One Day at Crater Lake

A few weeks ago boyfriend and I had a common weekend (or, rather, he took a Sunday off work and I took a Monday off work so that we could have a few days together before the end of the summer).  He was doing the Bridge Pedal with his parents in the morning, but we decided to leave that afternoon and drive five hours to Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States and ninth deepest in the world.  The lake was formed when a super volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted hundreds of years ago, forming a huge crater at a high altitude (around 8,000 feet).  The crater was then filled with rainwater.

On the drive down we tried to stop at the Lava River Caves, a local sight just outside Bend, Oregon.  But, because of my luck, we missed the open hours by twenty minutes, a feat we also managed to do on the way home.

We continued on toward the lake, and learned upon reaching the entrance to the park that all the campsites within the park were taken.  We turned around and drove back toward Diamond Lake, where we found space in a fire camp, a campground used by firefighters who were fighting a nearby forest fire.  Try not to feel guilty roasting smores over a fire when all those guys come back late at night.  You can’t.  You feel guilty.  It’s okay, just eat another smore, it’ll make everything better.

We woke up early on Monday morning and packed up the campsite, then drove straight to Crater Lake.  We started at the top and went all the way around the lake, stopping at every sight we could.  The first thing you hit from the north is the Pumice Desert, a large expanse of pumice stone without many plants or wildlife.  The pumice is all a beautiful shade of orange, with an occasionally scrubby bush.

Continuing on, there is a hike called the Watchmen.  The hike was only a mile each way, but it was a little bit rough because of the altitude.  The top of the hike is around 8900 feet.  We hiked as best we could, but we had to take a lot of breaks because the thinning air was making it hard to breathe.  When we reached the top, however, the entire lake was down below us, spread out beautifully.  

The smoke from the wildfire made the morning air a bit hazy, but it cleared up as time passed.  We hiked back down to the car and drove to Rim Village, hoping to find a good map at the information center.  However each “information center” was actually just a little shop.

From there we headed down to Mazama Village, the largest campground inside the park, to get some gas.  The pump was a bit old-timey and looked like it was from the 1950s.  We continued along East Rim Drive and stopped at Vidae Falls, a small, pretty waterfall right at the edge of the main road around the lake.  

Then we kept going and stopped at Sun Notch, which had multiple spots to view the lake through the trees around the edge of the rim.  We could see where the rock and water met, and could witness the rock changing in color from orange to yellow to turquoise to blue under the water.  

A few of the spots had a better view of the Phantom Shipwreck than the Phantom Shipwreck overlook.  

That was our next stop after Sun Notch, but you could skip the overlook and take your pictures of the Phatom Shipwreck (a rock formation that looks like an old ship coming in to dock at the edge of the lake) from Sun Notch.

The best stops, in my opinion, were yet to come.  The next stop, the Pinnacles, were located at the southeast corner of the park.  The cliffs there are all formed of sandstone, and the Pinnacles are a rock formation created by wind erosion.  The rocks stick up from the side of the cliffs.  

They were pretty interesting and cool, considering that they were essentially just rocks. 

My favorite spot in all of Crater Lake was Plaikni Falls.  We had to walk along a flat path around half a mile before we reached a waterfall cascading over the edge of the grey rock cliff that was coating in moss, making its way over a small rock and driftwood coated creek dappled with wildflowers.  


It looked like it was straight out of Middle Earth, and I say this being in NO WAY a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  We put our hands into the stream just to find that the water was freezing cold, predictably.  It was a beautiful waterfall, small, but gorgeous.

The last two stops were the Pumice castle, a formation of pumice jutting out the side of the hill, forming an orange castle-like rock structure.  

After we snapped a few pictures we drove a little further to the base of Mount Scott, where we stopped at a little picnic spot to eat lunch.  The Mount Scott hike was too strenuous a climb for the amount of time and energy we had left.  On the way out of the park we passed Cleetwood Cove, the only spot along the lake where you can get down to the edge of the water.  

