Khao Sok, Thailand – November 29-30, 2010
I am now on my Intrepid tour and I’m going to start with and call this blog Khao Sok even though Khao Sok started on day 3. Day 1 was just the arrival day for everyone to gather in Bangkok. Day 2 was a free partial day in Bangkok and then we moved on to our new destination. There isn’t much to say about those first two days. Day 1 I stayed at the Sheraton and relaxed, which was good since I wasn’t feeling very well and had to stay near the bathroom. They weren’t busy so a 5 p.m. checkout was okay. Whew! Day 2 the rest of the group went off to see the things I had already seen in Bangkok so I took it easy and just went for a walk around our hotel area where there are lots of outdoor markets and small streets between the canals. Our hotel was right on one of the canals and I didn’t even know it until I went for my walk.
On the evening of day 1 we had our first tour group meeting. There are ten of us on this tour with one couple and eight singles, five males and five females. There are four in their early twenties, two or maybe four in their forties, one (me) or maybe three in their fifties, and one in his sixties or seventies. Four are from Britain, two from Holland, two from Switzerland, one from the US and one from Canada (guess who). With all the diversity it’s quite an interesting group and very different than my other tours. The first Globus group was mainly teachers, the second group was a lot of doctors and this one is a total mix with 40% being students or recent grads. I am definitely not on a 4 or 5 star trip with Intrepid. I am now sharing with a lovely young lady named Nadine who is from Switzerland and in the 7th month of her travels and heading home in December. She is very easy to get along with. Our hotels are definitely not hostels but they are also not what I’ve been accustomed to. However, it’s only for two weeks so I’m sure I can rough it for that long (although I did just go to the front desk here in Krabi where I’m writing this and pay the extra for air conditioning so I’m obviously not quite ready for really roughing it!)
Okay, back to the tour. Late on the afternoon of day 2 we took taxis to the train station and boarded an overnight train for Suratthani. It was a 12 hour trip. The train left almost exactly on time and we arrived just a few minutes late so I was quite impressed after all the stories I’d heard about Thai railways. The sleeping compartments were not what any of us had expected. When we first got on the train there were two seats facing each other on each side of the train in each compartment and probably about ten compartments the length of the car. However there was nothing other than a wall as wide as the seats to separate the compartments. A table could go between our seats so we could have our dinner if we wanted to order something. Nadine and I ordered the same thing and it was delicious. There is no dining car on the train but obviously a kitchen somewhere and the waiters and waitresses run up and down the train continually taking and delivering orders. Others also try selling things but we’d been warned about them. They are just local people who buy pop and snacks in bulk and then try to sell them at a higher price on the train. The train prices were fine so we stuck with them. I have to say that it is no small feat just walking up and down the aisles as they are very narrow, so carrying food and drinks is really a challenge. They stopped wandering the aisles about 11 p.m. and started again at 5 a.m., which was way too early in my opinion but I guess some people got off before us.
Anyway, after dinner they come around and make up the beds. The two bottom seats slide together and an upper bunk comes down from the ceiling. Each bed has a one to two inch mattress, which is stored in the upper bunk when it’s up. The sheets and pillows and blankets are also stored there and they make up the entire bed for you. They were done this process by 9:30 so with no seats to sit on any longer everyone just goes to bed, listens to music, reads or sleeps. We each had curtains to pull beside our bed and it was a pretty slick process with only one glitch. The cars are not air conditioned. They are fan cooled and the fans are on the ceiling in the aisle. If you closed your curtain totally you got no air whatsoever. We had our windows wide open earlier which provide a nice breeze (and a lot of noise). When they made the beds they closed the windows and pulled down shades. After a while with the curtains closed your little cubicle got very warm. I was on the lower bunk so I had my curtain hanging by about one of every three hooks and it was very easy to do this. That provided both some privacy and some cooler air from the fans. Most of the people up top couldn’t do that so had to leave one or both ends of their curtain open. I guess I should have said there were two glitches. The second one was that the lights in the aisles stayed on all night and they were very bright. Opening your curtains definitely let a lot of light in. Anyway we did all manage to catch a few hours sleep and it was an interesting experience. You have to realize that even at night it’s still hot here. It might cool down to 80 degrees but it’s still humid and feels a lot hotter. Air is a good thing. Cool air is better.
