would call it racist, but I have a different word for it: hilarious
The strangest thing about the wat, that I didn't even realize until later, is that I didn't see one monk there. Not one. You can see monks on a daily basis everywhere else in Thailand. What do they do all day when people are visiting?
At the gift shop they sold firecrackers that you could light off at one spot on the grounds. What's more fun that lighting off firecrackers in a sealed chamber at a Buddhist temple? Lighting them off anywhere else. I bought a couple boxes and took them home with me.