Khao Sok it!

In retrospect my big mistake was congratulating myself for doing so well in the first month. “Damn Mike, you are really doing much better with this blog than you anticipated good work!” quickly turned into, “Hmmm, I should probably do one today, buuuttt I HAVE been doing good job…” than into, “Blog?” Ashamed of my collapse, I am attempting a comeback.

This past weekend was a pantheon level one, many things came together, weather, location (oh my location), stress levels prior too, and need to be somewhere other than the city made this trip spectacular. While checking my email, I found out that the Red Sox had acquired a player that had been on my wish list for 3 years, which was exciting in and of itself, but it led to a simple and obvious realization that I would have said I understood, but really probably didn’t prior to that moment. Life goes on. Seriously. There are no breaks, no vacations, no pauses, skips, rewinds or fast forwards. Nothing we do can alter that in the slightest of ways. I was in the jungle, having seen some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and on the other side of the planet my favorite baseball team was making offseason moves. Its one of those weird things that I thought I understood, but in the end really just knew how to pay it proper lip service.

Khao Sok national park is the largest Jungle in southern Thailand. I arrived on Friday, taking a minibus after missing the cheaper regular sized bus by approximately 17 seconds. While booking the min-bus I was talking with the man who was writing out the ticket when it came up that I was a teacher. His expression and demeanor immediately changed from what is clearly a polished poise for tourists to a much more relaxed and human character, he knocked 10 baht off the bust ticket, and offered to call his friend and book me a discounted room at their resort, and really, who am I to say no to such a generous offer? The resort turned out to be a very pleasant place, run by people that made me feel like I was the only guest, (The Khao Sok River Valley Lodge, very near Khao Sok Jungle Huts, I can’t recommend them highly enough) and my room was a decent sized hut that was about 15 feet in the air on stilts. The owner’s wife walked through some of my options for the following day, and ended up helping me settle on the 1 day lake and cave tour, a great decision.

At 8:00 they served breakfast, an actual pancake with some fresh pineapple and mango juice (it’s a tough life here sometimes). At 8:30 I was picked up and brought to the beginning of the lake where our tour guide Paul, a nice guy and great tour guide collected 200 baht for the park entrance fee (later that evening we discovered that the entrance fee was free for the weekend due to the King’s birthday), and shortly 12 of us were piled into a long boat and zipping across the lake. It was approximately a one hour ride to the other end where we would begin hiking to a cave. But forget the cave for now, the boat ride took me through the most spectacular landscape I have ever encountered. Forget everything you know about valleys, there were no gently sloping hills, or even steep hills leading down to the water. No, this valley had 200 foot cliffs erupting from the water, dripping with jungle. It was as thought there were once mountains there, but only this small fraction of the mountain thought it was worth sticking around. Some have narrow inlets where the walls of two cliffs tower maybe 30 feet apart on their way up. It is the only place I have ever been where the tour guide could have said, “And while they recently left for the coming hot season Dragons inhabit these cliffs roughly nine months of the year.” and I would not have blinked. The weather was spectacularly co-operative for the entire day, cloud cover breaking enough for it to feel sunny, but not enough that it got to hot. Additionally, I don’t think that there are too many places that actually become more impressive on a cloudy day, but low hanging clouds among some of these cliffs gave the impression that they never stopped, and added an air of mystery and mysticism that was awe inspiring.

We arrived at the other end of the lake, a small tourist outpost with little floating shacks for over nighters and a nice dock area with seating, kayaks (free for those on the tour) and a backdrop of legit jungle. We had approximately an hour to swim, kayak, read or lounge before lunch. The water was about as pleasant a temperature as can exist, and the opportunity to kayak away from the 4 Russians who had been drinking consistently since the tour began and consequently had been getting closer and closer to shouting their conversations, was very welcome. Lunch was good, a fish that seemed to have spikes instead of fins (presumably fresh from the lake) and an assortment of chicken and veggie dishes to go with rice. Than it was time to strike out into the Jungle towards the cave which, according to the descriptions of the tour, was considered to be the highlight of the park (not the case). The hike was among the least strenuous hikes I have ever encountered, but it was still very interesting as it was through the FREAKING JUNGLE! If you are unable to tell, I was every excited to go into the jungle, which I have wanted to see since I did a report on rain forests for my fourth grade science class. The path was flat, but we crossed a lot of streams, many of which had tiny waterfalls either just ahead or below where we were crossing. The jungle itself was peppered with Bamboo stands, vines of shapes and sizes (including, but not limited to green and spiky, thin and read, brown and spiraling, and the kind that you can actually swing on, Tarzan style), some mushrooms that were a bright, translucent orange, tarantula nests, and some crazy trees that looked as though the roots started about 6 feet above ground. The cave that we were trekking to had been used as a hide out by communist students who were fighting the Thai Gov’t in the 70’s. It was a great hiding spot, the middle of a jungle and an entrance that you had to duck to use, than a river flowing through it so that some swimming was required to get very far (side note: apparently it is stupidly dangerous anytime its raining, which seems to be every day from late October until, well now. So was fighting the Gov’t something they only did 10 months out of the year? I am confused). They cave was impressive, formations that take an unfathomable amount of time to develop pepper the entire thing. Many of the surfaces are covered in small up and down ridges as though someone had taken a small toy rake meant for the sand box and very carefully made them. It was impressive, but I found the cliffs and jungle to be more interesting.

Talking with our tour guide, and being amazed at some of the things he was able to pick out of the jungle, or on the shore as we were speeding by in a boat, it reminded me that people live in places like this. Its very easy to forget, that even though they are tourist destinations, people grow up and live in these places, and our guide at least, seems to appreciate it. The shirt he wore much of the day combined with his relaxed attitude and seemingly content state was a nice caption for the day