Chang, Chang, Chang!

Our trek in the jungle began with an adventure on the overnight train to Surat Thani. Our guide Wan gave us some advice about talking to the Thai people, ordering food on the train to help out the locals and remembering to carry toilet paper wherever we go.

You may have noticed the photo of us with the ‘praying’ Ronald McDonald – in Thailand, placing your hands together is how you say “hello” and show respect. Touch your thumbs to your chin for people of a lower status or casual friends, to your nose for older people, and to your forehead for royalty and religious leaders.

Once on the train, we ordered dinner from a transvestite with a green necktie. It arrived under plastic wrap on pink plates and bowls, and it as pretty gross, but oh well. We played a few games of cards (the first of many) and managed to communicate to the attendant that we wanted our beds put down so that we could sleep. We didn’t sleep much, but woke up early as we approached the station at Surat Thani. We ate breakfast at a local shop and were taken on a van to Kao Sok National Park, where we met a longboat to take us to the rafthouses, our home for the next two nights.

Quick note about the general lack of safety laws in Thailand: on our way out to the boatdock, our driver stopped for a beer at 7 eleven. On the longboat, the driver had to fill the tank with petrol, which he did by pouring the gasoline from one plastic barrel into another.. with a lit cigarette between his lips.

The crazy morning turned into an incredible day. We arrived at our rafthouse (which is not floating freely, it is attached to one of the many small islands on the lake), inspected the Gilligans Island-esque accommodations – the three of us were to sleep together on a mat on the floor with a green mosquito net draped very close to our sides.

At the rafthouse we ate our first of many incredible Thai meals there, and began our adventures for the afternoon. Our tour group consisted of the three of us, a lesbian couple from Brisbane, and an adventure seeking couple 30+ couple from Holland. Our guide, Poo, loaded us onto a longboat and we made our way to another island. We parked the boat at a little patch of dirt that didn’t resemble any kind of dock, and walked through a few trees to the base of a waterfall. Poo pointed at the waterfall and said “ok, we climb up.” The rocks were surprisingly not slippery. Poo informed us that the limestone is formed surrounding the tree roots and branches by mineral deposits in the water – so no moss grows on it! The water rushed over our sandaled feet and we climbed up, albeit not as easily as Poo did, but we made it! As Barrett put it, ‘we looked like the lost boys from Peter Pan.’ At the top of the waterfall, we took a few photos and played in the water before making our way down. When we got to the boat, we saw that it had started raining a little, there was a rainbow in the distance, and we were on our way to the fisherman’s village to pick up dinner!

At the fisherman’s village we got a glimpse at what life is really like on the lake in Kao Sok. The lake was formed with the creation of the dam (near where we were picked up in the first longboat). It’s enormous, with over 150 little islands. The government commissioned the building of the dam to increase jobs, create fishing opportunities, and drown out the communists who were hiding in the caves. On each island there are different animals, including gibbons, birds, and a few wild elephant! There are 7 fisherman’s villages with about 10 families each and they too live in raft houses around the lake. They have very minimal luxuries, a radio, an old tv, images of the King and Queen… we saw the reserves of fish in ‘tanks’ built out of nets and wood in the lake – they have to sell the fish within two days of catching it, so its very fresh. None of the fishermen spoke English, so it was a little tough to make friends during our half hour visit, but it was very nice to meet them.

Our third stop was to go swimming! In a cave! In the dark! It was one of the caves that the communists used to live in, and Poo shined a flashlight so that we could see through the darkness. There were some pretty cool stalactites to see . It was barely wide enough for us to swim through with our heads above water, and Poo informed us that in the dry season, the cave will be nearly dry. On our way back to the rafthouse, we saw some gibbons jumping in the trees on one of the islands --- our stories sound less believable as the days go on…

