Khao Sok
_
Today we spent most of our day traveling. We left for the
Chiang Mai airport at 11am and boarded our plane at 1:30pm for a two-hour
flight to Phuket. We then jumped into the van that was waiting for us and drove
two hours to our new accommodation. We saw some interesting things on that
drive… like a pick up truck with two monkeys riding on top of a mound of
coconuts in the back. There were several mahouts and their elephants walking
along side the road, wild elephants grazing on some bamboo and water buffalo working in the fields; all
reminders that we’re far from home.
We arrived at our new accommodations, Our Jungle House, in Khao Sok at 4:30 pm and were greeted by Bodhi, the manager and a super cool ex-pat from California, and his resident dog, Toast. A staff member helped collect our bags and led us to our beds. That was when we entered yet another dream: we would be staying in a beautiful tree house in a jungle. It looked majestic standing 20 feet off the ground surrounded by tons of exotic trees and plants.
Jasmine was the first one to climb the two flights of stairs to our tree house and all we could hear was her yelling “Hurry up!!! You have GOT to come see this!!!” She was so excited– and for a good reason. It was made from teakwood from top to bottom, with the exception of the tile floor in the bathroom, which had two sinks, a flush toilet and two shower choices: shower or scoop water out of a giant clay pot– either option did not have hot water. The double bed and bunk beds had bug nets casted over them. We had electricity, but because we were so remote we were warned there would be occasional brown outs and even blackouts. There was no air conditioning but Wi-Fi was available in the restaurant area that wasn’t always reliable. There was something about this experience that was so primal (minus the electricity) and we fell in love with it right away.
The cost for our tree house accommodation is $1600 Baht/ night (= under $60 CAD/night) HA! You could say we splurged. We look forward to exploring our surroundings tomorrow. For now, it’s time to go to bed and listen to the sounds of the jungle.
We arrived at our new accommodations, Our Jungle House, in Khao Sok at 4:30 pm and were greeted by Bodhi, the manager and a super cool ex-pat from California, and his resident dog, Toast. A staff member helped collect our bags and led us to our beds. That was when we entered yet another dream: we would be staying in a beautiful tree house in a jungle. It looked majestic standing 20 feet off the ground surrounded by tons of exotic trees and plants.
Jasmine was the first one to climb the two flights of stairs to our tree house and all we could hear was her yelling “Hurry up!!! You have GOT to come see this!!!” She was so excited– and for a good reason. It was made from teakwood from top to bottom, with the exception of the tile floor in the bathroom, which had two sinks, a flush toilet and two shower choices: shower or scoop water out of a giant clay pot– either option did not have hot water. The double bed and bunk beds had bug nets casted over them. We had electricity, but because we were so remote we were warned there would be occasional brown outs and even blackouts. There was no air conditioning but Wi-Fi was available in the restaurant area that wasn’t always reliable. There was something about this experience that was so primal (minus the electricity) and we fell in love with it right away.
The cost for our tree house accommodation is $1600 Baht/ night (= under $60 CAD/night) HA! You could say we splurged. We look forward to exploring our surroundings tomorrow. For now, it’s time to go to bed and listen to the sounds of the jungle.
December 14 Return to the Jungle
_
As I type this, I am in the bar lounge on the roof top of
the restaurant at Our Jungle House and Jason Mraz is softly playing in the
background… “Open up your eyes and damn you’re free, look into your heart and
you‘ll find love, love, love…”
Ahhh…
Since we’ve arrived in Thailand, we’ve slowly been moving away from urban living. We started out in Bangkok (can’t get any more urban and busier than that), moved to Chiang Mai (less people, many more trees, slower pace, but urban nonetheless) and now we are in the village of Khao Sok (no concrete to be found any where, well almost…the main roads and a path that leads to our tree house would be the exception) It’s pretty rustic here and we are surrounded by nothing but nature. This morning, after a ridiculously freshly prepared breakfast, we took full advantage of our surroundings by hiring a local guide and going on an 8km hike at Khao Sok National Park. (as I was typing this, I was sitting in the loft lounge and we just had a 15 second black out. LOVE IT!)
