Day 1
Our trip to the #7 Best National Park in the world (according to U.S. News rankings) started with a journey on a 12-hour overnight train from Bangkok to Surat Thani, then a two-hour van ride from there to the park. The best part of this long travel day was seeing the sunrise from the train car. 
After checking into our hostel in the town next to the park and recovering from the journey, we grabbed some lunch at a riverside restaurant. The restaurant had swings overlooking the river, so of course, we had to swing! Rested and fed and ready to move, we ventured into the national park.
We hiked up a trail marked with signs to “beware of elephants” and “don’t feed the monkeys.” To get to the waterfall we were trekking to, we crossed this lovely little stream. Finally, we got to the swimming spot, put our belongings on the rocks (remember this detail for later), and went swimming. A few of us wandered up the trail to find another waterfall and swam some more, but as we walked back to the first spot, our friend Meg came frantically running up to us, yelling about monkeys! 
We hurried back to the rocks where we left our bags, and sure enough, about 15 monkeys had raided our camp. They rifled through our bags, took out cash, grabbed my bag, and brought it up to a tree branch to pick through! Eventually, we got all our things back but learned a valuable lesson: don’t mess with monkeys. Snapped a quick pic of the culprits after recovering my stolen phone & bag!Day 2
Our second day, we took a longboat tour through the lake of the national park. The lake itself is man-made: the result of flooding the park and building a dam for power generation. As a result, there are mountains sticking straight out of the water, creating beautiful scenery unlike anything I had seen before.
We saw a lot of other boats out on the water, probably because the weather was perfect! Our tour included a cave tour, lunch at floating bungalows, and a short hike around one of the mountains to see the native plants and trees.
We found this dreamy natural pool on our hike.Day 3
Our last day, we rented motorbikes (and helmets—don’t worry, mom!) and drove along the road through the mountains. We went through some small towns, stopping at a few overlooks and a waterfall along the way.
This overlook had a view of mountains that reminded me of the Blue Ridge Mountains in my home state of North Carolina – it’s funny how there are similarities between places that are so far apart.Stella Domec, William & Mary, is studying abroad in Bangkok, Thailand, with TEAN.