Again, the hike was a little beyond our abilities at that moment.  Besides, it was a little bit too cold of a day to want to go swimming in a freezing mountain lake.  Ideally, we would have spent a few days camping there and seen more of the sights and done a few more hikes.  Maybe another time.  Although we did choose a good time to go, as a few days later more wildfires had broken out and a campfire ban went into place.

All in all, Crater Lake was beautiful.  I would highly recommend going, particularly if you have enough time to camp out and hike multiple trails.  It’s one of the best spots I’ve seen in Oregon.

The So-Called Last Frontier: Phun in the Philippines

I only got to take one long trip during my latest sojourn to Korea, and it was during the summer of 2014.  Most of my friends were couples, and they all wanted to go to Thailand, where I have been enough times that I didn’t care enough to force myself along on a trip as a third wheel. 

So I planned to take a trip by myself.

There were (and are) several countries in Asia where I hadn’t yet travelled, so I looked to those places to find a destination.  Almost immediately I settled on the Philippines, but didn’t know where in the country I wanted to travel.  I researched Manila, Palawan, Cebu, and Coron.  I finally settled on traveling to Palawan, a large island that is less developed than other, more tourist friendly beaches.  I chose the beach El Nido, dubbed “The Last Frontier” by National Geographic, a beach a few hours from Puerto Princesa (the airport on Palawan).  Upon informing my parents of the coming trip, my mom told me she had some reservations about me traveling alone, but I told her I’d be doing it no matter how she felt about it.  In response, she called me a few weeks later and told me she’d booked herself on my same flights, and would be spending the week in El Nido with me, followed by a week in Korea.

So to Puerto Princesa we went.  The trip there was pleasant enough, but then there was the five-hour van ride to contend with.  It was, no exaggeration, the single worst car trip of my life.  Many of the roads were shoddily paved or not paved at all, and the rains of the season had rendered some of them just this side of useless.  We drove over plank bridges above creeks and through mud and stones on uneven roads for about half the trip.  To be fair, the roads were all being improved, and the ride may be considerably smoother now, and would definitely be smoother during the drier seasons.

Speaking of drier seasons, our trip did not occur during one of them.  There had been beautiful weather before our arrival and more beautiful weather was predicted upon our departure, but the week we were there featured near-constant rain.  In fact, there was a typhoon while we were there.  


Getting to our hotel required using the local version of taxis, which looked like nothing so much as large mechanized beetles.  

They featured a large covered sidecar attached to a motorbike, with both drivers and passengers covered by metal sheeting, a curtain over the door openings and a covered-ish space for suitcases in the back.  Two could fit on the bench next to the driver, and sometimes there was another seat facing backwards at the front, though that was always more squished than one would generally like.  The driver’s name (or the taxi’s name, it wasn’t clear) was emblazoned on the windshield in large, colorful letters.  One was called “Queen Blythe” while the one parked next to it was “Three Brothers.”  

They rarely moved at a pace above 5 km/hour, and going up hills was a crap shoot- it seemed like they were going to stall while shifting gears, and there was always an infinite moment while they shifted, a seeming suspension of time, where we had no idea if the bikes would keep chugging forward or if they would backslide into old habits at the bottom of the hill.

Our hotel was on one of these hills, and on multiple days, at multiple times the stairs up to our room were turned into a stream by the excess rainwater.  We almost felt like salmon attempting to spawn each time we headed toward our room.

The hotel was fairly nice though, and we met a few girls who were also traveling from Korea, with whom we went on a few excursions and day trips.  They were nice and were pretty comfortable and easy to be around, which was great.

