Day 24

22/09/12

I got up pretty late, catching up on some sleep. Spent a while getting all my gear together for a solo jungle trek and got to the entrance around 11am. You have to pay every day you enter the park so I coughed up and retraced my steps from yesterday. It was sunny and humid. First of all I ran into the monkeys again, chilling out and entertaining some other tourists. To my annoyance I discovered my big zoom lens was broken again, it wouldn’t focus, even manually. The one place I could have made really good use of it too! Despite trying again on subsequent days, it was truly borked. Gah.

Terrible light but proof nevertheless!

According to the entry book there were only about 10 people in this part of the park today. I went off on the little side paths exploring, most of them led down to the raging river at little sand banks. I saw plenty of butterflies and a few spiders in their webs. There were a few birds too but no big mammals, until I heard the pigs again somewhere nearby.

Roaming down the side paths, dodging vines and bushes

One of the paths wound through the jungle before turning back on itself and petering out. I decided to forge a little through the jungle as it was sparse and found some old elephant tracks. Wild elephants do come down here at certain times of year. I also disturbed some bats which flew at breakneck speed erratically around the undergrowth, dodging trees and bushes by inches. Got my clothing snagged on some nasty thorns which are around some of the palms here and eventually found the main path again.

Elephant tracks

Further ahead I found another group of long tailed macaque monkeys who were eating the local shrubbery. They were really close and I watched them peeling palm stems apart to get at the juicy innards, and a funny baby one who wasn’t so good at climbing and kept sliding down branches like a lazy fireman. One of the adults came down onto the path a foot away from me but didn’t try to grab anything or put out his hand. A guide told me later that humans have probably fed them before so they could be hoping for a treat. Just as I was about to get a good close-up photo, it started to rain and my simian buddy wisely took cover. Damn.

A rare stationary butterfly, despite there being quite a lot of nice ones around they are the worst nightmare to photograph!

By the time the rains had stopped I’d reached an old disused restaurant and car park at the end of the path, down by the river. Signs pointed on to waterfalls more kilometers ahead, but the path led through a swollen, waist height stream with slippy rocks. A sign on the other side warned no entry when raining. I decided it wasn’t worth the risk to wade through with a broken shoulder plus risking my camera equipment getting a soaking. Instead I followed a path near the river signposted for another waterfall.

The stream barring my path, deeper than it looks

Down at some sand and rocks by the river I met a small tour group having lunch and I joined them. The guide had spotted gibbons in the trees across the river. After that, I felt something a bit weird at the top of my bum crack, and – hey, you cheeky little bugger!

A wee leech! It’s really hard to get them off your fingers, they stick no matter what you do. The trick is to quickly slide your fingernail under them to prize them off. I checked my legs and ankles. As soon as I looked down I saw a big red patch on my white socks – one had already eaten my ankle, got his fill and dropped off. The guide told me that wearing long trousers actually makes a ladder for them to worm their way up inside to your more juicy bits. I took the hint and rolled them up, no more leeches in the underpants thankyouverymuch!

The guide directed me to the waterfall down the river. I clambered over big boulders and found it peering out of the trees on the other side of the river, on a separate waterway which flowed into the main one. In fact this was the same place I’d made it to yesterday, but approaching from the other direction the waterfall wasn’t visible. It was pretty nice, full with the rain and rushing hard.

The waterfall peeks out on the other side

Bamboo towers above

Cool fungus could be found on some of the old rotting bamboo

In some parts of the forest bamboo takes over completely, making a huge tunnel

Heading back, I set up the tripod in a stream to get a shot and a few drops of rain started. No worries, I still have enough time to get the shot, I thought. That was a mistake!

The downpour begins!

In ten seconds the heavens opened and the hardest rain I’ve experienced in Thailand hammered down in a monsoon. I scrambled to get everything into my dry bags but everything got a bit wet. In a minute I was drenched through and so was everything not inside a dry bag. The good old plastic bag and rubber band kept the worst of it off my camera. I started to trudge back as the rain quickly turned the path into a flowing quagmire.

The path/swamp

The rain didn’t let up, and as I paddled along the path/stream I regularly checked my feet and legs for leeches. Sure enough they kept coming! I’d find them looping their way up my shoes or already sucking my blood through my socks. There were little baby ones only the length of a fingernail which were hard to spot! I even saw a big one swimming along in the muddy water. When I went off on some side-paths a few times, I always came back sporting some little slimy friends. Horrible creatures! One which I extracted from my leg I put on the ground to film. No matter where I moved he seemed to find his way towards me, standing on one “leg” and searching around. Brrr.

Leech on the hunt for me. I have a horrible video of this, unfortunately I don’t have the bandwidth/space to upload it here. I’ll try to get put on Facebook soon. I actually scared a girl who didn’t mind leeches and now hates them after seeing the video! Haha!

