Route 12

There's nothing better than being woken up by a beautiful girl jumping into bed with you with a fresh cup of hot coffee on a Sunday morning. I was exhausted from my journey the previous day, but the coffee helped. If I had my way, we would never have left the room that day, and for a little while at least, I got my wish.

It was almost afternoon as I hit the shower and got dressed. We stopped off for brunch at a local restaurant and discussed the plans for the day. We decided to drive out to a temple called Wat Pha Sorn Kaew. We filled up the tank, cranked up a Slash cd, and hit the open road.

We took Route 12, heading west, stopping off at a farm stall across from a waterfall on the Khek river, on the edge of the Thung Salaeng Luang National Park. We walked down to the river, the riverbank dotted with Thai families hiding from the sun in the shade or under umbrellas. I still find it odd that everyone wears shirts when they go swimming. I remember in Pattaya you could see who was from the North by the fact that they would not remove their oversized swimming shirts and swimming trunks, while the Southerners and locals showed off their bodies in tight bikinis.

We took a walk over the rocks as made our way to the waterfall. It was quite low apparently, but still bigger than the other so called "waterfalls" I had seen in Thailand before, which usually amounted to a trickle of water running into a pond. We watched for a little while, a man trying to fish in rock pond where fish had likely been trapped when the waterfall was stronger, before we made our way back to the car, and back onto Route 12.

Singing along as we sailed across the curved highways, I got to see a part of Thailand I had not seen before - the lush jungle on either side of the highway, dotted with farmlands from time to time, open pastures rolling over hills. I began to feel at peace - the last time I saw so much green was on St. Patrick's Day.

Nature called, so we stopped off at a touristy spot called Route 12 (after the highway), which was an Americana themed roadside stop, complete with cowboy hats and corndogs, blasting Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Elvis - the smell of french fries hanging in the air... This was an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise.

After some unfortunate confusion caused by me walking into the wrong bathroom stall, we sat on the scenic overlook, having a drink and a smoke. It was peaceful and relaxing, when we weren't dodging out of the frame as people were taking photos around us. I slotted five baht into the jukebox and asked her to pick a song. She selected Knife, by Rockwell. We had our last cigarette sitting outside the ice cream shop with the jukebox blaring, a tender moment, as crowds of people shuffled past us oblivious to all else but the rain that was starting to slowly patter down.