We got off the train in Suratthani and had breakfast at a local restaurant right across from the train station. It probably held about 30 people at most on plastic chairs inside and out and it was full by 7 a.m. mainly with tourists. After breakfast we boarded our sangtaew for our 2.5 hour trip to Khao Sok. Now a trip by sangtaew might sound exotic but let me tell you it’s nothing more than a pickup truck with two rows of wooden benches in the back. We pile our luggage in first and then ourselves and it was a hard, uncomfortable, windy ride to our destination. Luckily we didn’t have a torrential rain pour on the way. Anyway we made it around lunch time, had our group meeting and lunch and people headed off in various directions. I decided to go for a walk in the park instead of doing anything organized. In retrospect I should have gone tubing because I was so hot and wet I might as well have been in the water. I had no problem skipping the elephant rides though as I had already done that.
The park is beautiful and it is really an inland rain forest that they call a jungle. It is very green and thick with vegetation, especially lots of bamboo. There are also lots of rivers and streams and waterfalls. It was one of the waterfalls I headed off to see. It was 4 km up the path and I had several hours to kill so that sounded like a plan. And there was a 2 km view point as well so that was a bonus. An hour later I reached the 2 km point. Most of the path had been up but there was a lot of down just to make some more up. Some of it was climbing very good cement stairs. Some of it was just a path and some of it was climbing dirt stairs – very uneven and sometimes unstable. And of course, because it’s a rainforest in a very humid area, everything was wet and covered with leaves and very slippery. And just to make matters worse as I reached the 2 km point two things happened. One, there was a torrential downpour for about 15 minutes but luckily there was a small kiosk at that point so I had shelter and didn’t get too wet. I also had time to contemplate whether I should go any further or just head back. I decided not to go further. Now I could have gone back the way I’d come or crossed over the river and gone down a different route. I wasn’t really looking forward to going down what I’d just climbed up so I decided to cross the bridge. That’s when the second deciding factor came into play. There was a lovely suspension bridge that looked reasonably stable and it had a big red arrow pointing up or ahead so I knew I was going in the right direction. However, when I got closer I realized the bright red arrow had a black circle around it and a black line through it, which to me meant don’t go this way or don’t cross. So I turned around headed back down the way I had climbed up and made it without any problems except for getting rather wet as it continued to rain lightly. It stopped raining as I got to the road again so I decided to go down to one of the resorts where the monkeys are supposed to come out to play around 5 p.m. There weren’t any monkeys in the river but there were a lot of humans making a lot of noise so I decided no self-respecting monkey would join such noisy characters and I continued back to the hotel.
We had dinner at the hotel and in fact all our meals. The restaurant and lounge were all raised, open air wooden, thatched-roofed huts so it was a very nice setting. We were supposed to go for a night safari but because of the rain and how slippery it was we postponed it until the next night. I think we were all just glad to get some sleep after our train sleep of the night before. Our rooms are bungalows – very small but acceptable if you remember to step over the suitcases when you try to get to the bathroom. We have mosquito nets over our beds, which we used but luckily we never had a problem in our room. Others seem to have more problems. The roof overhangs on all sides so the windows are left wide open all the times. The sounds of the night are quite amazing and provided nice music to go to sleep by but particularly to wake up to. The only concern for me was the heat and humidity. Without air conditioning I just couldn’t get dried off, nor could my clothes. I am definitely more of a desert person than a rainforest person although I must admit that their flowers are absolutely wonderful. The gardens are full of orchids and lilies and birds of paradise and dozens of other things I can’t even name. Every drink, even just a simple orange juice, comes with several flowers adorning the top of the glass. That part of the tropics is very enjoyable.
