Bridging the Gulf

10^th July

World Resort, Bophut, Koh Samui

This morning we were leaving the jungle to retreat to the beach and had a long day travelling ahead of us. We broke fast then paid up for the food and our ticket to Koh Samui , said our goodbyes to our hosts and boarded a minibus to drive the 90 minutes of so to the provincial capital Surat Thani. We then transferred to a coach to the ferry terminal (another 90 mins away) and the ferry to Koh Samui at a place called Donsak another 2 hours away. Add up waiting time between them plus transfer from ther KS fery terminal to Bo Phut another few km away and it mounts to 6 or 7 hours. Not that it's especially taxing. The minibus was a little cramped and the driver did use the road like he was playing Scalextric, but it's still sitting down doing nowt. 

 Last couple of shots from Baan Khao Sok Resort

The restaurant had fantastic views and it was good to see them without the rain. It's a great place to enjoy breakfast if the weather is good and when you can hear the gentle movement of the river and birds singing

When we arrived in Surat Thani we needed to get our receipts turned into tickets for the ferry and the lady behind the counter (which was in fact a desk in a dingy coffee shop, though since I was wearing sunglasses all the time, most places were dingy) told us we needed to board the big coach across the road and when we arrive at Koh Samui, Li Pah Noi ferry terminal, we get back on the bus which will then take us further to the town of Na Thon which is the major town on the island. From here we were to catch a songtheaw to Bo Phut. Li Pah Noi is on the western side of Samui and the rest of the trip is going clockwise round the island to Bo Phut which is on the north coast.

The minibus and subsequent coach trip were pretty uneventful. Saying that, there's still the, by now slightly diminished, thrill of going through a country as exotic as Thailand with it's different script and the sites you get along the way like the odd domestic animal milling around on the roadside or colourful temple. We had a quick walk round the block in Surat Thani while we waited to get a feel of the town (we're due to stop over here for a night on our way back to KL). It's an unremarkable, working Thai town with no tourist attractions to speak of, but we really love to get a taste of the true Thailand with a stay in somewhere like this. We set off on the coach and eventually approached the ferry terminal at Donsak where the bus rolls on board whilst we disembark on the quayside. With your tickets there are warnings that you should remove any valuables from your luggage, since this is left on the coach as you get on the ferry. We knew tht someone had gone through the side pouches of our backpacks since we had taken sunblock out of one of them before we boarded he boat and left then unclipped but they had become miraculously fastened by the time we reached the island. It seems it's not just a case of if they rifle through the easy to get to parts of your bags, but when they do it so don't keep anything remotely valuable in there at all.

The ferry trip was great. I don't think I've had a good holiday until I've actually travelled by boat for some part of it, so I am a little biased on that score. The weather got increasingly good as we moved further from the mainland with plenty of chance for photos of the turquoise sea and the shadowy islands rising out of it all around. Now we felt like we were truly on holiday. You can even enjoy a beer on the deck bought from the shop on board as you travel. In fact it was just like being on the Love Boat from the 80s but with fewer swimming pools and no moral to the story on arrival at your destination. In fact, in keeping with the 80s TV references, as we approached the harbour I was half expecting to hear a bell being rung by that dwarf from off of The Man With The Golden Gun as he shouted “De boat! De boat!”  and to be greeted by the bloke who played Khan in Star Trek 2 in a white suit (those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about look here). Anyway, I digress. The trip was leisurely and less perilous than our last trip on water, that's for certain.

Donsak Ferry Terminal as we leave

 Some more cliffs and stuff poking out of the Gulf of Thailand

Love, exciting and true. Come aboard! We're expecting you!

They clearly were expecting me. Singha on the deck. That's what I call a "love boat"

 Here comes Samui!

At the terminal on KS we re-boarded the bus to go that bit further up the caost. Interestingly, other people who had been on the bus from Surat Thani didn't bother, not sure if this was because they wanted to get a taxi or because they didn't know they could carry on. It seems most likely to be the latter since most of the holiday resorts are in the direction we were headed. At Na Thon we got off avoiding the touting taxi drivers and found the place where the songthaews set off from and got on the next one leaving. The driver asked where we wanted to get off and stopped at the right place. It cost B60 each though we understand a taxi could cost 5 times as much perhaps.

We checked into our new hotel, the Samui World Resort (for the next few nights the world really IS our oyster) a nicely sized room with aircon, minibar, telly and a decent shower. It was clean, comfortable and above all, dry. We are in a hotel block whilst other accommodation is wooden huts as you walk through the complex to the beach. It is built into a lovely tropical garden a dnthe restaurant looks out over the sea. The pool is small but big enough to swim in or plunge into to cool off.

We freshened up and wandered along the beach which is fairly narrow with relatively coarse yellow sand being lapped by slightly murky, blue-green sea with views out to other islands in the distance. It's not your tropical idyll, but it's still attractive. The beach is lined with hotels and bars of various standards. I should explain that Bo Phut is a resort aimed at couples and families, so not too manic. The resort to the south is Mae Nam and has mostly a scummy, soap-dodging backpacker clientelle; the next one north of us is Chaweng, with a clientelle of hedonstic, puking teenagers; and the one after that is Lamai which is one of those more seedy, middleaged-white-men-with-young, attractive-Thai-girl-or-ladyboy pickup places that you see on Channel 5 documentaries, not that I'm any sort of travel snob (heaven forbid). Koh Samui really does have something for everyone.

