August 12, 2007

Thailand Part Five: Elephant Riding and River Tubing

After the amazing time we had touring Chieow Laan Lake, we decided to go back into Khao Sok park on our last day and check out some of the other famous attractions!

Sunday, August 12th

On Sunday, we got up super early and strung up our towels on the porch of our cute lil' guest house...

meredith — ...had ourselves some delicious breakfast...

crookjaw — ...played with Crookjaw...

...and the friend that Crookjaw brought along to meet us. We called him OneEye! (It's hard to tell in this photo, but he was missing his right eye).

meredith — And then we headed back into the national park to visit an elephant conservation center! It sorta seems counter-intuitive, but the way they raise money for their cause is by selling elephant treks, where you get to go for like an hour ride on an elephant through the jungle. Here's us way up high in this tower watching the elephant that we're going to ride cross the river...

...and head our way. No matter how many times I've seen an elephant in real life, it never gets any less shocking. Every time I'm like, "Holy shit, that's a big animal!"

They walked our elephant under the big tower we were up in so that we could get onto her back without having to lean a ladder against her or something. Here's a pic I took of her fuzzy head while Meredith was climbing on!

meredith — Success! (Hahaha. This was the first time Meredith had been on an elephant and she was so excited!)

Right after we crossed the river, we were walking through the forest on a bath and we started passing all these funny, skinny trees that had cups nailed to them that were collecting some kind of weird, milky-white sap.

Our guide explained to us that they were rubber trees! And they were collecting sap to make latex!

When you ride an elephant, you sort of sit on a bench-seat that's tied around the animal's back - but the driver, the driver sits right up on the head! It's totally shocking! It was really neat to watch the trainer get up there - he'd make a clicking sound while standing on the ground and the elephant would bend her knee and fashion a "step" so that the guy was able to climb on up!

meredith — After about thirty minutes through the forest, we arrived at a waterfall! Our guide told us that the waterfall was good for swimming if we fancied a dip!

Here's the view of the waterfall's plunge pool!

meredith — And here's Meredith trying to psyche herself up to get into the freezing cold water.

meredith — Contemplation from the sidelines.

meredith — Hahahah. Meredith made it as far as putting one leg in the water up to her heinie...

meredith — ....and then decided that maybe sitting on the edge of the waterfall would be plenty refreshing enough.

Here's a photo of my trying to look suave while I also do my best to pretend that the water isn't ice fucking cold.

After a good minute or two of getting used to the water temperature, I was finally acclimated enough to lean back into the stream and get my back wet.

I then I went for it! Sooooooo cold!

meredith — After we'd finished cooling off, we went back over to the riding platform and we got to play with the elephant a little bit. She was so friendly and curious. She kept sending her trunk up to grab at our hands and sniff around. Getting touched and groped by a sniffy elephant's trunk is genuinely one of the weirdest and wonderfulest things I've ever experienced!

Then, we mounted back up and it was time to head back to the camp.

On the way back we passed a boy elephant with huge tusks! About halfway back to the camp, our guide stopped us and told us that he had to go into the forest to "get us a gift," but that he'd be right back. We were like "A gift? Holy shit! What kind of gift is he getting us in the forest???" Care to guess what it was?

meredith — If you guessed "a monkey" (which is what Meredith was hoping the gift was) are not correct. However, if you happened to have guessed LEAF HAT, congratulations! You are correct, sir!

me, meredith — Obligatory "we're riding an elephant!" photo.

me, meredith — Take two.

meredith — After we got back to the camp, our trainer asked us if we wanted to feed our elephant and thank her for the ride! When we said yes, he walker her around a little fence thingy - so that she would get over excited about the food and accidentally trample us to death..

Here's a quick guide to elephant eating: First you reach out and grab the bananas...

meredith — ...then you use your trunk to place the entire bunch of bananas in your mouth...

meredith — ...then you chew then entire bunch at the same time...

meredith — Swallow. (I like how Meredith's gently petting the end of her nose here.)

meredith — And repeat! (Look how happy she is here!)

Then it was my turn! Meredith took my cam and did an awesome job capturing the following action sequence!

I totally broke my bunch of bananas in two because I wanted to experience the weirdness of feeling her sniff around my hand and then grab the bananas twice!

Look at me, I'm such a little trunk-toucher!

I think this one is my fave because it looks like she's smiling.

Hahaha.

So nice.

Here's her here little sniffer sniffing around for more bananas.

It sounds silly, but I really can't convey how surreal it is to have an animal that big gently take something out of your hand with it's nose.

NOM*NOM*NOM.

I CAN HAS MORE?

I didn't have any more bananas, but she was a good sport about it and even let me shake her trunk! (But that was probably only because her trainer held his stick up in the air and she knew she'd get a gentle whack in the head if she tried to get rough and sniffy with me.)

FRONDS!

Look how long and pretty and freckley (!!!) her trunk is!

Before we left, we stood there for a minute and marveled at her. I mean, would you just look at the crazy shape of her melon. I mean, just really stop for a minute and really look at that thing! Holy kee-rist on crutches! That thing is ridiculous! Can you believe that that's a real animal that walks around and puts entire bunches of bananas in its mouth at once with its giant nose that's like an arm but with a breathing straw in it? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about you, freak.

Just kidding! Thanks again for the ride! Hope you enjoyed your bananas!

meredith — On the ride back to our hostel...

meredith — ...our driver stopped off to show us another waterfall!

meredith — Meredith is a CLIMBOR!

After the waterfall, we made one more quick stop before heading back to the hostel...

...we rounded a corner and our driver pulled over to the side of a the road so that we could check out one of the most breathtaking scenic overlooks I've ever seen!

Photos of scenic overlooks never really do them justice. This one was totally insane. It was a green valley that seemed to stretch on forever.