Back on the road, I watched tourists tubing down the river. Tubing is just sitting back in a rubber ring and getting swept downstream. Looks like fun, but my shoulder prevented me from trying.

As I watched, a local kid offered me a snack. I asked if he would like his photo taken, and him and his gang of friends happily posed as kids do!

Power Rangers

I got back tired and saturated. My walking shoes were drenched and I knew I’d never get them dry. Everything I owned was damp or soaking now. Mr Bao had arrived back with the two tourists he’d taken on tour, a young Dutch couple. They had had a good time at the lake and seen a python, monkeys and a huge snail, and of course leeches. Mr Bao was a good laugh too and found a tour for me for tomorrow going to the big lake. I spent the evening chatting to the Dutchies and drinking Chang. Some big moths decided to visit us and one died and laid a load of tiny eggs on the table. If your last act is to reproduce at least do it somewhere your babies might survive! Back at the hut on stilts, even the bed and towels were slightly damp, the huts aren’t sealed so they get all the moisture in the air inside. I fell asleep to the sound of rain pattering on the roof and cicadas all around.

Day 23

21/09/12

Another early start to see if the missing bag had actually arrived at the police station. Praise the gods – it was there! So, how much stuff had been pilfered? Amazingly, nothing! I was surprised and happy. Despite the time and money spent waiting for it to reappear – re-buying everything would have been a huge hassle and expensive. Phew! I said my thanks and goodbyes to the tourist police.

The tourist police office

Arron steals the Big Bosses desk

Live ammo target practice results, wouldn’t want to mess with this shooter!

Arron gave me a lift to the bus station and made sure I had the right mini bus. We said our goodbyes – I felt lucky to have met such a nice guy when the sticks were down! I was now off to Khao Sok, a jungle national park towards the west coast. The journey was a few hours and started off passing through massive rubber plantations, which are rows of rubber trees with little black cups attached to the truck. The bark is scored and the white sap runs into the cup. The scenery became quite spectacular with big limestone formations and cliffs sprouting out of the jungle, showing white where they weren’t covered in trees.

From the bus

I was dropped at the road leading to the national park entrance, which is a few km long and lined with lodges, restaurants and mini marts. I got a taxi to Khao Sak Valley Lodge. Mark had recommended it as the owner, Mr. Bau, speaks English and knows a lot about the park. Mark used to live at Khao Sok so he should know! Unfortunately Mr. Bau was out leading a tour but his wife arrived to advise me. She would try and get me a tour to the big lake the following day. I dumped my stuff in the raised wooden bungalow (most accommodation is on stilts out here), and set off for a quick walk into the park.

From the road I could see jungle hills with mist rising from them.  In ten minutes I was at the entrance where I wasn’t charged as it was so late in the day, about 4pm. I took one of the clearly marked paths, which used to be a vehicle track before they were banned some years ago. It immediately went under the trees and my world became darker. I passed small tour groups and some Thai youths coming back, clearly from swimming. The weather was hot, humid and damp.

Into the bamboo

I didn’t have to walk long past the bamboo and jungle noises before coming across a troupe of grey monkeys in the trees, long tailed macaques. They were moving around and quite close. They didn’t seem bothered about my presence and must be used to people. Unfortunately the light was terrible for photos.

Spot the monkey

Further up the path, I was happily surprised to see some wild boar running across the path, one after the other. There were about five of them. As I passed where they’d been, I could hear them rustling and oinking in the undergrowth nearby. As I walked butterflies were fluttering around, some as big as my hand. I followed a narrow side-path which went off into the jungle, signposted for a waterfall. I ducked under vines and carefully navigated the slippy path, clambering down rocks to get to the river. It was flowing very fast. A wide stream led to the river with sandbars and fish swam around in it. I couldn’t see a waterfall though, just rapids. I found another path which followed the river and saw some more monkeys swinging in the trees nearby, but not close enough to get a good look. At a beachy area I still couldn’t see a waterfall so I headed back for home, it was getting dark.

Spotted this big lizard. Never would have seen him if he hadn’t moved. Good camo.

I’d prepared for this by bringing my headtorch, as it slowly turned pitch black save for patches of moonlight through the trees I was glad I’d brought it! As dusk came the animal activity rose. Birds flew around and chirped, cicadas started to make a deafening other-wordly call like an air raid siren. As I was walking under the trees, big bats would hurtle along flying inches from me, and smaller ones could be seen flitting around above the canopy.

In the pitch black I heard the pigs off to the side and suddenly wondered if the males could be aggressive. I could be in trouble if they got scared or defensive and charged from the undergrowth, being unable to see a thing and with a broken shoulder! But I passed without incident. I later learned that they are scaredy-pigs and a loud noise is enough to frighten them away. Of course the pigs then reminded me about the picture of a tiger I’d seen on the book about Khao Sok. Would they venture this close to civilization? If so, I was a pretty easy target. Oh well, at least I’d die in an exciting way if a tiger decided some tasty Alan flesh was on the menu. But I got back around 7pm un-munched. Mrs Bao told me unfortunately she couldn’t find me a group tour to join tomorrow, so I decided to do a trek myself – I could speak to Mr. Bao tomorrow afternoon when he returned to see if he could arrange something for the lake later. I spent the evening reading about the Khao Sok park in the very informative book “Waterfalls and Gibbon Calls”.

