Jungle Adventures

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So we drove from Surat Thani into Khao Sok National Park. We were told it was an hour and half... it took three hours. Awesome. So we got to our hotel, which were little huts on stilts. I thought they were cute, but mom was hoping for something slightly more upmarket. We went into our room and there was the BIGGEST gecko I have seen... at least twice the size of a normal one, if not more. We didn't manage to get him out because he hid from the hotel man. We found him again later though and sent the guy back to get him, which was successful. We had dinner at the hotel, which was delicious. They just put a bunch of different dishes and rice in front of us, which was fabulous, although it made me eat too much. I'm good at that. We went up to shower, which was freezing... definitely should have showered right when we got there and when I was still warm. Oh well. So then we tried to put the mosquito net down. It was supposed to be big enough to go over the double bed and the single bed. While we were pushing them together, the frame of the double bed completely fell apart, so we had to put it back together. Sus and I are engineering geniuses (cause it was so hard...) but then the mosquito net didn't quite fit. Duct tape came to the rescue! We managed to all squeeze into the mosquito net and slept pretty soundly... except for the ants in mom's bed... they must have thought she smelled good :o)

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Tuesday we got up really early to go canoeing. We are, however, on Thai time, so we took our time getting up and getting ready. Our new "guide" came to get us, although he just picked up the canoes and three guys and drove them to the river and left. We went in a separate sawngthaew. The canoeing was not what we are used to - there was a guy who paddled each "canoe" (inflatable boat) for us. We saw some birds, a snake, I saw a monkey, and some frogs, one of which jumped in mom and Sus' boat, and then jumped in mine and the Thai girl sitting behind me nearly launched herself out of the boat. When we finished, we took a sawngthaew back to the hotel where we dropped of the people that had canoed with us and picked up an Australian couple who were about my age. Then we went elephant riding. The first place was too busy, so we went to the second place. There we had to wait an hour and a half, so a woman who looked a lot like Marina took us to see a giant turtle that a Thai guy had found. It had 6 legs. It was a dinosaur. We rode in the back of a pickup with a bunch of cute little Thai kids to get there, but it made us very dusty. We went back to the elephant camp and they gave us banana chips, which I didn't like, a Durian candy, which was excellent, and sticky rice with coconut milk and banana cooked in a banana leaf, which was fabulous. Finally the elephants returned. Sus and I were on one named Douane (probably spelled differently, but that way it means customs in french) and Mom had her own elephant. We were on the elephant in training, so it didn't behave as well as some of the others. We rode for about an hour to the base of a waterfall. We walked up to the waterfall, which was beautiful, although no good for swimming, the pools werent big enough. Then we rode back. By the time we got back to the hotel for lunch it was 4:00. They fed us anyway. After lunch we decided that we would just head straight for the next hotel and shower there. That was a mistake. We rode for about an hour in the car and then took a 40 minute longtail boat ride to our next "hotel" on the lake. The mountains surrounding the lake are gorgeous - they just come straight out of the lake like cliffs - there is no shore. The lake was created by a dam made 25 years ago that displaced a bunch of local people, although I met some who are now guides in the park. So our "hotel"... what can I say. They were shacks on stilts in the lake. There was a boardwalk connecting the shacks and the little restaurant area and the toilets on shore (squat toilets only) and there were no showers. This put Sus and I in a SUPER mood. If you've never ridden outside on dusty roads you do not understand the state of your hair afterwards. The huts were square with peaked roofs, although where the square ended in front, the triangle below the roof had no wall. It was very itneresting. We sat for a while and then went to have dinner even though we werent hungry. After dinner Sus and I decided to stay at the little dining area until we thought we could pee and go to bed... tried to avoid the peeing in the middle of the night thing. We put the mosquito net together and then Sus and Mom decided they didn't want it. They went to bed and I was reading with a flashlight, although I was afraid I was attracting animals, which I said out loud. Then they decided they wanted the net again. So we had to put it down again. About the not peeing thing...I failed. We both did. We peed on the porch outside our hut, which wasn't solid and went straight into the lake. Yeah. special of us.

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The next morning I woke up really early because the people walking on the boardwalk sounded like elephants walking next to my head. We had breakfast and then set out with our guide (a real one this time) for a cave. We rode on a longtail boat for about 15 minutes, hiked through the rainforest for about 30 minutes, rode a bamboo raft for about 3 minutes and we were there. The cave was very cool - it is full of coral formations. I'm not sure how coral got that far up or inland though... someone figure it out. We went back to the "hotel" where the staff was washing the really colorful blankets in the lake and hanging them on the hut's porches, which was really cool looking. We swam for about half an hour, then got dressed, packed and had lunch before heading back to the little town on the longtail boat. Our first "guide" picked us up there.