Here's a zoomed in a pic that does a little bit better of a job illustrating the green sprawl. Amazing.

Me. Feeling smiley.

meredith — Meredith. Feeling leaf-hatty.

After stopping back out our hostel and lazing around a bit, we wandered down the road a bit and ended up eating lunch at another hostel down the road that had a tiny little restaurant on a huge, sprawling porch that looked out onto the mountains.

A couple of minutes later, we were sitting there, eating our delicious pad thai (with a side of french fries, thank you very much) and enjoying the gorgeous view when...

...the sky literally opened up and water started pouring rain. Never in my life had a seen such heavy rainfall start out of nowhere. It was amazing.

Torrential!

The now-obscured view!

meredith — After lunch, we arrived back at our fantastic hostel a little before 3pm. Kraisak, the man who runs the place, had a bunch of people over and when we asked what the occasion was, he told us that it was Thai Mother's Day

Then he told us that a bunch of his friends and relatives were going to go tubing down the riving in the rain and asked us if we'd like to join them! Of COURSE we did! So we ran and got tubes...

crookjaw — ...and followed everyone down to the river.

crookjaw, meredith — Crookjaw even came along with us! We'd been petting him so much that he'd begun to act like he was our dog! It was really cute.

crookjaw, meredith — Every time Meredith would start to put her tube down and get in the water, Crookjaw would start furiously barking at her! He didn't want to be left alone!

meredith — Spectators on the bridge watching us get ready to set out on our river ride.

crookjaw — For the first five minutes of our tube ride, Crookjaw ran along side side us barking to get our attention the whole time. Sweetest dog ever.

meredith — Meredith loves my mandals (man sandals).

Just tubin' down the river...

...in the pouring rain with a bunch of Thai folks.

In mandals.

That's just how we do.

The river was so pretty. It ran all the way back into the woods and got really close to some of the karsts that we had seen in the distance from the hostel.

Speaking of hostels, we passed this place right on the edge of the river and I momentarily thought about switching hotels. I mean how could you not want to stay at a place called "FREEDOM CAMP POT ADVENTURER?" They even have "TEAM TOUR SERVICE & BAR!"

Check the karsts again in the background. So much awesome.

At another bend in the river, we were greeted by two more dogs who were excited to see people in the river. They were running back and forth and barking like crazy - and even went so far as to wade into the river to get a better look at us. It was really cute.

At one point, the river passed right by the edge of one of the towering karsts! There were a bunch of kids at the base of it...

...and they were playing on a rope swing that was tied to the karst!

Towards the end of our tubin' adventure, the river actually went partially underneath one of the giant karsts! Check out the view! Right after we came through this underpass, someone was waiting by the edge of the riverbank with a so to take everyone back to the hotel.

We all piled into the back of the truck and everyone huddled together to try to stay warm. I just have to say, nobody has more fun than Thai people. For seriously. If these photos of a truckload full of wet and shivery happy smiley people who just got finished tubing down a country river for ninety minutes don't make you want to fly to Thailand right now...

...there's something wrong with you. Good times.

crookjaw — We spent the rest of the night hanging out on the porch with Crookjaw...

...and reading and taking it easy. I finished this book...

...and started and finished another. This book made me laugh out loud almost as much as it made me want to be a better human. Totally worth a read (as long as you're not easily inclined to hate men). The Average American Male: A Novel

Sunday, August 12th

On Sunday morning we got up at the buttcrack of dawn to pack up our stuff and check out. I just want to say thanks again to Kraisak and everyone else at Khao Sok Green Valley Resort for taking such good care of us and inviting us along to go tubing with the family. That was rad!

After checking out, we caught a bus and headed south for two and a half hours...

...to Krabi so that we could catch the ferry out to Koh Phi Phi Isand! Here's me getting excited about Krabi Magazine. Hahaha

I took a photo of this page because this is the one place in Thailand that my former roommate needs to visit. I think she'd railay, railay like it. Like, a lot.

meredith — The ferry to Phi Phi Island wasn't leaving until 1:30pm so we had a little over three hours to kill in traveler's purgatory (which you spend a lot of time doing in Thailand if you're traveling around a lot).

We relaxed and read and bought all kinds of delicious Thai fruits and snacks. My very favorite Thai fruit is rambutans! They are bright pink/red and look really hairy. But after you peel away the weird exterior, inside is a sweet, chewy sorta pulpy fruit that tastes like a cross between a lychee and a coconut!

meredith — They're delicious!

Then it was finally time to catch the ferry! Here's the long-ass walkway that leads out to the high-speed ferry.

When we left Krabi, the weather was sunny and gorgeous...

...but about an hour into the ride, it started raining really hard...

...and we had to come below deck.

meredith — Dino-Arm hates the rain!

We arrived at Koh Phi Phi Don Port a little past 5pm and it was still pouring. Not wanting to have to try to make a mad dash through the crowds with our big backpacks, we hung out on the boat for a few minutes to see if the rain would let up.

meredith — And ten minutes later, it did! We left the boat...

...and stepped out onto Phi Phi Island! Last time I was in Thailand, Phi Pi Island had recently been pretty much wiped out by the tsunami and I spent some time back then volunteering on Phi Phi and helping rebuild.

We hadn't booked a place to stay ahead of time, so we make our way down the beach...

...and just kept stopping in hostels until we found a place with an available room.

After dropping off our bags, unpacking and a quick nap we headed to a restaurant right on the water...

...and had a delicious Thai dinner. Afterwards, I walked into the center of town and got a massage and then I went to the scuba center I dived at last time I was on the island, and booked an early dive the next morning!

meredith — When I got back to the room, this little MonkeyLady was already asleep, so I called it a night too!