Day 22

21/09/12

Headed to the tourist police station early hoping my bag had arrived. There was only one guy in and he said it should come at 9am so I went to get some breakfast at an outdoor restaurant, pointing at the curry I wanted. When I got back there was still no bag, it should have been here by now. Balls. The policeman on duty didn’t speak much English so he put me onto the main tourist police on the phone. The police chief (or just “Boss” as I call him), arrived. He told me to wait for Arron to come to work and started to make calls. Meanwhile more police arrived at the office and we chatted away. The guys were intent on embarrassing the intern girls working there and trying to set me up with them. Everyone in Thailand wants to get me a girl! The tourist police aren’t too busy with it being the low season, so a bunch of us were joking around. I caught up on some more diary entries too using their free wi-fi.

Arron arrived and explained that there had been a failure with the bus connections. Despite him telling the travel agents to put my bag on the Surat Thani bus, instead some idiot had sent it on a bus to Bangkok bus station. I groaned wondering how long it could survive there without getting raided. He had to sort this all out at 6am when they called him to inform him. He told them in no uncertain terms to get the bag on the next Surat bus. Unfortunately that wasn’t till tomorrow, so I’d need to stay another day in Surat Thani. Damn. Big Boss took us for breakfast mark II, I tried some sweet rice.

By now my clothes were getting a bit scummy (all the rest being in my missing bag!) so Arron said he’d lend me some for the day. Top chap. I continued taking advantage of the police wi-fi and then went to my hotel to book for another night. Back at the station I changed into clothes Arron lent me and he offered to take me shopping, as I needed a new bag. My shoulder bag was falling apart which I keep my tripod and all my valuables in when they need to be stored and when I’m changing site. He drove me to the nearby Tesco Lotus, which is like Tesco at home but with a bigger emphasis on clothes and household stuff. There were loads of fancy cars and trucks in the car park compared to your normal Thai transportation, and the shoppers inside seemed quite well-to-do. I found a bag but decided to shop around elsewhere tomorrow to find a better deal.

Arron drove us out to his sister’s house on the outskirts of town to collect a letter which he delivered to the nearby university where she works. The university was big with impressively well-kept grounds, full of flower-lined roads and big pictures of the royal family. Lots of uniformed students were going around on motorbikes and in buses. Then he offered to drive me up to a local viewpoint. It was in a national park up a forested hill. The car park in the jungle was filled with noise, cicadas and birds chirping away. The viewpoint overlooked Surat Thani city and to the sea beyond. The land was really flat and suddenly turned to jungle-covered hills in the far distance. Surat Thani sprawled below. Unfortunately I’d left my camera at the police station, not realising I’d come anywhere with a view!

I mentioned I hadn’t seen any animals walking around (aside from a guy peeing in the jungle!) and Arron led me down a path to some cages where monkeys swung around inside. When we approached one a gibbon, white with dark eye patches, swung down to meet us. He came down to eye level and he was sucking his thumb with one hand, and putting his other arm through the gaps, letting us shake hands with him and stroke him. He stared at us with very human eyes and I felt sorry for him, animals like this in the wild can have territories of over 50km, but his territory was about 5 meters – yet the freedom of the jungle was just outside. When we moved around the cage he followed us. We saw other types of monkeys in other cages, some afraid, some curious and some indifferent. A baby macaque grabbed my finger and pulled it towards its mouth. It may look like a sausage mate, but it’s not for eating!

In other cages were peacocks and a wild boar who was oinking away at us. I commented that at christmas we sometimes ate boar as a treat. That shut him up. We drove back to Surat Thani passing a bad road accident where a pickup had flipped upside-down off the road. The windscreen was smashed in on the drivers side and it looked like he probably wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The police were already on the scene. Another example of the deadly driving over here!

I parted ways with Arron and caught up on some blogging at the hotel to rest. In the evening I caught a songthaew into the town centre. For some reason in the back was an old .50 calibre machine gun ammo box. I didn’t ask. I went around shops and department stores in the town center bag-hunting, but not buying anything. Then I went to the night food market which was really busy. Rows and rows of stalls offering foods of all kinds. From grilled meat to fried potato cakes, noodles to rice, sweet cakes to jellies, fruitshakes to iced coffee, the full range of Thai street food was here. I got a bit over-enthusiastic and bought 5 bags of different foods. Back at the hotel I got through three and was stuffed. Heroically I managed to finish it all off though, giving myself indigestion that night. What a fatty!