We initially met the two of them when we booked the same tour, a common package in that area creatively named Package A: Lagoons and Beaches.  We went to the aptly named Big Lagoon and Small Lagoon, as well as the Secret Lagoon.  The day wasn’t all lagoons, however.  There was also Shimizu Island and Seven Commandos Beach.  The beaches were great, and when we stopped at Shimizu Island for lunch, we also got to go snorkeling.  We saw large blue starfish, a large variety of coral, and several different kinds of fish. After we were done our guides had made an incredible lunch, featuring fresh watermelon, yellow melon that looked like watermelon, pineapple, and mango, plus fried fish with a delicious sauce on the side, a calamari salad, and vegetables.  

It was a huge amount of food for just the five of us (there was also a very interesting Spanish woman on the trip) and our guides, but everything was delicious. 

The lagoons were the real event.  The Big Lagoon had several sections, where the rocks would narrow and then reopen into a new area, surrounded by limestone cliffs covered in all kinds of beautiful flora.  The water was incredible, warm and turquoise, darker blue where it was deeper and colder the farther we got from the open sea.  It was raining slightly, and as we floated calmly on the water, the gentle patter of the rain was dulled into a calming music in our underwater ears.  There was a cave at the end of the lagoon that was full of very cold water and just barely fit the five of us and one of our guides perfectly.  It was relaxing and wonderful. I stabbed my foot on some coral as I jumped out of the boat going toward the Small Lagoon, but it was dead coral, so although I bled a lot, there was no danger of illness.  The Small Lagoon and Secret Lagoon were also great, with the same limestone cliffs and beautiful water.  I would recommend that day trip to anyone traveling in the area. (Unfortunately, the pictures from this day were either bad or impossible to take- it was raining the whole day with no cover and we were spending most of it swimming)

The next day we hadn’t booked anything, but we talked to the girls and we agreed to take two bug-mobiles to a local beach that was supposed to be good, as the weather was predicted to be drier. 

On the way our drivers stopped on the side of the road and asked if we wanted to go to a hot springs.  The answer to that question is always yes, but we did not know what we were in for.  

We had to wade through waist deep water into a rice paddy, where we walked along a muddy ridge past a large, wild water buffalo toward a forest.  Once in the forest, we discovered there wasn’t so much a forest floor as a swamp.  I stepped only where the guide stepped and fared well, though everyone else fell in at some point or another.  When my mom’s foot slipped into the water her other stayed on dry-ish land, but she caught a branch right in between her legs.  As the guides hauled her up she loudly announced “Well, I’m not a virgin anymore!” at which the other two girls laughed and I rolled my eyes.  After about twenty minutes of hiking through the rice paddy and jungle swamp we arrived at the hot springs: a muddy puddle of water with a stream coming out, both of which featured water far too hot to touch for more than a few seconds.  So we looked at it.  And then turned around and went back.

It doesn’t sound good, and it probably wasn’t that good, but it was just the kind of off-the-beaten-path pseudo adventure that I can get behind, so I liked it.

From there we headed to the beach where we got cheap food and smoothies, including a delicious avocado smoothie.  

We ran into some other girls from Korea who were traveling together, and whom the girls we knew had already met a few times, including on their van trip from the airport.  We all sat together in a hut and swam together when the sun was out, laying in the sand and praying for a tan that wouldn’t come.  

We had such a good time with them that we all decided to book another tour together for the next day.

We wanted to do Tour C: Hidden Beaches and Shrines, which featured the Secret Beach that was on my list of things to do, but the wind was too strong and that tour wasn’t running.  Instead we did Tour B: Caves and Coves.  In the boat I could see why they weren’t running the tours that went further away; the water was very choppy.  

We went snorkeling at Pangalusian Island and Pinagbuyutan Island, and also swimming in the shallower areas.  Both beaches were covered in white sand and were beautiful.  


From there we headed to Snake Island, which was great.  We walked along a long sandbar where the water varied in depth from ankle deep to waist deep, and ran into a mangrove grove at the other side, then turned around and went back to Snake Island.  There was a hill there, so we climbed to the top to check out the view.  It was spectacular.

