Last thursday was mother's day in thailand, which I suppose is a bigger deal here than in the US as they get a day off for it. Actually, since it fell on a thursday (the queen of Thailand's birthday) the government decided to declare Friday a holiday as well to give everyone a four day weekend. So some other volunteers, Kale, Ryan, Melissa and I headed to Khon Kaen to meet up, and found a bus the next day to Nam Nao National Park in Petchabun province, which we had heard good things about. Here we are starting our hike into the forest. The forest is very different here, lots of tall grass with pine forests in places but best of all, far less leeches. We saw 2 the entire time we were there.
We set up camp at this viewpoint that looked across Nam Nao National Park to the East. Off on the other edge there are rolling agricultural lands with actually more corn than anything else. Rice does not grow very well on the side of a hill as it turns out. Anyway, it was a pretty epic spot to hang up my hammock. I could easily see out underneath the tarp at to the view. 
Here is Melissa cutting some vegetables at sunset. We cooked pasta with fresh cut vegetables and some spices in it, which was pretty good considering that the pasta got way over cooked and turned into a kind of mush.After that and some Hong Thong (cheap Thai whiskey) we went to bed.
It rained a little overnight and we woke up in a misty jungle. It was even a little bit chilly (by which I mean probably down to 70 degrees.) We packed up our camp and hiked around the forest for a little while, before we decided that the area of the national park we were in was too small to spend the next night in. We found out that there was a cave kind of near by, and the people at the ranger station said we would have no problem hitching there. On our way out we ran into a group of students planting trees for mother's day. They were really excited about meeting farangs (non-thais) that spoke english, and one of the teachers in charge had worked with a Peace Corps volunteer three years before. We helped plant the trees, and the teacher offered to give us a ride to a main intersection near the park so that we could easily hitch a ride to the cave. When we got to the intersection, a truck that had been behind us pulled off the road to pick up some snacks from a little outdoor shop on the side. These people were in fact driving right past the cave which was 60km away up a curvy road. They let us load up into the back of their truck and then before leaving, bought us several bags of chip and some drinks for the ride. They were really nice, and even went into the park to see the cave with us when we got there.
At the park we were met by a ranger who showed us into the cave and around. He also showed us where we could camp, a nice open spot down in the forest just away from the cave and next to where a clear cool watered stream poured straight out of the side of the mountain. We asked the ranger if there were any hiking trails in the area, and he offered to take us to another cave that was a 3km hike away. He seemed really excited to meet people that weren't just coming to the cave to see it for 15 minutes then load up and drive away, which seems to be the typical Thai style of visiting National Parks. Actually its fairly typical of many Americans as well I suppose. We walked off through a beautiful jungle up a slippery muddy trail to a large open cave that climbed up into the side of the mountain. 
We returned to camp at around 4 in the afternoon. After a snack, we were curious about the stream that flowed straight out of the rock, and decided to see if we could follow it into a cave. Sure enough, after ducking under some boulders a fairly large limestone passage opened up with the clear blue water running through it. We waded and even swam a little bit up the passage. My new camera has some issues taking pictures when its dark out, or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it well yet.
It was often pretty awkward hiking up the stream as the bottom was incredibly inconsistent, but the water was two deep to see to the bottom in the dark.
It was probably even more awkward for Melissa as she decided to where her Pasin in. A Pasin is a long tube of cloth that women in Thailand use as a towel, for bathing, or sometimes as a skirt.
The stream eventually opened up into a larger room and stopped. I am not entirely sure what happened at this point. Perhaps the water from the stream seeped in from the walls in this room and long corridor before it. Or, it also seemed that the water may have gone under the rock at this point and come from in front of us where the rock overhung the water. However, we could not really see well under the water, and didn't really feel like blindly swimming under a rock in the middle of a cave. The room at the end did make for some kind of fun climbing, although the rock was kind of sharp and broke a lot, the water was seven or eight feet deep, so it didn't matter if the rock broke off and I fell backwards back in. And yes, I have an absurd tan line. Its generally inappropriate to walk around with your shirt off in Thailand, so I'm not sure what to do about it. The next day we explored the caves some more, then made our way back to Khon Kaen, a fairly big city where we got a hotel room and went out to eat sushi and then to a club to hang out with some of Ryan's Thai friends. I'm reminded again that this was not what I expected Peace Corps to be like, but I think I'm enjoying it.