On the 30th most of us decided to take the Rajjaprapa Lake tour (spelled Rachabrapha in another spot so who knows). We drove about an hour to get to the dam by the same name. We boarded a longtail boat and took a one hour trip to one of the raft houses. The lake was formed in 1980 when the damn was built and the area flooded slowly (10 years) by natural rain water and streams. The lake and some area around it were included in Khao Sok National Park – the one I went walking in earlier. Khao Sok National Park is over 700 square kilometers. This inland rainforest is over 160 million years old and is the oldest in the world. Two neighbouring parks put the protected area at over 4,000 square kilometers. The karst landscape (I hope karst really is a word!) was formed when India pushed into Asia 66 million years ago forcing the limestone upwards. With the flooding of the lake, many of the hills or karst formations became islands and it is beautiful to ride through the lake admiring the many cliff faces and caves and landscapes that suddenly rise straight out of the water. I should also note that the scenery all around Khao Sok is beautiful with these same hills or mountains rising everywhere in wonderful shapes and colours. Unlike China’s Three Gorges Dam where over 2 million people had to be relocated, only about 600 people lived in the area flooded by the Rajjaprapa Damn. They were relocated and given different land. On a side note, one of our guides told us that the government had to flood the area because there were too many communist rebels in the area and the government was trying to get them out as this is a strategic part for the country (narrowest part? middle part? dividing line between north and south?) The damn now supplies hydro for all of Southern Thailand and for some surrounding countries. Not only people had to be relocated. As islands appeared in the lake, the people had to go in and rescue animals and relocate them as well. And apparently after the lake was full they went in and logged the trees that were under the water. Once cut the trees floated to the top and they were pulled by tug to a pier and trucked to a mill. I thought that was rather ingenious, cutting after it was flooded, although I can’t imagine how you cut a tree under water.
Anyway, the boat trip was great except that these long boats are as noisy as any I’ve seen so it was a noisy trip. We docked at a raft village, one of about 10 on the lake. Everything at it was floating and anchored together and to the shore. There was the central restaurant / lounge / reception area which was two large pontoons with thatched roofs. Behind it there were several other buildings which I assume were the kitchen and then about 10 houses that I assumed were for staff. To the left there was a pathway and about 12 small thatched cottages. To the right there was another pathway and about 20 newer cottages and another restaurant area. The washrooms were at each end of the pathways. One of these was floating and much easier to reach. The other was up on land but the path was wobbly planks suspended on both sides from poles. The cottages were basic. The older ones were simply one room with mattresses on the floor. The newer ones had beds and perhaps a table between them. All of them were on their own floating platform and joined by floating plank walkways to the main floating walkways. It would have been a very interesting place to stay overnight. Most people who were staying came in around noon, had lunch, went swimming or kayaking at the village, or took a long-tail boat to another dock where you could climb up a hill and back down to get to another lake and take a raft trip to a cave. Other than these activities and enjoying the scenery there really wasn’t much to do. However, it still seemed like it would be a neat thing to try at least once. Our group had lunch at the raft village and then some went off to climb the hill and tour the cave. With all the rain they stressed that it could be very slippery so I, and others, stayed behind and relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. The group that went said they had a good time but so did we. And it rained several times while they were out so we were certainly drier. About 4 p.m. we took our longtail boat back to the damn pier and headed back to the hotel.
I should comment here on how green and beautiful every landscape is as you drive along the road. Palm trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, coconut palms, flowering trees, etc. are all prevalent. It is obviously very fertile soil and they seem to make use of all the land. With the hills/mountains in the background it is a very beautiful sight to see. And all along there are little stores and local markets with people selling fruit and vegetables and cooked food of many varieties. We went into one local market and it was very busy. The most unusual thing I saw was one person cutting a pig’s head. It was no easy task and it was being taken quite seriously. They don’t waste a lot over here in Asia. When they kill a chicken or pig or almost anything, they literally eat it all while we tend to throw away a lot at the butcher’s table and at our own table. I had fried rice with shrimp the other night and the shrimp was all mixed into the rice but the tails were still attached. I ended up picking up each piece separately and setting the tail aside as garbage but apparently that was not the expected behaviour. They just eat the whole shrimp tail and all. The same is true for much larger prawns as well and tour members have since tried eating them and say they taste just fine. I guess that’s something for you to try the next time you have shrimp or prawns.
One of the items that is very important in the local economy is rubber. There are many rubber tree forests and they are laid out in perfectly aligned and evenly spaced rows. Each one has a gash or slice in it with a half circle bowl below so the bowl can collect the rubber sap that drips from the gash. Individual farmers harvest the rubber and make it into one of two forms: white balls or black mats, both of which they sell along the side of the road. The mats are more expensive because there is more work involved with them. For the balls they just keep rolling the sap as it comes from the tree and solidifies. Thus there is not a lot of work or materials needed in the process. The rubber mats on the other hand are harder to produce and I don’t actually know the process used for them. I just know they sell for as much as 3 times as much.
