The water's warm. It always is in Thailand, it seems. At least so far in my journey. It is today as we slide down the rock with one of the waterfalls flowing over it.

The trip from Kanchanaburi was into the mountains . The 2 lane roads lined with trees look like many such roads in Arkansas and Texas. Don't look at the signs that are now only in Thai (cities often have Thai and English versions) and don't pay attention to driving on the wrong side of the road, and you could think you were in America.

Riding along on the opposite side of the road is still strange to me. Everytime we round a curve and I see a car on the other side of the road my heart skips a beat. Then I remind myself in this country we are on the side we should be on and are not about to have a head-on collision.

We follow the curving scenic river on our 1 hour trip. We pass a dam and see boat houses along the way. It's a nice ride on the mini-bus and the hour soon passes.

Erawan National Park is about an hour's drive from Kanchanaburi, which is west of Bangkok. Keep going and you would reach the border of Myanmar.

We have come to the park for it's most popular attraction . A trek of one and a quarter miles that leads through some beautiful mountain scenery and passes 7 waterfalls.

Thailand's Erawan National Park is named for the highest of the waterfalls within its boundary, which is said to resemble the mythical three-headed elephant, Erawan.

The hike crosses over bridges and forces you to climb over rocks. I stop often to take photos of the beautiful scenes. As we hike there are trees where gifts to Buddha have been placed.

At the second waterfall you have to go through a check-in point. You can not take any food further up the trail. Also, if you have water you have to pay a 20 bath security fee and have your bottle marked. When you return from the trail to this point and show the bottle, your 20 baht is returned. This is to control littering the forest.

Many of the waterfalls have good swimming at the base . My favorite is waterfall number 4. It has a large rock to slide down into the warm water. The clear water allows you to see the fish swimming around with you. Some are large and the small ones nibble at your skin.

I met David and Clara from Belgium today, and we hike and swim together off and on through the day. The are genuine people and we have a good time talking about our travels.

We all went swimming, then David and I climbed to play on the rock slide for awhile. It's tricky getting to the top of the slide but it is fun coming down and splashing in the warm water. We do this for a while and later I leave to finish the hike to waterfall number 7.

I enjoy hiking and don't want to miss any of it. The hike is challenging in some places when you need to climb over rocks. I wish my nephew, Nathan, (9) was here doing it with me. I went biking and climbing with him over the summer and he just never gives up, no matter how hard it is for him. He would have a blast here!

For lunch I enjoy Pad Thai with chicken (my favorite Thia food so far) and a fruit plate. Note: Some here spell this Phad Thai and others Pad Thai. Anyway, it is so good.

Kanachanburi is 150 miles from Bangkok. The hectic pace of life in that city is replaced with a mix of WW II history, nature such as waterfalls, forests and caves. I still have so much to see and do in this charming little Thai town.

This has been a fun morning. I love this nature stuff.

We started around 8 a.m. and finished the hike at noon, ready for Pad Thai!