Day 5: Koh Phangan

When we went for breakfast in the morning, it was raining again, of course. Luckily, it only lasted for five minutes. However, it was completely cloudy and gloomy. We didn't know if it would start raining again at any moment. Nevertheless, we wanted to try our luck at the waterfall again.

Once we arrived there, we retraced the first section of the trail to the point where we had stopped the day before. And even then, we tried to climb as quickly as possible because the weather seemed very unpredictable. The sign said 500 m ascent. But it felt like much more to me. After about halfway, I couldn't keep up the pace anymore. I was so exhausted and still had a long way to go. At a junction, we went left up to the viewpoint and right up to the waterfall. We decided to take the longer path to the viewpoint first and then climb down to the waterfall on the way back.

When we finally arrived at the top, we were rewarded with an incredible view. Since we had left early, we were initially the only ones there and were able to take plenty of photos undisturbed. Now we had to descend back to the junction. I noticed that while the way up was more exhausting, it was also easier. Going down, I felt much more insecure and was often afraid of slipping somewhere, so I was much slower and got overtaken by everyone. Christian often showed me where to place my feet one after the other to safely make my way down.

Now came the second part - off to the waterfall. Again on unpaved paths, alternating between wet stones, tree roots, and sand. At some point, we were already quite high up and saw that the ascent seemed to be getting more difficult. So we decided to stop there and turn back. We had an incredible view of the waterfall. You could even dip your feet in the water and relax a bit before the return trip. On the way back, we took another break with a bathing stop for Christian.

Finally, when we arrived back down, we were proud of ourselves and glad that the weather held up. In total, we were on the trail for about 2.5 hours. The sun finally came out, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the hotel beach and finally take a swim in the sea.

In the evening, we visited Christian's friend and his friends in their apartment, ordered a pizza, and spent the evening relaxed together on the terrace by their own pool.