Again, I find I'm almost a week behind on my posts (as this all happened last weekend). Meh, I guess it's all the same to everyone anyways right? (If you're reading this post 5 years from now, and find that the time-delay of one week really screwed with your reading experience then... you're messed up, pal).
This/That/Whatever week has been tough, and combined with the past few I needed some time away (as far away as possible while still being in Thailand) and while we didn't have time to make it to one of the islands (I STILL haven't been yet, and that bugs me) we did get to go to Rajaprapa to see the local lake made when the dam was set up. Now, at first glance that doesn't seem to interesting, I mean sure a pristine lake of clear blue water is nice but I could find that thing in the US right? WRONG! For these reasons I will list........now:
1) It's surrounded by gigantic Asian Mountains, I mean those kinda mountains you see in the final scenes of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; jutting straight up and covered in jungle growth and 90degree angles to the ground
2) You get around on a motorized bamboo raft, which at first doesn't sound special but you haven't tried it yet.
3) Caves, really cool ones.
and if that hasn't impressed (honestly, as I write it sounds a little lame to even myself) then here's the kicker:
4) You stay, eat and drink on a bar/bungalo that is floating off on the middle of the lake. Nearly everything but the toilet (which you take a ramp to a steep hill which you climb to get to) is on a raft of some kind. The house, the bar, the dock, the whatever else you can think of is floating and lashed/nailed to something floating next to it.
Yeah, it was sweet. We got there after about an hour long boat ride around those crazy mountains (pics by someone else somewhere on FB if you really gotta see) and immediately after arriving about three people dump their things at the dock/bar and just fall over the edge into the water. This started hours of swimming, kayaking and overall lounging in, on and around the water and all things that float in what can easily be described as one of the most relaxing lakes I've ever found. "I'm cold now" find the next floating thing, be it bungalo, bar, kayak or person and get on it/them. "I'm hot now" fall off back into the water. I could really get used to that.
There were partially submerged trees we climbed and jumped off of, there was many, many kayak flippings (and one sinking, leaving the guy out in the middle of the river holding on to a tree for dear life as one of us went out to save his sorry ass), great food, $1-2 beers (pretty damn expensive here, but not bad if you're reading in the US) and a few monkey sightings which took place when a bunch of us took off on another raft to go take a hike through the jungle and look at some of the caves led by a kid with a desk-lamp attached to a car-battery in a backpack.
Towards the end of the day we were all very, very relaxed and rested; dozing on the side of whatever we were floating on now (mostly the bungalos) or lazily bobbing in the nearby water. After the boatride back we all napped on the busride back to Surat (about an hour), ate and felt like the whole week's been worth it.
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