Edti, our guide, met us at 9:00am and started our trek immediately. He must have been rolling his eyes at us when we weren’t looking because every two steps we would stop and take pictures… we weren’t even out of driveway! Eventually we made some progress as Edti took us through a local plantation where we saw the typical fruit/nut bearing trees for a tropical region: banana, lime, cashew, mangosteen, coffee, papaya, etc. We also saw some rubber trees and the workstation where they process the rubber once it has been harvested, but there was no one there at the time, so we didn’t get to see how it was done.
We made it to the entrance of Khao Sok National Park and took a quick look around the visitor centre, where we found a 20ft King Cobra preserved in a tank. Originally it was found in someone’s car… could you imagine??? We also saw a replica of the infamous rafflesia flower, which isn’t really a flower, but a fungus and is the largest ‘flower’ in the world. We were going to have our guide take us to see them growing in the wild, but the trek was up a mountainside and too treacherous for our girls… did I mention the actual the trek we took was 8 km???
When we finally got onto our trail which was destined for a small waterfall, the first thing to catch our attention was the bamboo. I have always wanted to be in a bamboo forest and here we were spending half a day trekking through one. I immediately went over to touch one. “No! No!” Edti called after me. Luckily, he caught me in time. He pointed to the bamboo and showed me the little black “hairs” on them and informed me when bamboo is old or rotting, it grows these little hairs and if you touch them, they get on to your hands and then when you touch your clothes they will get stuck in the fabric and make you itchy (like fibre glass). In that moment, I knew hiring Edti to accompany us on our trek was a good idea.
Less than 15 minutes later as we were walking along admiring the scenery, I could feel something in my shoe poking my foot. I paid it no attention thinking it would go away, but it didn’t. I began to think that maybe I had a thorn in my shoe, so I bent down and took it off. Nope, not a thorn… three leeches had attached themselves to my foot. I kinda freaked out. I brushed my foot, one fell off but the other two weren’t budging. I yelled “Edti!!!” and he turned around, came running over and squeezed them until they came off. With blood dripping from my foot, he doused it with some sort of repellent so they wouldn’t bug me anymore. Yup… I was really glad Edti was with us. Of course, the leech moment became the highlight of the day for all of us as we all continued to have flashbacks of how ridiculous I looked.
The rest of the trek was not as eventful, though we did see chameleons, a draco lizard– we even got to watch it fly!), a monitor lizard, a golden orb spider, a colony of macaques, and an itty-bitty bat living in a bamboo shoot. We took a rest at the waterfall, which was small because the rainy season has ended, then we turned around and walked back to our tree house. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of rubber production on the way back as the locals were there doing their thing. Jasmine and Aislinn were amazing, with the exception of the last 30 mins of the trek, when Aislinn rode piggyback on me, they walked the entire time. Edti was so good with our girls, too. He would pick up random objects from our walk and fashion them into flutes, hats, masks and necklaces. He even made a skirt for Aislinn! The girls really connected with him and they were distracted from thinking about how long they had been walking. (Thank you Edti!)
As our trek came to an end, within 15 feet of the entrance to the front desk of our accommodation we saw a scorpion that had been crushed by a car. I hope that was the closest we will ever come to a real scorpion again. We made it to our starting point and went straight to the restaurant and sat down for lunch– we were starved!!! The food here has been excellent, so fresh and full of flavour. The service has also been exceptional; Sia’s bright smile had a way of making you feel like she was always happy to see you.
The rest of the afternoon, we spent in a little beach area cooling off by a limestone cliff that is millions of years old and hundreds of feet high. It was absolutely stunning.
One last story before I go... Tonight at dinner, another guest noticed a toad the size of a small cabbage hopping through the dining area. Our family went over to get a closer look when one of the staff came over and picked it up, tapped him on the floor twice and then turned him over on his back. The toad just stayed laying on his back and played dead. It was hilarious. A couple of minutes later and the toad got up and staff member picked him up and did the same thing again, only this time he put the toad in meditation position and called him Buddha. We all laughed hysterically. It was too funny. (I guess you had to be there…)
Since we’ve arrived in Thailand, we’ve slowly been moving away from urban living. We started out in Bangkok (can’t get any more urban and busier than that), moved to Chiang Mai (less people, many more trees, slower pace, but urban nonetheless) and now we are in the village of Khao Sok (no concrete to be found any where, well almost…the main roads and a path that leads to our tree house would be the exception) It’s pretty rustic here and we are surrounded by nothing but nature. This morning, after a ridiculously freshly prepared breakfast, we took full advantage of our surroundings by hiring a local guide and going on an 8km hike at Khao Sok National Park. (as I was typing this, I was sitting in the loft lounge and we just had a 15 second black out. LOVE IT!)