Back at the rafthouse we decided to take a bath in the lake (where else?!) Emily kicked us a LOT with her ‘eggbeatering’ legs trying to stay afloat but it was pretty fun. We read a little, and walked around the rafthouse until dinnertime. After dinner we relaxed with some Thai beer, card games, and played party games and mind tricks with the other group at the rafthouse – 10 more Dutch people! Can YOU hold one foot behind your back with both hands and bend down and pick up a bottle with your mouth? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Day two, we woke up at 6:30 am and climbed on a few canoes. We travelled around the island to watch the sun rise over another island while drinking coffee and tea. After breakfast, we went on an incredible hike. A short longboat trip away we climbed to the top of one of the island cliffs. It was about an hour and a half hike to the top, complete with tons of mud and swinging on a vine (I almost fell off, it was terrifying). The final 20 minutes of climbing were up jagged rocks, and we had a fantastic view of the entire lake. We were hot, sweaty (jungle breezes don’t exist), covered in mud, bleeding a little, watching out for leeches and very, very tired. No worries though, when we made it to the bottom, our longboat was filled with brightly coloured butterflies!

The rest of the afternoon was downtime; we floated on tires on the lake, read our books, played a few dozen rounds of card games, chatted with our travel buddies and relaxed for the rest of the day. At night, back in our raft, we slept very little while Mutsy, Barrett’s stuffed dog, attacked me. But we were up early again to head back to the land and our next home – a treehouse!

The treehouses are located near the river in Kao Sok and are one of many similar accommodations. We arrived in time for lunch and before even checking out our treehouse, left immediately for our afternoon of fun. First, we rode elephants! The elephants were equipped with benches for us to sit one, me and Emily on one, Barrett and Poo on another, and we plodded along a path towards a waterfall. On our drive over, we saw an elephant by the side of the road, and when were got to the elephant riding place there were dozens of elephants! Emily and my new friend was named “San-wee” meaning ‘beautiful girl’ and Barret and Poo rode an elephant named “Plai-Kam” – nature duck (or something). The elephants splashed through rivers and in between rubber trees. We could see the scrapings on the bark and white rubber dripping to cups below each scraping. Poo said they empty the cups of rubber once each week. After about 45 minutes of bouncing on the elephant seats, we arrived at a waterfall and gladly shed our clothes to go for a swim (yes, we wore swimming suits underneath). We hopped back on our elephants, with the guide sitting on Sanwee’s head, and returned to the beginning of the path to feed our elephants a few piece of sugarcane – they eat 300 kilos each day – and the adventure continued!

We stopped at a quick lookout point on the side of the road with a beautiful view over Kao Sok and then got to feed monkeys! It was a safe haven for macaw monkeys (I think that’s misspelled, you’ll have to excuse my translation of Poo’s accent). There were dozens of monkeys and we fed them bananas and toast – the took it right out of our hands and caught what we tossed at them! They were running around and playing in the trees. We really liked the little ones who were getting picked on by the older monkeys. After a few too many bug bites we jumped back in the van and went to a nearby river. We had inner tubes and rafted down next to other tree top resorts (including a Marley themed party hut). On the river, Poo taught us a children’s song about elephants. We tried to make it a ‘repeat after me’ song, but were very unsuccessful. Poo was nice enough to write it down for us and draw a picture of an elephant’s butt – here goes:

Chang Chang Chang,

nowls khouw hen chang,

pou phaw, chang mon thow tho mai bow

cha mook, yamw yanw, rink asa, gnuw mee kaew

Thai gnuo rink wa gna mee hoo mee ta hang yanw .

Basically, Chang means Elephant, and the rest of the song is describing the attributes of an elephant. Good luck with the Thai.

Our treehouse accommodations were incredible, real beds with white princess nets, running water, a toilet that flushed, a balcony… and all about 30 feet off the ground. We were high in the trees with the company of monkeys and showers that ran cold water out of a waterfall like spout and an open window facing the forest. We ate another delicious meal, played about 200 rounds of card games, watched to make sure Poo wouldn’t cheat and finally got some rest.. kind of.

One last meal with our tour group and we were off to our island paradise in Phuket!

Of course we took pictures ~ Check out album #2!

xo, Rach

ps - yes, I'm backdating these posts, October was full of studies and adventures, I'm catching up now.