We set out for Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park with our guide. We were going to hike to a cave with a temple inside it. The hiker icon on the map above shows the location.

Our car stopped at a small port, and we transferred to a boat to take us around a point. Then we started on the trail up to the cave.

It turns out our guide has hiked the trail many, many times and is in great shape. The trail climbs 450 meters we were told.

About half way up the mountain, there is a small rest area with a view of the sea.

After hitting the trail again, we came to the top and started down into Phraya Nakhon Cave. It isn’t an easy place to take a photograph, with really bright light and shadows.

This is the temple in a better light for the camera.

We avoided poisonous spiders and skin–irritating plants and worked our way back down to the beach for lunch. We rented beach chairs to enjoy the view.

Then it was back to Hua Hin. Our hotel was right next to the beach, so we walked along the beach for a short stretch. The sea had no wave action, and the beach isn’t all that wide by our hotel. We can report it is a very popular beach! TripAdvisor provided this picture.

The next day we set out in a four wheel drive car for Kaeng Krachan National Park. Our goal was to see wildlife on a hike, and see swimming monkeys. The park is shown by the swimmer on the map.

Yesterday we visited Thailand’s smallest national park, and today, the largest.

The trail moved across a number of creeks.

We saw monkeys up in trees, but it was impossible to get a decent photo of one. Until this one. This is a dusky langur.

After lunch, we got on a small boat and motored out to an island where a different species of monkey lives. These are long-tailed macaque, also known as crab-eating macaque. Our guide tossed bananas to them, and some went in for a swim to get them. The one on the left has already been in the reservoir.

Here, one monkey goes in the water for a banana.

The next morning, we headed back to Bangkok. About half way back, we got off the highways and looked around the city of Phetchaburi, the purple pin.

Our first stop was Wat Maha That Worawihan, which was built, probably, in the fourteenth century.

This is what one of the gold–leaf rubbed statues looks like, up close.

The exterior of this large temple has a lot of decoration.

Lots of detail!

The center consists of high towers.

Our next stop was another cave, Tham Khao Luang. This one had the same type of monkey we saw swimming after bananas. They are quite aggressive, and our guide took care not to get us too close to them. We waited a while to get past this one. But it still knocked off one of our hats.

Out in the parking lot, monkeys are out looking for cars with open windows. There is a cafe in the lot that rents plush crocodile toys, which can be put on the roof of a car to ward off the monkeys.

We made it past the monkeys and down into Khao Luang Cave.

Our last stop was at Khao Wang, where we toured the Phra Nakhon Khiri, a summer palace of King Rama IV (built about 1860). To reach it, one can walk up a steep hill and fend off monkeys, or take a funicular. We took the funicular.

After the visit to the summer palace, we got back into our van and headed for Bangkok’s airport hotel and an early morning flight to Hong Kong.

However, there were protests going on in the country, and roads were blocked in places. We got to see a bit of the country as our driver worked his way up the peninsula on back roads.

In the morning, we’re off to a hotel at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, and then an early morning flight to Hong Kong, transferring to a flight to San Francisco. The distance was 7,975 miles and took about 16.5 hours, much faster than flying west.

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