The morning of my lake adventure, I went to the Nung House restaurant for breakfast. The owner fed me a complimentary breakfast and gave me more of the dessert her mother had prepared. The hound of Khao Sok and a cat joined me for breakfast...
Shortly after I finished my eggs, toast, and local dessert, Te Te arrived in the shuttle van. Te Te was one of the two guides, we'd be joining another full van driven by Pad Tai later at the lake entrance to the park. A couple from Poland that I didn't talk to on the trip were already in the van when I climbed in. We made two more stops in town and picked up the other eight riders. Seven young ladies who were in their early twenties, and a guy, also in his early twenties, from the Netherlands. The guy's name was Robbert, the ladies were all from Holland, except for one from Sweden.
Te Te told us our drive to the lake entrance would take forty minutes and we'd be stopping in a town along the way where we could buy a snack or flip flops, or anything we felt we needed at the last minute.
The market in the town was large and indoors, all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and nuts for sale, as well as more pigs' heads and legs. I bought an apple and talked to Robbert some more. He dropped out of his masters program and is traveling for about a month. He'd been to an island south of here and was the only one in the hostel. The owner invited him to a family BBQ and fed him all kinds of food and drink. I talked a bit to the ladies from Holland. They were doing a S.E. Asia tour. Some of them were going to Myanmar next, and some were going to Chaing Mi.
We met Pad Thai and his van full of people at the park entrance. His van contained a bunch of rowdy British assholes. I won't talk much about them, but they reminded me of frat boys from America; they were loud, entitled, chanted, laughed at idiotic things, sat on the dock to play drinking games instead of going on the night boat ride, thankfully missed the morning wildlife excursion, and were generally annoying to everyone but themselves. I also learned that Robbert from the Netherlands and all of the girls from Holland have met so many British people of the sort that they were under the impression that most all British people are loud blokes. These were the first British blokes I'd ever encountered, every other Brit I've met has been wonderful.
I theorize that the rowdy Brits vacation in the netherlands to party and smoke pot, so the local population only meets a high percentage of dotes.
Anyways, we paid to enter the park. The entrance fee was separate from the cost of the Tour. The two days, with the cost of the tour and the park was around 100 dollars. That was with meals and a stay on the floating raft, bungalows.
I talked more with Robert and the ladies from Holland, introduced myself to them as a group and we joked that I would simply refer to the ladies as 1 through 6. A few moments later we piled in the boat. It was a 40 minute tailboat ride to the bungalows.
The scenery was breathtaking, limestone mountain islands, some taking up less than an acre, others like mini mountain ranges.
Notice, I'm not posting pictures of it yet. There's a reason for that which I'll get to shortly.
We got to the bungalows. Smiley's Raft House was the name, fun was the game. The bungalows were simple structures, nothing like huts, merely tiny motel rooms with a bathroom (shower hose and toilet, no sink) and a bed on the floor. I got my own room, as I was traveling alone. I wouldn't have objected to sharing with one of the beautiful ladies from Holland... But I think they would have had something to say.
We had a couple hours to swim and kayak before lunch. We swam in the warm lake and kayaked a little bit without leaving site of the bungalows. Lunchtime came, they served a buffet of Thai food. There was curry, rice, and a vegatable medley thing. Watermelon and pineapple were provided for dessert.
After lunch we got in the boat and went to the trail head for the jungle trek. After a bit of time in the wide open lake, we went down a narrowed section that seemed more like a river. A monkey sat on a branch overhanging the water, I had a picture of it, but more on that in a moment.
We reached the trail head and entered the jungle. Yellow moths greeted us at the entrance to the jungle. There were about 10 of them flying around the first few feet of the trail at the edge of the bamboo forest.. The guides warned us not to touch the bamboo trees that were missing sections of the smooth outer sheath. If you touched the wrong tree, you'd get a fiberglass-like shard in your finger, or many shards. They said the best way to try to get rid of them was not to try to wash your hands in water because that would make it worse. To rid your hand of the itchy shard you were best advised to run your hand through your hair.
We hiked through the bamboo forest, we walked through rivers, sometimes up to our waste. We stopped at a vine swing over a river that a few people climbed up and onto, we stopped at five foot waterfall/rapid water area where we could stand under the water and let it massage our back, we hiked some more, and finally reached a cave. Inside the cave we saw stalactites and stalagmites (do you remember which ones hang and which ones rise?), we saw bats, and at the deepest point of the cave we saw a waterfall. That's where I killed my IPhone.
Before leaving on the trip around the world, I took great care in finding a waterproof case for my IPhone. I was determined to not have it ruined by water. I bought an expensive Lifeproof case for it and I thought I was safe. I should have been. I took my phone in the cave. Near the waterfall, there was a deep section of water we had to swim through. I submerged my phone with confidence.
After coming out of the cave, I noticed my phone was spontaneously shutting down. I attempted to turn it back on, but had no success. My mind went straight to the case failing and thoughts of having to file a complaint with the company... that's when I noticed that I had left the flap to the charger open!
TRAVELMAN'S TRAVEL TIP #3 (?)- If you want your waterproof phone case to work, be sure to close the dang charger flap, cuz it ain't waterproof when you leave open access to the innards of the phone. In other words, don't behave like a dumbass, like Travelman.
Absent mindedness has been something I've dealt with my entire life. I've learned to do my best, and taken great pains (especially since becoming a nurse), to minimize any harm my absent mind can cause in my life and not to beat myself up when it displays itself in a costly manner. So my IPhone's dead and I lost all the pictures from the hike. I still have my IPad and the samsung phone I bought, and a GoPro (I have yet to use). Close the flap!!!
In the evening, the guides took us on a night time wildlife spotting boat ride. The only thing we saw were stars, clouds, the moon, and spotlights shone by the guides onto trees. The guides apologized and said they hoped we'd have better luck in the morning. I think Pat Tai said it had something to do with it being the rainy season. He said a lot of things in a ten-minute lecture/presentation from the front of the boat, but his English was so broken I only picked up every fifth word. One of the girls from Holland, pronounced leopards as Leo - Pards. We had a good laugh about that and it's probably the moment I'm going to remember most from the trip.
Here's the photos I took with my IPad that evening and the next day...
The lovely ladies from Holland joked that they were my Harem when we took this pic. Sanne, the Leo-pard lady is on my left. Amie is on my right. The ladies taught me a fun card game the called Cambie. They made my trip a lot more fun and I'm thankful to have met all of them.
Watching the locals repair a tailboat engine and discovering why it's called a "tail" boat...
The morning of the wildlife viewing excursion from the boat...
There are Gibbons and Macaques in this tree, I swear. Te Te said the Gibbons live in a tree for a week, then move on to find food in another tree. It was the highlight of the trip for me. I also saw a chamealeon on the jungle hike, sadly, no pic.
On the tailboat...
More pics of the second day of the trip coming in the next post...
wow nice 💙
That smile...from ear to ear! Glad you are having fun!