A Different Jungle Experience

Tuesday 17 October

After another sleepless night traveling on the worst train yet (even worse than the Berlin to St Petersburg express), we finally drew into Surat Thani station about 06.45. Colin had wakened me about 05.15 as he had heard two alarms bleeping their tunes, and most other people seemed to be stirring. When we heard we had more than another hour till we arrived, we settled down for a quick catnap wrapped up in our thin blankets. It had been freezing all night, particularly on the top bunks, as the air conditioning had been running full speed.

It is very difficult trying to unload luggage through the very narrow doors, barely wide enough for one person to pass through, never mind fat, overweight pink and blue cases, and trying to lift them down the steep steps of the train is a gigantic feat. But we managed with a lot of help from the other passengers. We then negotiated the car park before leaving all the cases and bags across the road, on the kerbside, outside an early morning café. The minibus would not be here to collect us until 07.30 – if we had arrived on time at 05.30 would we have been sitting on the kerbside for two hours? Not feeling like breakfast, most of us went along to the 7/11 store and bought some chocolate bars (surprisingly I have found that after all this time I quite like “Snickers” bars). A visit to the loo before we left was essential and the owner of the café kindly let us use his - another squat style, but very clean (probably the best squat loo I have used since leaving home!).

I don’t know if our moans about the standard of transport have made any difference, but a smart minibus arrived to take us to Khao Sok National Park, about an hour and a half’s drive from Surat Thani, where we would be staying in lodges! I think the five us were apprehensive about the standard of accommodation we were going to find – two more nights in “huts” would have been overkill, even for hardy Phil. But when we arrived, down a muddy rutted road, between plantations of rubber trees, banana trees and coconut palms, and lots of massage shops, we were dropped at a Reception building that resembled a tree house, overlooking a fast flowing, bluey coloured river (no silt being carried downstream here). Up some more steep steps (why do small Thai people always have tall stair risers into their buildings) where a welcoming drink of mango juice awaited us, before we were shown to our ‘lodges’. These turned out to be large wooden structures, similar but smaller than the Smile bungalow. There was a covered balcony with a smart shiny wood table, stools and a sofa style bench and a vase of spiky red flowers, to greet us. Inside was a main bedroom with a smaller single bedroom and a bathroom with a European loo (hooray), both off to one side. The shower was a cold water spray from a rose on the wall and that will test our jungle strengths later in the day. It will definitely drench all the bathroom fittings, if not us.

Having settled our belongings, we went for a wander along the river and through the trees to pass the time till lunch and to test my toes in my walking shoes – they passed I am pleased to say – only a little tender as the tops of my shoes pressed down on my feet (hopefully I will make the next trek tomorrow). When we got back, I tried to publish some pictures of our jungle experience on the blog, but after half an hour, had got no further than the opening “Google” page.

The restaurant/reception overlooks the river with steep white limestone cliffs covered in small bushes and vines – we understand that monkeys come here to play around 17.00 each day, so we will be booking our seat later. We haven’t seen lots of wild life either in the jungle up north or here, so far. Colin did spy a bee eater bird just outside our lodge, and of course there are lots of lizards and flying things. But not much else so far. Lunch was a super meal – the best we have had as part of the tour so far – with shrimp and tuna salad, and chips (did they know what I ordered yesterday?), fried noodles with vegetables, and watermelon, pineapple and bananas for desert. This was very different to the simple fare of the jungle up north and having eaten our fill, we were all feeling sleepy.

But there was no time for a rest – we were off once more in a tut-tut to find the nearby elephant camp for more trekking. When we arrived the elephants were lined up along the riverbank, looking not too pleased to see us. Their “mahouts” persuaded them to go to the loading platform and we all clambered aboard, two by two. From the start our elephant was somewhat wayward, not too happy at going the way he was being directed, as he tried to deviate from the rest of the team. The young boy in charge continually shouted orders from behind, presumably telling him to stay with the others, until we were eventually relegated to last in line. This elephant was twenty years old, the baby of the party, and his two ivory tusks had been sawn away to leave creamy stumps. At times he growled and even trumpeted at his keeper as he was kept in line. We trekked along muddy tracks, through streams and over boulders and rocks for over half an hour – which felt like hard work for us too, as well as the elephant – keeping our balance as he lumbered up and down and from side to side, in seats not well padded was quite painful on our backs. Eventually we reached a splendid waterfall, cascading into a swimming pool, but the stop time was only five minutes – enough for the elephants to catch their breath, so we all declined to go for a dip. Our “Dumbo” took great pleasure in breaking off branches along the riverbank, dipping in the water and flinging them over his head, so that we were showered with water droplets! - our fault for going for a ride! As we neared the end of the trek, a long black fly bit Colin near his ankle and drew blood! He said it was very sharp and tingled for a long time after. If he starts having fits or the heebeejeebies in the next day or so, I shall be here to save him.

We returned to the lodges just before 17.00 and camped out in a solar near the restaurant watching for monkeys and drinking a very strong “Jungle Juice Special” cocktail, with lots of rum, coconut milk, lemon juice, grenadine and pineapple juice. It wasn’t as sweet as I had expected, but it was strong! Some time later, it began to rain Koh Samui style – a drenching downpour that beat music on the river as the frogs began to croak (we saw a huge frog, about the size of a small kitten, sitting on the balcony of the restaurant, keeping his beady eyes open, watching that we didn’t invade his space). With the rain pelting down, we gave up all hope of seeing the monkeys tonight. As it eased a little after about half an hour, we made our way back to the lodge to shower before dinner.

Whilst Colin was braving the cold water, Linda knocked on our door and told us the monkeys were across the river from our balcony – and there they were, a troupe of small brown, long tailed monkeys (macaque type), gavorting and leaping in the trees on the opposite side of the river. They seemed to be having great fun, chasing and hiding from each other, playing just like children. Some were very very small, and couldn’t be more than a few days old. As darkness fell, it became too dark all too soon, making it impossible to see the monkeys any more. It was then time for my cold water shower – which proved very refreshing, even if it soaked the whole bathroom.

Dinner was another extravaganza of food – chicken and coconut soup thai style, deep fried battered prawns, mixed vegetables, yellow chicken musselman curry (means it has potatoes in) and steamed rice, followed by more large plates of fresh fruit. Every dish is presented so beautifully, decorated with fruit and flowers – it proves the adage true, you do eat with your eyes. They even brought refills for the dishes as we emptied them – and we did eat lots tonight, the food was so good. We sat around chatting while we digested our feast and then it was back to the lodge, to try and blog once more although my first job was to examine my toes. I purposely hadn’t uncovered them during the day, as I knew we would likely be in muddy conditions at some time – and I was right (elephants and rain!). When I inspected them, both toe nails seemed to be looking much better, but the area around the nails is still very inflamed and sore. Dunked them with more alcohol swabs and applied some new bandanges – not a lot more I can do at present – just see how they are by the time we get to Krabbi in a couple of days.

I think we were all suffering the effects of a sleepless night last night, and so decided to turn in early. If not successful with the blog tonight, I will try again tomorrow – I am back to ‘writing the blog at night’ mode at present.

PS Next morning: No luck with connections, but will keep trying.