I stood on the bluff without my camera (these photos are from one of the girls), gazing at the view stretched out below me.  I was almost shockingly in the moment, a borderline off-putting feeling in this digital age of concentrating on how the photo will turn out or what someone you barely like just posted on Facebook.  It hadn’t been my favorite stop of the day, or even my favorite day tour.  Still, the sky blue (for once) above me and the turquoise water below was stunning.  I watched the line of people snaking along the sand bar that gave the island its name.  They trudged diligently through crotch deep water, their feet raking over rocks in the sand, ankles occasionally tangled in seaweed.  They moved slowly, inexorably toward the golden sands at the end of the snake’s tail, knowing, a I had when I began the same journey not thirty minutes before, that once they reached them there would be nothing to do but turn back.

On the way back we saw caves out the side of the boat, and even went into Cadugnon Cave, which was pretty cool.  You had to slide on your stomach through a small opening, and at the other end you dropped into knee-deep water which grew more and more shallow until you reached a sand strip at the other side of the cave.  You could climb up between a few rocks and get deeper into the cave, and even climb down into a few holes without too much difficulty.  

We passed Cathedral Cave past that, and could only look from the side of the boat because the water was too choppy to go closer.  It still looked pretty cool, even from a distance.

Our last stop was unscheduled because we had saved time at Cathedral Cave, and we just stopped at a small strip of sand that our boat driver knew.  We swam a lot and just talked, and then sun came out, burning us all on our last day.

I wish the weather had been better so we would have been able to adventure more on other days, but it was too wet to do more than travel to the local market or check out a nearby art shop.  The trip was still fantastic.

When we got back to Korea we were pretty tired, so mom stayed at my place the next day when I went to work.  The next day, however, she came to work with me for the whole day, and did the same for two days after that.  Most of the time she just stayed at home with my kitten, Cheeseburger Deluxe, and watched movies on my computer.  Not knowing the culture or language, or how to get around the city effectively, she was a little too nervous to leave my apartment without me, so I made sure that we had little mini-adventures on the weekend and when I got off work (though those consisted mostly of just eating too-spicy dinners at local restaurants). 

All in all, the whole thing was wonderful, and I’m really glad my mom came along for the ride.  She’s always been better at turning strangers into friends than I am, as is evidenced by us making six new friends together, and me not speaking to anyone at all for two days when I went to Japan alone.  We are how we are, I guess.

Tiger Snuggles and Elephant Trekking

Toward the end of my time living in Thailand my parents called and invited themselves to visit during my mom’s Spring Break.  I finished my contract at the end of March, but ended up staying a few weeks in April waiting for them.  The first week two of my friends from Thailand and I went on a trip to Koh Chang and just relaxed the entire time.  The second week I was alone, but it was nice to have some extra time.

The third week they arrived.  They got in late Saturday night, so clearly I took them out early Sunday morning to adventure around Bangkok.  Our first stop was the only essential stop in Bangkok: the Grand Palace.  The day was extremely hot, as tends to happen in Bangkok, particularly during the hot, wet season (clearly).  The palace was, as usual, spectacular.  I’ve written about it previously.  Mom and Dad were both duly impressed.  That evening I took them out to eat at one of my favorite sit-down restaurants in Bangkok, called Cabbages and Condoms.  The restaurant is a charity to help spread awareness about STDs like AIDS and protection to sex workers.  Apparently Thailand has an extremely high AIDS rate, and the restaurant’s owners are trying to help cut it down.  Not only is it a noble cause, but also the food is great.  I always get the Masuman Curry because DELICIOUS.

Late that night we jumped on an overnight train to Chiang Mai, a jungle city up in the north of the country.  The train takes fourteen hours, so taking it overnight is the best call.  My mom complained a lot about sleeping on the train, and even my dad admitted that it was difficult for people their age.  However, for someone young it worked pretty well.  I slept decently, all things considered.  The train there had compartments with four beds, bunk style, the bottom bunks of which we used as couches to play cards with the fourth person in our room, a British guy traveling to meet his girlfriend.  Later on we fell asleep (at least I did, though they both had a harder time) and when we woke up we were almost to Chiang Mai.  We climbed down and ate breakfast, and when we were done we had arrived.

