Pasawan falls: A day to remember

When living in Thailand, I would spend my weekends exploring. Sometimes with friends but often I would choose to travel alone, in solitude. Doing so gives you the benefit of doing whatever you want, whenever. 

It was the weekend before Christmas. I was homesick. I had friends in Thailand that became like family to me, but around the holidays there is something that has always made me long to be home.

I decided to travel to a waterfall that a friend I was teaching with talked about often and camp there for the night. He warned me that the road wasn’t easy (literally). He gave me directions and I set off early the next morning. 

Two hours I spent on my motorbike, twisting and turning through small villages, rice fields and mountains, listening to Neil Young back when he was still on Spotify-Old man was a favorite son at the time and I must have listened to it 10 times on that ride. Eventually I got to the dirt road I was warned about and noticed It was closer to a continuous mud pit than a road. Multiple spots 30 to 40 meters long that if you went down the middle you would be stuck in knee high mud and if you went too close to the sides you were right into the brush of the dense tropical rainforest. Not to mention sections of extreme incline and decline where if you lost your momentum or worse; your brakes, things could go south quickly.

It resembled some sort of motocross course to be done with proper equipment, that which my 125 cc honda didn’t exactly meet. Nonetheless, after a 5 mile, 1.5 hour journey I had made it down the road and arrived at the “camp ground” of Pasawan Falls. 

At the time, something I was enjoying a bit to cavalryly in my young 20-something naivety; was climbing waterfalls, and I did just that through all 7 tiers of falls until the top. It was a magical climb, one that took me about an hour over some tough and at times sketchy walls. That weekend there were only about 20 other visitors to the falls and so as I climbed up, I saw noone-as typically folks will walk on the boardwalks or trails alongside the waterfalls. I shared the pools that were at the top with a handful of other folks. The sun broke through the canopy on the rock face that created the final falls so that scrambling up just 5 or so meters I was sitting in a stream of running water down my back as the sun warmed me on the front side. Where the pool dropped down to the next level, it looked like our own little infinity pool, one that would just need a caution sign. 

Upon return to the small campground at the bottom I set up my hammock and net; my bed for the night. I had slept in a hammock many times before, but the bug net was a great addition before heading out to Thailand… I noticed a large gathering next door- reminding me once again the longing I had not only to be home but just to be sharing that time of year with others.

I was in my hammock reading as night fell when a Thai child approached and asked in his English, which he was rightfully very proud of, if I was hungry. I was.

He invited me to their gathering. They were serving Pad KraPow on rice, not only one of my favorite thai dishes but one that after a day of adventure was just what my body needed. Although I could hardly communicate with any of them, our love for food and the outdoors along with lots of smiling, laughing, broken storytelling and perhaps a few cold Leo’s, brought us together. As the night progressed I found out these families spend the holidays every year together traveling the country and camping. After spending most of the evening with the young boy, teaching each other our native languages, I stayed up late into the night with the parents; sitting around the fire I remember thinking to myself how lucky I was to have come across this great group of people and how there was really no other place i’d rather be. 

I really meant that. I may not have been with the people I love most for the holidays that year but I got to share something with strangers who opened their arms to me and showed me such genuine kindness.

I came back to Pasawan falls with friends a few months later and had an equally special experience on the falls themselves, but no celebration after. 

Though that first time visiting the falls, that evening, that moment in time, will be close to my heart forever.