Khao Sok - Wandering the Jungle

Yo yo,

So if you have been reading you obviously have noticed we have been having troubles with the videos. For some reason they will double or triple post and sometimes the wrong one shows up. If anyone has pointers, we will take them. Until we figure it out, just bear with us.

After our little island adventures on Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan, we grabbed ourselves a ferry/bus combo ticket and headed west on the mainland to Khao Sok. Basically going from beach paradise to jungle paradise.

We jumped off at the bus stop in Khao Sok and then had about a 1 km walk to the bungalows we were staying at for the night. By this time, we are used to cruising around with our packs on and don't really get sore anymore. A big positive of traveling: getting back into shape again. We had a nice chat with the new owners of the bungalows who recently moved there after running a place on a remote island. Another positive: meeting new and interesting people. So many positives and so few negatives. How can u not travel!?!?

Our Little Bungalow in the Jungle

That night we ran into 2 Canucks we had been talking with on a boat between Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan. We sat and had dinner with them and shared some stories over a couple of brews. It was a good night.

The next morning we went to a nearby bungalow to catch our "taxi" ride to Ratchaprapha Dam. I'm sure you all pronounced the name of the dam perfectly right in your head..... I put quotes around taxi because it was a songthaew that we took. They are basically trucks with benches along each side of the box and a roof overhead.

Our songthaew ride was about 60 kms. Then we met up with a long tail boat at the dam that was going to deliver us to the floating huts we were staying at for the night. It was an amazing 1 hour long boat ride through the cliffs and jungle to get us there.

After a swim and some lunch we headed out on the longtail to go on a hike through the jungle and some caves. The trail twisted around and through a stream that lead us into the cave. The cave was quite cool with a bunch of bats, large cave spiders, pale crickets, and catfish hanging out inside. We also spotted a 5 foot snake cruising around looking for his next bat victim. There was some narrow parts within the cave where we had to jump into the water that was over our heads to keep heading the same way. The water was a bit chilly unlike the lake that felt like a big swimming pool.

The jungle around us was full of all types of vegetation. All kinds of vines, ficus trees with their big roots above the ground, lots of bamboo, and different kinds of palm trees. There was the music of the jungle birds as well but they were difficult to locate because of the thick vegetation.

Large Bamboo

Large Ficus Tree

It was a peaceful sleep in our floating hut. They weren't the lap of luxury but that isn't something that we ever go for. We just look for good experiences and this was definitely one of those.

We got up early the next morning and jumped in the longtail to try and locate some wildlife. We were lucky enough to find some monkeys, a gibbon, and many types of birds including the toucan and a giant hornbill. The gibbon calls were very musical and almost sent goosebumps up my spine.

Gibbon Call

After breakfast, we had some time to kill before we had to head back, so I jumped into a kayak and paddled down a branch of the lake. It's always better to be able to move in near silence and be able to use your ears to help you spot wildlife. It wasn't very long until I heard some crashing in the jungle, so I just stopped and waiting. Soon a family of monkeys revealed themselves. I just watched in awe as they came right up to the shore foraging for food. I didn't seem to be bothering them at all as they went about their business. Definitely awesome to watch them interact with each other much like we do with each other.

Caught with the Selfie stick

By the time I got back to the huts, it was time to leave. We ended up stopping on the way back and doing a 1.5 hour hike over a ridge which was quite nice. A bit different vegetation here since it was on a slope and bamboo doesn't grow where it's steep.

We arrived back in Khao Sok mid-afternoon and caught a minibus (aka van) to Khao Lak to start a new adventure.

I will leave you with one of Roberta's favorite quotes: Travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer.

 

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Ko Tao

Hi everyone!

So the blog is somewhat operational again, still working out some kinks. Like Jared said in the last blog, we took a ferry from the mainland (Chumphon) to Ko Tao which is a little island in the Gulf of Thailand, most famous for being the cheapest place in Thailand to get your open water diving certification. Jared already has his from the Great Barrier Reef so he planned to do fun dives, hikes and island relaxing while I took the three day course. We also can't get our camera pics on the blog, just iPhone stuff so can't show the underwater shots (maybe when we get back?) so we'll have to make do with the above ground stuff.

Ko Tao is a beautiful little island, it's much smaller than its neighbours Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Samui, so lots of people say it's the best of the three. Really just depends what you're into. If it's diving, this is your place.

The first day of the course was some classroom work and a dive session in the swimming pool.

You certainly had your choice of dive outfits to go with (there is around 40 on the island). I went with Ban's Diving Resort which is kind of like the Walmart approach to diving (which I don't love) but they were a well-oiled machine and very organized- definitely not a common trait in Thailand. Jared went for an adventure to Mango Bay Viewpoint and got some sweet pics before going down to do some snorkeling.

We met up most days for lunch and supper, and got some great beachfront meals

There's an ocean out there it's just dark

The last night we were there we went out for some drinks with the people I'd met on my open water course. Basically all of Sairee beach is just a line of bars and there are groups of people all along. We walked down to a particularly large group of people and watched the fire shows for a bit. They take ropes and such, soak them in kerosene, light them on fire and do all sorts of crazy stuff. They had lit up one really long rope and were using it for a flaming skipping rope. Add some drunk tourists and you've got a real safe activity.

Oh Roberta........ Looking great

Cute little supper spot

That's Mr Huxtable. We met in the bathroom while I was showering. Feel free to use the screw in the wall for scale.

Next stop: Khao Sok national park

 

 

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South of Bangkok Additions

Hey guys,

Here is a panorama and a video I meant to include in the last blog. Cheers!

We will hopefully have a rapid fire of blogs to get ourselves caught up in the next little while.

