Thailand: cheeky monkeys, rafthouses and temples

Next up was Khao Lak, gateway to the Similan Islands. The journey there very complicated and long, involving four different modes of transport! Our bus then dropped us off at the wrong stop, nearly drove off with Gaz’s bags and in the rush he left his book on the bus! To avoid paying lots of money to hire a taxi to our accommodation, now 9km away, we instead hired a motorbike and eventually managed to get all the bags there after 2 round trips zooming around switchback peninsular road bends and then across muddy jungle tracks. Our accommodation was worth the effort though – we had a private little stilted bungalow with views over the ocean and the rock-dotted beach! We found a great little restaurant nearby that we kept going back to. It did great Thai food, including awesome Tom Yum soup and stir fried spicy vegetables. We really felt like locals in the place by the end of our stay and the owners even put a separate table out for us on the last night when the place was completely full!

The main purpose of the trip was for Rach to fulfil her diving fantasies at the Similan Islands, reputed to be the best dive spot in Thailand. Gaz, feeling a bit reefed out, opted to leave her to it. Rach took a speedboat out to the islands with a group of divers and jumped into the aquamarine 30 degree water for two fantastic dives. The first dive had Rach swimming through huge underwater canyons, whose sides were packed full of beautiful purple, orange and red soft corals and shimmering fish. The second dive Rach was lucky to go for a swim with a huge green turtle, a sea snake and gorgeous little damsel fish and nemos everywhere. It was like swimming in an aquarium! Inbetween the dives the boat pulled up on Honeymoon Bay for lunch which was absolute paradise. Rach spent a good hour chatting to the other divers, taking photos, swimming and swinging around on vines…. and rather missed Gaz!

We left Khao Lak and took a bus to the nearby (in Thailand terms – actually an hour and a half away!) Khao Sok National Park. We got off the bus in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but within seconds we were literally surrounded by hostel touts. They were VERY persistent and we were totally overwhelmed! Eventually we opted for one woman’s hostel purely because she spoke good English and we were whisked away from the chaos in a 4x4. We ended up at Palm View Bungalows, a gorgeous little place in the middle of the mountains, with (you guessed it) palm trees all around. We had another stilted bungalow, but this one was brilliant value at about 3 pounds for both of us for the night! We explored the little village that night, getting pummelled once again with a Thai massage and drinking awesome herbal tea in a moonlit tea bar. It was very relaxing and felt a million miles away from the chaos of the islands!

The next day we set out on our two day trip to the National Park. We were picked up after a tasty breakfast (Gaz happy after getting some muesli and fruit!) in a minivan and then went to pick up the other trippers. The group seemed nice, with an English guy, an English couple and two Danish girls. We all got chatting straight away. Then we stopped at our final pickup and on staggered a very loud, totally drunken Irish guy (this was at 8.30am!). We thought he was getting a lift to the nearby bus stop, but it turned out he was actually on the trip with us. All eyes started rolling in the back as we prepared for two days of hell with this fellow. The bus trip to the park took a couple of hours and the scenery got more impressive as we went, with towering cliffs and deep chasms by the roadside. We arrived at the huge lake in the centre of the park, which is actually man made due to the flooding of the valley, and we all got onto a long tailed boat. The next two hours were great as we motored across the deserted lake with tree-covered cliffs towering on all sides. Our drunken Irish friend even stopped talking at everyone and quietened down, leaving us to really enjoy the solidude and silence. Soon we pulled into our accommodation for the night – an amazing little rafted collection of bamboo bungalows in the middle of the lake. We all got off, selected our bungalow (complete with two mats and a fan – luxury) and then jumped off the platform into the very warm, fresh and VERY deep water. After the intense heat of the day it was paradise!