On the second night two of us and our tour guide joined the park guide for a night safari in the national park. It was quite interesting and took about 2.5 hours. One of the interesting things was how hot and humid it could be from 8 to 10 in the forest/jungle. Of course I was totally covered so no critters or barbed vines could attack me. During the day one of our group ended up with a few leeches on him and that didn’t really sound all that enjoyable. I had my head lamp on and under the brim of my hat thinking I was going to mainly be watching where I was walking and only looking up in the trees when things were spotted. However, I changed that arrangement quickly when I discovered just how many bugs could be drawn to the light and trapped under the brim of my hat and directly in front of my eyes. Even if I did stumble a bit more in the darker pathway, it was much more enjoyable when the light was above the brim. We saw some civet cats off in the trees and that was our main excitement for the evening. We saw a green snake coiled up in a tree. It looked quite small and harmless but is apparently quite dangerous. We saw lots of butterflies and spiders and bats moving or sitting still but there didn’t seem to be much else out when we were there. They do have wild elephants in the park but not often in the area we were in which is so close to town. They also have lots of monkeys but I guess they were elsewhere. We had a brief stop at one point, I think just so the park guide could have a smoke. I turned off my lamp at that point and it was amazing just how dark it was even with three other people nearby with headlamps on. I’m glad I had the light and I’m glad I wasn’t alone.
We got back to the hotel shortly after 10 p.m. and when I got back to the cottage Nadine was still awake. The two of us read until after midnight and then decided we should finally get to sleep. The next morning it was pouring rain and beautiful to listen to but we had to pack to leave. Two days was not near enough in the area to see everything that should have been seen and yet two days in the heat and high humidity was probably all I could have handled. I’m hoping our next stop is a bit cooler. Even if the temperature isn’t cooler at least there should be some water to cool off in as we’re headed to Krabi and the coast.
I am now on my Intrepid tour and I’m going to start with and call this blog Khao Sok even though Khao Sok started on day 3. Day 1 was just the arrival day for everyone to gather in Bangkok. Day 2 was a free partial day in Bangkok and then we moved on to our new destination. There isn’t much to say about those first two days. Day 1 I stayed at the Sheraton and relaxed, which was good since I wasn’t feeling very well and had to stay near the bathroom. They weren’t busy so a 5 p.m. checkout was okay. Whew! Day 2 the rest of the group went off to see the things I had already seen in Bangkok so I took it easy and just went for a walk around our hotel area where there are lots of outdoor markets and small streets between the canals. Our hotel was right on one of the canals and I didn’t even know it until I went for my walk.
On the evening of day 1 we had our first tour group meeting. There are ten of us on this tour with one couple and eight singles, five males and five females. There are four in their early twenties, two or maybe four in their forties, one (me) or maybe three in their fifties, and one in his sixties or seventies. Four are from Britain, two from Holland, two from Switzerland, one from the US and one from Canada (guess who). With all the diversity it’s quite an interesting group and very different than my other tours. The first Globus group was mainly teachers, the second group was a lot of doctors and this one is a total mix with 40% being students or recent grads. I am definitely not on a 4 or 5 star trip with Intrepid. I am now sharing with a lovely young lady named Nadine who is from Switzerland and in the 7th month of her travels and heading home in December. She is very easy to get along with. Our hotels are definitely not hostels but they are also not what I’ve been accustomed to. However, it’s only for two weeks so I’m sure I can rough it for that long (although I did just go to the front desk here in Krabi where I’m writing this and pay the extra for air conditioning so I’m obviously not quite ready for really roughing it!)
