A Sunrise Hike

Despite our exhaustion from the previous day's climb, we were up well before dawn.

My alarm went off at 4:30, and I had time to chug a can of coffee I had bought at one of the camp's on-site shops the night before. It was cold - around 40F. I bundled up as best as I could. Of course, I don't really have any cold-weather clothes in Thailand, but I had a thin hoodie and a knit beanie cap, which kept me warm enough.

We were joining a morning walk to a sunrise viewpoint, and we had to meet at the campsite's visitor's center at 5am. The trail to the viewpoint is closed off, and you have to go with a ranger because of the wild elephants that live at the top of Phu Kradeung.

Shivering, about fifty of us set off down the 2km trail to an eastern cliff where we all sat down and waited for the first pink glow of dawn to appear in the sky.

I had carried two additional cans of coffee, and Karl and I drank them as we waited for the sun to rise. It was a cold, clear morning, and we could see the lights of the village down below. With luck, we hoped, we would be able to see the sea of fog - an otherworldly cloud inversion phenomenon that you can sometimes see up in the mountains of Thailand!

Slowly, the village began to be obscured by cloud. We watched as the fog formed below up, and slowly began rolling up the slopes of the mountain.

But the sea of fog turned into a tsunami. It didn't stop at the mountain's slopes but continued to rise until we found ourselves standing inside a cold, humid cloud. The view was, unfortunately, not so impressive, and the sunrise itself was completely obscured.

Oh well!

We set off back to camp, ready for some breakfast at one of the local restaurants.

Karl and I, lost in conversation, realized that we had taken a different route back to the campsite. We had just been following the people ahead of us and realized that we had arrived at a bare rocky area with a small Buddhist shrine.

It was a really nice surprise, because I had no idea that this shrine was even there! We took some photos, then continued on back to camp, ready for another full day of adventure.