Edti, our guide, met us at 9:00am and started our trek immediately. He must have been rolling his eyes at us when we weren’t looking because every two steps we would stop and take pictures… we weren’t even out of driveway! Eventually we made some progress as Edti took us through a local plantation where we saw the typical fruit/nut bearing trees for a tropical region: banana, lime, cashew, mangosteen, coffee, papaya, etc. We also saw some rubber trees and the workstation where they process the rubber once it has been harvested, but there was no one there at the time, so we didn’t get to see how it was done.
We made it to the entrance of Khao Sok National Park and took a quick look around the visitor centre, where we found a 20ft King Cobra preserved in a tank. Originally it was found in someone’s car… could you imagine??? We also saw a replica of the infamous rafflesia flower, which isn’t really a flower, but a fungus and is the largest ‘flower’ in the world. We were going to have our guide take us to see them growing in the wild, but the trek was up a mountainside and too treacherous for our girls… did I mention the actual the trek we took was 8 km???
When we finally got onto our trail which was destined for a small waterfall, the first thing to catch our attention was the bamboo. I have always wanted to be in a bamboo forest and here we were spending half a day trekking through one. I immediately went over to touch one. “No! No!” Edti called after me. Luckily, he caught me in time. He pointed to the bamboo and showed me the little black “hairs” on them and informed me when bamboo is old or rotting, it grows these little hairs and if you touch them, they get on to your hands and then when you touch your clothes they will get stuck in the fabric and make you itchy (like fibre glass). In that moment, I knew hiring Edti to accompany us on our trek was a good idea.
Less than 15 minutes later as we were walking along admiring the scenery, I could feel something in my shoe poking my foot. I paid it no attention thinking it would go away, but it didn’t. I began to think that maybe I had a thorn in my shoe, so I bent down and took it off. Nope, not a thorn… three leeches had attached themselves to my foot. I kinda freaked out. I brushed my foot, one fell off but the other two weren’t budging. I yelled “Edti!!!” and he turned around, came running over and squeezed them until they came off. With blood dripping from my foot, he doused it with some sort of repellent so they wouldn’t bug me anymore. Yup… I was really glad Edti was with us. Of course, the leech moment became the highlight of the day for all of us as we all continued to have flashbacks of how ridiculous I looked.
The rest of the trek was not as eventful, though we did see chameleons, a draco lizard– we even got to watch it fly!), a monitor lizard, a golden orb spider, a colony of macaques, and an itty-bitty bat living in a bamboo shoot. We took a rest at the waterfall, which was small because the rainy season has ended, then we turned around and walked back to our tree house. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of rubber production on the way back as the locals were there doing their thing. Jasmine and Aislinn were amazing, with the exception of the last 30 mins of the trek, when Aislinn rode piggyback on me, they walked the entire time. Edti was so good with our girls, too. He would pick up random objects from our walk and fashion them into flutes, hats, masks and necklaces. He even made a skirt for Aislinn! The girls really connected with him and they were distracted from thinking about how long they had been walking. (Thank you Edti!)
As our trek came to an end, within 15 feet of the entrance to the front desk of our accommodation we saw a scorpion that had been crushed by a car. I hope that was the closest we will ever come to a real scorpion again. We made it to our starting point and went straight to the restaurant and sat down for lunch– we were starved!!! The food here has been excellent, so fresh and full of flavour. The service has also been exceptional; Sia’s bright smile had a way of making you feel like she was always happy to see you.
The rest of the afternoon, we spent in a little beach area cooling off by a limestone cliff that is millions of years old and hundreds of feet high. It was absolutely stunning.
One last story before I go... Tonight at dinner, another guest noticed a toad the size of a small cabbage hopping through the dining area. Our family went over to get a closer look when one of the staff came over and picked it up, tapped him on the floor twice and then turned him over on his back. The toad just stayed laying on his back and played dead. It was hilarious. A couple of minutes later and the toad got up and staff member picked him up and did the same thing again, only this time he put the toad in meditation position and called him Buddha. We all laughed hysterically. It was too funny. (I guess you had to be there…)