Okay, back to the tour. Late on the afternoon of day 2 we took taxis to the train station and boarded an overnight train for Suratthani. It was a 12 hour trip. The train left almost exactly on time and we arrived just a few minutes late so I was quite impressed after all the stories I’d heard about Thai railways. The sleeping compartments were not what any of us had expected. When we first got on the train there were two seats facing each other on each side of the train in each compartment and probably about ten compartments the length of the car. However there was nothing other than a wall as wide as the seats to separate the compartments. A table could go between our seats so we could have our dinner if we wanted to order something. Nadine and I ordered the same thing and it was delicious. There is no dining car on the train but obviously a kitchen somewhere and the waiters and waitresses run up and down the train continually taking and delivering orders. Others also try selling things but we’d been warned about them. They are just local people who buy pop and snacks in bulk and then try to sell them at a higher price on the train. The train prices were fine so we stuck with them. I have to say that it is no small feat just walking up and down the aisles as they are very narrow, so carrying food and drinks is really a challenge. They stopped wandering the aisles about 11 p.m. and started again at 5 a.m., which was way too early in my opinion but I guess some people got off before us.
Anyway, after dinner they come around and make up the beds. The two bottom seats slide together and an upper bunk comes down from the ceiling. Each bed has a one to two inch mattress, which is stored in the upper bunk when it’s up. The sheets and pillows and blankets are also stored there and they make up the entire bed for you. They were done this process by 9:30 so with no seats to sit on any longer everyone just goes to bed, listens to music, reads or sleeps. We each had curtains to pull beside our bed and it was a pretty slick process with only one glitch. The cars are not air conditioned. They are fan cooled and the fans are on the ceiling in the aisle. If you closed your curtain totally you got no air whatsoever. We had our windows wide open earlier which provide a nice breeze (and a lot of noise). When they made the beds they closed the windows and pulled down shades. After a while with the curtains closed your little cubicle got very warm. I was on the lower bunk so I had my curtain hanging by about one of every three hooks and it was very easy to do this. That provided both some privacy and some cooler air from the fans. Most of the people up top couldn’t do that so had to leave one or both ends of their curtain open. I guess I should have said there were two glitches. The second one was that the lights in the aisles stayed on all night and they were very bright. Opening your curtains definitely let a lot of light in. Anyway we did all manage to catch a few hours sleep and it was an interesting experience. You have to realize that even at night it’s still hot here. It might cool down to 80 degrees but it’s still humid and feels a lot hotter. Air is a good thing. Cool air is better.
We got off the train in Suratthani and had breakfast at a local restaurant right across from the train station. It probably held about 30 people at most on plastic chairs inside and out and it was full by 7 a.m. mainly with tourists. After breakfast we boarded our sangtaew for our 2.5 hour trip to Khao Sok. Now a trip by sangtaew might sound exotic but let me tell you it’s nothing more than a pickup truck with two rows of wooden benches in the back. We pile our luggage in first and then ourselves and it was a hard, uncomfortable, windy ride to our destination. Luckily we didn’t have a torrential rain pour on the way. Anyway we made it around lunch time, had our group meeting and lunch and people headed off in various directions. I decided to go for a walk in the park instead of doing anything organized. In retrospect I should have gone tubing because I was so hot and wet I might as well have been in the water. I had no problem skipping the elephant rides though as I had already done that.
The park is beautiful and it is really an inland rain forest that they call a jungle. It is very green and thick with vegetation, especially lots of bamboo. There are also lots of rivers and streams and waterfalls. It was one of the waterfalls I headed off to see. It was 4 km up the path and I had several hours to kill so that sounded like a plan. And there was a 2 km view point as well so that was a bonus. An hour later I reached the 2 km point. Most of the path had been up but there was a lot of down just to make some more up. Some of it was climbing very good cement stairs. Some of it was just a path and some of it was climbing dirt stairs – very uneven and sometimes unstable. And of course, because it’s a rainforest in a very humid area, everything was wet and covered with leaves and very slippery. And just to make matters worse as I reached the 2 km point two things happened. One, there was a torrential downpour for about 15 minutes but luckily there was a small kiosk at that point so I had shelter and didn’t get too wet. I also had time to contemplate whether I should go any further or just head back. I decided not to go further. Now I could have gone back the way I’d come or crossed over the river and gone down a different route. I wasn’t really looking forward to going down what I’d just climbed up so I decided to cross the bridge. That’s when the second deciding factor came into play. There was a lovely suspension bridge that looked reasonably stable and it had a big red arrow pointing up or ahead so I knew I was going in the right direction. However, when I got closer I realized the bright red arrow had a black circle around it and a black line through it, which to me meant don’t go this way or don’t cross. So I turned around headed back down the way I had climbed up and made it without any problems except for getting rather wet as it continued to rain lightly. It stopped raining as I got to the road again so I decided to go down to one of the resorts where the monkeys are supposed to come out to play around 5 p.m. There weren’t any monkeys in the river but there were a lot of humans making a lot of noise so I decided no self-respecting monkey would join such noisy characters and I continued back to the hotel.
