Khao Yai Weekend Away, Thailand

Sorry for the delay in up-dating the blog… I decided it was time for a break from the computer (and the city) and went away for the weekend. As my news years attempt to spend a few days in Khao Yai went pete tong, I decided to return but this time made sure I had a room reserved!

I rented a Honda Civic around 2pm on Friday, went back to work, gave the staff the rest of the day off before setting off up the highway 2 to Khao Yai.

When we arrived, we checked into the Kirimaya Hotel and got a DVD from room service (The Godfather - great film!) followed by chilling out on this super comfy couch on the balcony:

The next morning we had a great breakfast:

…before heading off to Khao Yai national Park - It’s one of the largest, and is the oldest national park in Thailand. The park has several winding roads (which are fun to drive around) leading to several camp sites and water falls. Here are some pics from inside the park:

After a few hours driving around, seeing monkeys, taking shit loads of photos, stopping of a waterfalls, we were getting hungry! Next stop, a roadside restaurant for some lunch:

A whole BBQ’d chicken, sticky rice and very spicy Papaya salad… true Issan style!

We then headed back to the hotel for a swim and chilled out in the Jacuzzi gazing up at the mountains… It’s a different world to the hustle of Bangkok… I was in heaven!
We then visited 2 vine yards producing Thai wine - I’ve never tried Thai wine before but luckily the first one, Grandmonte, had free tasteings! After reading the broucher, I learnt that grapes used for wine are traditionally grown between 30^th and 50^th parallels however Thailand has started in the 14^th to 18^th Parallels - I’m not sure what this means other than the wines I tasted were lacking in “body”. Anyway, after buying some grapes that had just been pulled of the vine, a bottle of red (for cooking) and some yummy red wine jam, we visited a lovely garden with a very nice lake:

*You can’t see us but we are sitting on that ledge eating our grapes while holding hands telling each other “luk khun mark na” hahaha - Very romantic.

On the way back from the Vine yard, we come across a house that stuck out like a sore thumb in the Thai countryside:

Isn’t is just beautiful? Full of charector… typical Italian style. It’s a mixture of a restaurant, ice cream parlor and gift shop… I couldn’t help but think that would make a great house for my family in a few years down the road

During the evening we visited one of the hotel restaurants called T-Grill which overlooks the golf course - truly stunning - I’ll follow this post with the restaurant review

Overall it was a great weekend away and is the first weekend away I did not take my laptop with me - A line in the movie The Godfather I really liked went something like this: “A man that don’t spend time with his family, is not a real man” It made me smile as over the last 5/6 months I’ve not had a lot of time for my girlfriend, but here we were spending some quality time with each other.