 

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Heading South from Bangkok

 

We have gotten quite behind on this whole blogging thing b/c our electronics haven't been working according to plan. Hopefully we will get this figured out.

So after a couple nights in Bangkok, we headed south on a minibus to Hua Hin.We stayed at a guesthouse there and ended up getting a room upgrade for the price we booked so that was sweet. It was basically like a nice hotel room with our own bathroom and all which proved to be quite handy.

Our Room

The day we got there was my birthday and we decided to go out for supper. Around half an hour after eating, I started feeling a but "off" so we all know where this is leading. There were many of trips to that private bathroom of ours. My 31st birthday is one I will never forget, getting food poisoning in Thailand yippppeeee. We had been warned to ease into the street food but we had eaten it in Bangkok without any problems. It was a sit down restaurant that I got sick from so moral of the story is it can happen anywhere.

Soo....I'm kind of ashamed to admit it but we bought a selfie stick. This is our first pic using it in the Hua Hin night market.

 

We ended up staying in Hua Hin for 2 nights so I could recover. Neither of us were all that impressed by Hua Hin and not just because of the poisoning incident. Hua Hin is the closest beach resort city close to Bangkok. It had an alright beach but it was full of older tourists. There were many older Caucasian males preying on much younger Thai girls which gave a weird vibe.

We jumped aboard the "posh" train to Prachuap Khiri Khan because the other one was going to be 2 hours late which is apparently the norm. The expensive train still only cost us $11 each. The cheap train would have only cost us about $0.65 each! Some things here are crazy cheap.

Once we dropped our stuff at the guesthouse, we decided to go on a hike down the sea walk and up a rock hill with a temple on the top with incredible views. We were warned that you shouldn't take very much stuff up therebecause the monkeys will steal it.

Roberta became quite giddy upon seeing her first monkey and just had to take a picture of it.Little did we both know how many monkeys we were going to see. There were monkeys everywhere. Bigger dominant males to little babies.

At the top one of the monks fed them and it was certainly an experience. He threw some food at our feet which made the monkeys scramble all around us. This made Roberta squeal a little bit.

Viewer discretion is advised for the next video. Roberta caught some naughtiness on tape.....

We were the only ones up there other than the monk and the monkeys, so we spent a couple hours up there soaking it all in. The views were freakin amazing as well.

The next day we took the cheap train from Prachuap Khiri Khan to Chumphon which was around 200 kms. It cost us 34 baht each which converts to about $1.20 Cdn! There were a lot more local Thais on this train. It didn't have an air conditioning but all the windows were open and it was quite comfortable. It made a lot more stops at all the small places along the way so it took about 3.5 hours. We will definitely take it again as it was cheap and quite comfortable.

Once in Chumphon, we walked to the cheap hostel we were staying at. We bought our ferry tickets to Koh Tao for the next morning.

 

 

 

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The Grand Palace

Sorry I had to cut the day into two blogs but the blogger platform was being really annoying and I'm not techy enough to fix it.
Also, if you want to be emailed once a new blog post is up, pop your email into the box underneath "follow by email" in the top right corner of each blog post and click submit.

Anyways, we walked to the entrance of the Grand Palace. Bear in mind it's mid day by now and there are a bagillion people. The Grand Palace is the historic residence of the Thai royal family and ceremonial buildings. In a sense, it's like the Thai version of Buckingham Palace, but the similarities end there. At Buckingham, there's still a ton of people but you're all stuck behind a huge fence and you can stare longingly at the palace from a safe 500 yards away. If my memory serves me right there as also a huge garden behind the palace, but it's not like you got to go there or anything, someone just mentioned it. But here in Thailand, you walk into the inner compound and the place is chocker block full of opulent buildings, statues and murals and you are right in there with them. There's no gardens or anything to spread things out, just you craning your neck up to see the tops of all these really beautiful structures. There was, however, a dress code and Jared's knees were showing (scandal), so he had to rent/buy a pair of elephant print harem pants at the entrance. I unfortunately did not get a picture. The buildings were so jammed in there it was hard to appreciate each one for its beauty and detail. They were each so intricate, thousands of tiles the size of a loonie making up an entire Wat. These pictures don't really do it justice but please use your imagination!

 These guard off evil spirits

Some history on the Grand Palace: Construction began in 1782 when King Rama I took the throne and moved the royal palace to the current site from the previous site of Thonburi across the Chao Phraya River. The Grand Palace includes the historical royal residence, throne halls, some government buildings and the renowned Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The whole compound is on 53 acres but the inner compound with all the really beautiful buildings is about 1/4 of that.
So back to this Emerald Buddha character. His temple is one of the most venerated sites in Thailand for the faithful. He was carved from a block of green jade and is a whopping 30 inches tall. He sits on top of a huge throne of gilded carved wood. When you go into his temple there is no photography allowed, so my apologies. He was first discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai. At the time, he was covered in plaster and it wasn't until a piece chipped off the nose that revealed the jade beneath! He had been covered in plaster to protect him from looters so they would just think he was a ordinary Buddha image. Once his value was known, he was moved by the reigning king to Lampang and then to Chiang Mai. He did a short stint in Laos until 1778 when King Rama I led an army into Vientiane and recaptured him. He's been in Thailand ever since.

After all that traipsing around we took a tuk tuk back. They're kind of a ripoff compared to the cost of a taxi but had to try it once.

Later that evening, we went to Thip Samai pad Thai shop. It was right across from our hostel and there was always a huge line so we decided to see what all the fuss was about. When we finally got our food it was definitely yummy, and got a cool video of the guy coating each dish in an 'egg sack' before serving it. Sounds gross but it was good!