That afternoon we took a boat trip across the lake to a little headland. After a brief walk through the jungle we arrived at a jetty and we all climbed on board flat bamboo rafts. With the wood lying (scarily) just under the water we sailed across to a big cave entrance. Inside we saw huge, alien-looking formations, with huge columns and weird flowing rocks – all pretty spectacular! Later that afternoon and evening we took a couple of boat trips out around the sunken forests and little lake islands to look for wildlife. Whilst the nocturnal trip didn’t yield much success, despite considerable torch waving, during the afternoon trip we saw monkeys swinging in the trees and huge eagles soaring over the cliffs. We finished off the day all sitting down to a huge meal in the central hut of the village as the moon shone down over the lake. We ate fresh fish, rice, coconut curry and tonnes of fresh fruit and chatted until we were too full and tired to stay up and we all retired to the huts. The Irish drunkard had long since passed out after falling down some nearby stairs, so fortunately we were free of his ramblings for another few hours! Heading to bed should have been the end of the night, but we had a nasty experience in store as we settled down to sleep on the floor. Rach heard a rustling from the grass roof and then a huge THUMP near her head followed by more rustling, this time from inside the hut. Rach shook Gaz awake in a panic, thinking it might be a tarantula! With Gaz also now awake we shone the torches around the hut, to find a huge rat scuttling around in the corner - AAAARGH!!!!! Cue a lot of manic moving of belongings and shooeing of our furry mate, who eventually disappeared through the floor. Gaz spent ten minutes armed with a bamboo pole trying to find him underneath the hut, but with no success. We could still hear him though, and that was enough to get us to move a few doors down to an empty hut and peace!

The following day we opted out of the morning safari and instead took some of the village kayaks out on the lake. It turned out to be a great decision as we drifted in total silence through the huge drowned tree trunks as the sun rose over the surrounding mountains. We also saw plenty more monkeys! We got back and had a huge breakfast before packing up and departing. We took a trip across the lake to a jetty, where we embarked on a very tough trek up across a mountain pass through dense jungle. We were all very sweaty and tired by the time we descended back down to the lake for lunch, but we had taken in some great sweeping lake views and seen some huge trees and strange twisted root plants! We then chugged back to our start point and soon we were on our way back to Palm View Bungalows by minivan. All in all a great trip and even our Irish friend had lightened up over the course of the trip and had become almost bearable by the end!

The next day we embarked on a mammoth overland travel stint, taking a 2 hour bus from Khao Lak park to Surat Thani, then another bus (a whopping 8 hours) up the coast to Petchaburi. We arrived in the dark and took a wild tuk tuk ride – the driver going the wrong way over newly laid and closed road sections – to our hotel. After the rat-infested huts the air conditioned en suite room with views of the nearby mountain top temples was pure luxury! We had a great dinner in a riverside restaurant, which had over 200 dishes on the menu! On the walk back in the dark a monkey went after poor Rach, but Gaz was swift with a Tarzan comeback (some loud shouting and stomping!) to scare it off. Rach who had previously thought monkeys were cute avoided them for the rest of the trip!

The following day we set off to explore the town. We first headed to some of the town’s urban temples, which were very ornate and were filled with pensive looking monks. The second one we visited, however, had a collection of guys and girls all dressed up with painted faces beating loads of drums. It all made for quite an experience! We then took a ferinular railway up the side of the town’s main hill to the famous Royal residence on top. We spent a great (if unbearablyhot) couple of hours exploring the nooks and crannies of little Chinese-Thai style walled gardens, complete with cobbled pathways, bright pink bougainvilleas, tiny temple buildings and huge whitewashed towers. The sweeping views all the way to the coast made the whole place even more impressive. Still trying to cram all the sights in, we hired a tuk tuk to Khao Luang caves. We had the caves all to ourselves and they turned out to be very atmospheric with candles and shafts of sunlight falling on buddhas. Outside were gangs of mischievous looking monkeys so we gave them a wide berth! As we took the bus out that afternoon, we really felt that we had experienced this little town, even if we had had less than 24 hours there! And so we journeyed to Bangkok…