We had dinner at the hotel and in fact all our meals. The restaurant and lounge were all raised, open air wooden, thatched-roofed huts so it was a very nice setting. We were supposed to go for a night safari but because of the rain and how slippery it was we postponed it until the next night. I think we were all just glad to get some sleep after our train sleep of the night before. Our rooms are bungalows – very small but acceptable if you remember to step over the suitcases when you try to get to the bathroom. We have mosquito nets over our beds, which we used but luckily we never had a problem in our room. Others seem to have more problems. The roof overhangs on all sides so the windows are left wide open all the times. The sounds of the night are quite amazing and provided nice music to go to sleep by but particularly to wake up to. The only concern for me was the heat and humidity. Without air conditioning I just couldn’t get dried off, nor could my clothes. I am definitely more of a desert person than a rainforest person although I must admit that their flowers are absolutely wonderful. The gardens are full of orchids and lilies and birds of paradise and dozens of other things I can’t even name. Every drink, even just a simple orange juice, comes with several flowers adorning the top of the glass. That part of the tropics is very enjoyable.
On the 30th most of us decided to take the Rajjaprapa Lake tour (spelled Rachabrapha in another spot so who knows). We drove about an hour to get to the dam by the same name. We boarded a longtail boat and took a one hour trip to one of the raft houses. The lake was formed in 1980 when the damn was built and the area flooded slowly (10 years) by natural rain water and streams. The lake and some area around it were included in Khao Sok National Park – the one I went walking in earlier. Khao Sok National Park is over 700 square kilometers. This inland rainforest is over 160 million years old and is the oldest in the world. Two neighbouring parks put the protected area at over 4,000 square kilometers. The karst landscape (I hope karst really is a word!) was formed when India pushed into Asia 66 million years ago forcing the limestone upwards. With the flooding of the lake, many of the hills or karst formations became islands and it is beautiful to ride through the lake admiring the many cliff faces and caves and landscapes that suddenly rise straight out of the water. I should also note that the scenery all around Khao Sok is beautiful with these same hills or mountains rising everywhere in wonderful shapes and colours. Unlike China’s Three Gorges Dam where over 2 million people had to be relocated, only about 600 people lived in the area flooded by the Rajjaprapa Damn. They were relocated and given different land. On a side note, one of our guides told us that the government had to flood the area because there were too many communist rebels in the area and the government was trying to get them out as this is a strategic part for the country (narrowest part? middle part? dividing line between north and south?) The damn now supplies hydro for all of Southern Thailand and for some surrounding countries. Not only people had to be relocated. As islands appeared in the lake, the people had to go in and rescue animals and relocate them as well. And apparently after the lake was full they went in and logged the trees that were under the water. Once cut the trees floated to the top and they were pulled by tug to a pier and trucked to a mill. I thought that was rather ingenious, cutting after it was flooded, although I can’t imagine how you cut a tree under water.
Anyway, the boat trip was great except that these long boats are as noisy as any I’ve seen so it was a noisy trip. We docked at a raft village, one of about 10 on the lake. Everything at it was floating and anchored together and to the shore. There was the central restaurant / lounge / reception area which was two large pontoons with thatched roofs. Behind it there were several other buildings which I assume were the kitchen and then about 10 houses that I assumed were for staff. To the left there was a pathway and about 12 small thatched cottages. To the right there was another pathway and about 20 newer cottages and another restaurant area. The washrooms were at each end of the pathways. One of these was floating and much easier to reach. The other was up on land but the path was wobbly planks suspended on both sides from poles. The cottages were basic. The older ones were simply one room with mattresses on the floor. The newer ones had beds and perhaps a table between them. All of them were on their own floating platform and joined by floating plank walkways to the main floating walkways. It would have been a very interesting place to stay overnight. Most people who were staying came in around noon, had lunch, went swimming or kayaking at the village, or took a long-tail boat to another dock where you could climb up a hill and back down to get to another lake and take a raft trip to a cave. Other than these activities and enjoying the scenery there really wasn’t much to do. However, it still seemed like it would be a neat thing to try at least once. Our group had lunch at the raft village and then some went off to climb the hill and tour the cave. With all the rain they stressed that it could be very slippery so I, and others, stayed behind and relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. The group that went said they had a good time but so did we. And it rained several times while they were out so we were certainly drier. About 4 p.m. we took our longtail boat back to the damn pier and headed back to the hotel.
