Finley Family: Lake tour

On wednesday we did an all day trip into the national park. We started by taking a small boat tour around Chieow Laan lake. It started to sprinkle a little but it was gorgeous. When the rain started, our driver stripped down to his whitey tighties. Luckily we all had our nice rain jackets so we didn't feel the need to take off all our clothes.

After the tour we went kayaking on our own for a bit, and jumped off a sketchy make-shift diving board that was surprisingly sturdy. Following that, we went to a floating restaurant on the lake. We had the best meal. There was a huge fish with lots of teeth, and several types of mixed veggie dishes. Christy and I told them we were vegetarians so we didn't have to eat the scary looking fish. They also served us fresh pineapple and watermelon. Delicious.

After lunch it started pouring. That didn't stop us though. We continued on with our 3.5 hour hike into the jungle. Our guide told us "is ok" when we passed the sign that said "do not enter when raining: dangerous." The rain forest was amazing. We saw beautiful trees and really interesting creatures. The most interesting were the leeches. Every once in a while we had to do a "leech check." I only got 2 but I think Stephen had 6. They didn't hurt, they were just kind of gross.

The trek was amazing but it did get kind of scary. We had to cross the river several times and the water was really high (about to our chest). Christy almost got swept away once but luckily she grabbed Ben in time. He has a huge bruise on his arm from it. We went a couple hours to a waterfall and then back. The hard part was climbing in the huge wet rocks in the rain.

Overall, the whole day was really great. It was definitely an experience we will never forget.