My parents had booked a hotel in Chiang Mai, which I am trying to remember and am drawing a blank on.  Not just the name, but also literally anything about the place except that it was pretty nice.  Anyway, first thing I booked a tour to go elephant trekking.  We didn’t have a lot of time in Chiang Mai (only a week in the country and I wanted to take them to at least one beach as well) so I wanted to make sure we got the important stuff taken care of.  That afternoon we adventured about and went to the Chiang Mai Zoo, where I had never been.  They had pandas, which I hate but have to admit were pretty cool.  Side note: people may be asking, “How can you hate a panda?”  Easily.  I can quite easily hate a panda.  They are carnivores that are too lazy to hunt and opt instead to eat only one plant whose nutritional value is such that they have to eat it all day to survive, to the extent that the planet is running out of that plant.  In addition, they refuse to propagate their own species.  If they weren’t cute we would have let them die a long time ago.  Get it together or get lost dudes, seriously.  The cooler part of the zoo (for me) was that we got to feed the giraffes.  At my local zoo in Portland the giraffes are down low and you view them from above, much higher than they can reach.  At the Chiang Mai zoo you stand on ground level with them, with just a small but deep moat between them and the chest-high fence.  They would lean over the fence and you could feed them bananas by hand.  Their tongues are black.  Black, you guys.

The elephant tour was the next day.  We stopped first at an orchid garden and butterfly farm, which had pretty flowers and a cool gift shop, but was otherwise skip-able.  If it weren’t part of the tour we would have left a lot sooner.  Then we went straight to the elephant place.  We went through Jumbo Trekkers because I had used them before, they are the most affordable, and the extra activities after riding elephants were good.  The place I went this time was different than the place I had gone in the past.

The first time I went was with my roommate, and we had a great time, until the end when a truck came rumbling up the elephant path and backfired, scaring the shit out of my young male elephant.  He ran (in so much as elephants can run, which is to say he lightly jogged) down the hill and then tried (repeatedly) to scrape me off on a tree, finally rearing into the air when I remained on his back (it was too far to jump or I would have obliged him).  Then when we went to bathe him he slammed his trunk into our guide, throwing him about five feet against the riverbank.  Still, they took him away and we washed my roommate’s elephant, and spent time with her because she was mellower, and all in all it was a good experience.  It’s not their fault my elephant got mad.

This time was even better.  We had two elephants to split between the three of us, and we learned all the commands to tell them how to go forward, backward, stop, and turn.  We also learned how to tell them we had food for them.  Then we rode them through the forest, giving them commands on our own while our guides took photos of us with our cameras and with their own.  Along the path a man from a nearby village tossed me a bag of chopped up pineapple rinds to feed my elephant, and she really liked them.  The path ended at the river where we climbing in and washed them off, the elephants occasionally showering us with their trunks.  We rode back to the start and ate a homemade lunch prepared for us by the staff.  There was good curry and sweet and sour chicken, which is a favorite of mine (the way Thais do it).  It was a great morning.

Next we went white water rafting down a river, which was entertaining.  The rapids weren’t very intense and large portions of the river were mostly just floating, but it was nice.  At the end we got out of the boats and onto a bamboo raft, where a man took us down the now calm river using a long pole, gondola style.  It was relaxing and easy.  At the end was a little shop where we bought bottles of water and popsicles to help us cool down.

For the end of our trip we hiked up into the jungle.  It was just a young couple, our guide, and us.  As we hiked my mom and the guide talked about the local flora, much of which mom grows here at home, only in pots.  The hike wasn’t too long, and it ended at a small waterfall that fed a pool, with a stream trickling gently out the other side.  We stripped down to our swim gear and climbed into the refreshingly cold mountain water.  It was a great way to end the tour.