I should comment here on how green and beautiful every landscape is as you drive along the road. Palm trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, coconut palms, flowering trees, etc. are all prevalent. It is obviously very fertile soil and they seem to make use of all the land. With the hills/mountains in the background it is a very beautiful sight to see. And all along there are little stores and local markets with people selling fruit and vegetables and cooked food of many varieties. We went into one local market and it was very busy. The most unusual thing I saw was one person cutting a pig’s head. It was no easy task and it was being taken quite seriously. They don’t waste a lot over here in Asia. When they kill a chicken or pig or almost anything, they literally eat it all while we tend to throw away a lot at the butcher’s table and at our own table. I had fried rice with shrimp the other night and the shrimp was all mixed into the rice but the tails were still attached. I ended up picking up each piece separately and setting the tail aside as garbage but apparently that was not the expected behaviour. They just eat the whole shrimp tail and all. The same is true for much larger prawns as well and tour members have since tried eating them and say they taste just fine. I guess that’s something for you to try the next time you have shrimp or prawns.
One of the items that is very important in the local economy is rubber. There are many rubber tree forests and they are laid out in perfectly aligned and evenly spaced rows. Each one has a gash or slice in it with a half circle bowl below so the bowl can collect the rubber sap that drips from the gash. Individual farmers harvest the rubber and make it into one of two forms: white balls or black mats, both of which they sell along the side of the road. The mats are more expensive because there is more work involved with them. For the balls they just keep rolling the sap as it comes from the tree and solidifies. Thus there is not a lot of work or materials needed in the process. The rubber mats on the other hand are harder to produce and I don’t actually know the process used for them. I just know they sell for as much as 3 times as much.
On the second night two of us and our tour guide joined the park guide for a night safari in the national park. It was quite interesting and took about 2.5 hours. One of the interesting things was how hot and humid it could be from 8 to 10 in the forest/jungle. Of course I was totally covered so no critters or barbed vines could attack me. During the day one of our group ended up with a few leeches on him and that didn’t really sound all that enjoyable. I had my head lamp on and under the brim of my hat thinking I was going to mainly be watching where I was walking and only looking up in the trees when things were spotted. However, I changed that arrangement quickly when I discovered just how many bugs could be drawn to the light and trapped under the brim of my hat and directly in front of my eyes. Even if I did stumble a bit more in the darker pathway, it was much more enjoyable when the light was above the brim. We saw some civet cats off in the trees and that was our main excitement for the evening. We saw a green snake coiled up in a tree. It looked quite small and harmless but is apparently quite dangerous. We saw lots of butterflies and spiders and bats moving or sitting still but there didn’t seem to be much else out when we were there. They do have wild elephants in the park but not often in the area we were in which is so close to town. They also have lots of monkeys but I guess they were elsewhere. We had a brief stop at one point, I think just so the park guide could have a smoke. I turned off my lamp at that point and it was amazing just how dark it was even with three other people nearby with headlamps on. I’m glad I had the light and I’m glad I wasn’t alone.
We got back to the hotel shortly after 10 p.m. and when I got back to the cottage Nadine was still awake. The two of us read until after midnight and then decided we should finally get to sleep. The next morning it was pouring rain and beautiful to listen to but we had to pack to leave. Two days was not near enough in the area to see everything that should have been seen and yet two days in the heat and high humidity was probably all I could have handled. I’m hoping our next stop is a bit cooler. Even if the temperature isn’t cooler at least there should be some water to cool off in as we’re headed to Krabi and the coast.
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 3:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home