We only had one more day in Chiang Mai, so we looked up different things we wanted to see.  We went to the Chiang Mai palace, which wasn’t that impressive, and through much of the old Chiang Mai.  Then we decided to go to the Tiger Kingdom.

I’ve done tigers in Thailand before and it was depressing, so I wasn’t very excited about this part of the trip, but I was willing to keep an open mind.  The Tiger Temple I’d gone to in the past was a Buddhist temple turned tourist trap where the tigers were obviously drugged to the point of lethargy.  Their excuse was that cats sleep most of the day, but even my housecat would react if I slapped her in the face to wake her up (which I saw them do to one tiger, which barely reacted). 

This place was different.  It was set up as a place for tourists to go, and planned accordingly.  All the tigers there had been raised by hand from the time they were cubs, and were extremely accustomed to people because of it.  Some websites claim these tigers are also drugged, but it didn’t seem that way to me.  My mom and I both went to play with the baby tigers, and one of them was extremely playful with my mom.  However, the moment he got too physical one of the workers jumped in and calmed him down, saying it helped keep them more docile and better trained when they were older.  We fed them with a bottle, and played with babies ranging in age from three months to eight months.  After that they are moved to another area with tigers their own age and size.  Then my mom went to the big tigers.  I didn’t have enough money, so I just watched her.  It was her, the tigers, and about five guys taking pictures and keeping an eye on the tigers.  With one of the large males my mom started to rub his belly, because the guide said his fur might be less coarse there.  The tiger immediately rolled over onto his back in ecstasy, pinning my mom’s legs to the ground.  But he was happy, so she was happy.  It was great.

On our way back into the city we stopped at an area where you can visit local tribes.  This was another example of a place that had once perhaps been real, but had turned into a tourist trap.  It was interesting to see all the different clothing worn by the different tribes, and the women who wore rings around their necks, wrists, and ankles to make them longer and thinner were interesting.  However, the entire way up the women were sitting on their front porches, which they had turned into shops.  There were all sorts of trinkets you could buy.  My mom loved it, but we were out of cash so we couldn’t buy anything.  It also just seemed a little awkward, going to gawk at these women and then giving them money and taking little things we didn’t need just to make ourselves feel better about it.  I didn’t enjoy it.

We took the train back to Bangkok that night, and this time the set-up was different.  It was more like a regular train car, with seats that converted into full-blown beds at night.  I liked it, but not as much as having a compartment.  My parents didn’t appreciate it at all.

The next morning we got up early and hustled across town to catch a mini-bus to a ferry so we could go to Koh Samet.  Koh Samet is a little bit lesser-known island that near Bangkok, only a three hour bus and a short ferry ride away.  There isn’t much to do on the island, so it’s often frequented more by locals and English teachers than tourists, though some do go.  The beaches are all white sand, with hotel restaurants right there on the beach.  Our hotel wasn’t the nicest by my parents’ standards, but I was fine with it.  We went in the ocean and applied sunscreen a thousand times and still got burned and the water was too warm so it wasn’t refreshing but it was still fun.  Did you like that run on?  I did.  We ate good food and watched a fire show on the beach, then slept in late, took a quick dip in the morning, changed, and took a speedboat back to the bus to Bangkok.  When going to Koh Samet one small pointer: take the speedboat, not the ferry.  The ferry is very, very slow and there is no regular schedule, they just wait until it is completely full of goods and people.  There is no fresh water on the island so they have to bring it in from the mainland, and they take a while to fill the boat.  The one time I took the ferry I had to wait over an hour before it was full enough to leave.  Just take a speedboat for like, $10 more.

We got back to my apartment that night and crashed, then they woke up early and flew home.  I finished packing and flew back the next day.  It was a great, though admittedly hectic, trip.  I just figured that with only a week it was better to be exhausted and do a lot than to sleep the time away and only see a few things.

I’d rather be busy than boring.