There are some delightful places to stop for a drink along the beach, then you can climb up into the Fisherman's Village and onto a path that runs parallel with the sand which has bars and restaurant on either side. Best of all there was an optician where I could get some new specs. Surprisingly these aren't going to be especially cheap. Using the prescription from my ever worn sunglasses he calculated the cost. The displays had frames with a variety of prices from about B3500 to well over B6000 (that's £70 to £120). As it happened, I selected a pair and decent quality coated lenses and he gave discount to a toal cost of B5000, so a ton in quid. Stupidly, I realised afterwards that I could have haggled him down since he already had dropped the price by B1000 or so, but you don't expect to be able to do that in an opticians. I'd love to try that in Specsavers. They will be ready the following Friday (four days later). I paid B2000 in deposit which I had to take out of a cash machine. Annoyingly, the cash machines along this main drag of the resort charge B150 for withdrawals unlike the machine at Khao Sok. We had a drink at a bar called The Frog and Gecko which we realised only after we had ordered a drink was an English bar (I hate resorting to using English or, worse, Irish bars when we go to somewhere exotic, though needs must when the devil puts football on satellite channels). All the same, the beer mat was a little taste of home. We wandered further up the path to the end and walked back to our hotel where we re-freshened up.

 If I blocked out the warmth, the sound of the sea, the fact I was drinking Chang and just generally that I was in Thailand, I could have been in the Cricketer's at home

That evening we ate at the hotel restaurant. The prices hereabouts are shocking compared to the jungle, it has to be said. I'd say they are an averge twofold more, but there are some seriously expensive places further along in the Fisherman's Village. Apparently this is the most expensive resort on the island though it's still cheaper than the UK. I went for another red curry of beef. Well, I assume it was a red curry but it could have been skyblue pink, for all I could tell what with it being dimly lit and my vision being fettered by polarising filters. It tasted quite good, but not as good as the last one I had in Khao Sok. After this we wandered down the beach (we needed torches as some parts aren't well lit) and had a couple of drinks on the way. There's nothing that makes a beer or a cocktail taste nicer than to sip it with sand between your toes. Our last drink was in an Australian bar, purely because it had a nice outlook onto the beach and it may have been here that we acquired our security for the walk home. We set off walking and causafter a while became aware of three dogs running near us, one of which I may have petted in the Aussie bar. Two of them left but this dog, whcih I may have petted briefly, continued to walk with us, sometimes trotting off ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes walking at heel. He (or she) occasionally got involved with some other dogs on the way so I ended up chasing them away because I'm not having my security detail hurt by being bullied by other dogs. We had taken the long way home but this dog stayed with us all the way. Even when we got back to our accommodation, we thought we'd given him (or her) the slip as we ducked into our hotel and up the stairs, but it still managed to find us so we had to quickly lock it out in the end. I don't know why it took such a liking to us. I assume it was a stray but it seemed fairly well looked after despite not having a collar and it was very friendly. Hopefully, if it wasn't a stray (and there are a lot of stray dogs here, though the local authorities have a programme to inoculate them against rabies and I daresay they do OK for food from the soft-touch western tourists like us), it did find its way home. 

Jane enjoying a postprandial Bacardi and Coke at our accommodation

Night view of the bay from Billabong Australian bar before going home

Khao Sok, singular? Here's me thinking they only came in four-packs

Khao Sok National Park

So we had an eventful though disappointing time at the park. Disappointing in that the severe rain meant we couldn't do the jungle trek and also disappointing in the fact that we almost drowned on the canoe trip. Saying this, we still had a great time. The people are wonderful and the area is quite magical as jungle tends to be. We knew it was rainy season anyway so were ready for it to be wet, thought didn't anticipate how wet it could actually turn out to be. We avoided flooding, though it was close. The French chap and his son who we met on the lake trip had stayed at a place way out of the village which had flooded when the river overflowed. Their bungalow was on stilts so was OK, but the things they had left at ground level had to be recovered later when the water had subsided. It's also disappointing that the National Park itself is largely shut during during the rainy season so you can't actually go in there and see some of the wildlife. It would be far better to visit in the dry season, though wildlife is supposed to be more difficult to find then (but if you can't get into the park to see it, you'll not experience it anyway!).

A busier time would also be good as more of the bars and restaurants might have been open during the evening, and those that were might have been open later. We'd certainly come back and stay on the floating houses on the lake. On the other hand, we'd not touch the canoe trip with a bargepole, never mind a kayak paddle. We have seen more in Khao Yai National Park in the NW of the country which seemed altogether less touristy, though it was quite a few years ago since we were there so this may have changed.

Coming in the wet season you need to be prepared to get wet and stay wet, wear plenty of mossie repellent and you can see stuff if you are alert (we managed two types of monkey, two snakes, a few birds, bats and frogs). The frogs croaking after the rain is quite fun and we actually found a small frog in our bathroom on the day we left. If you take this on board you can have a great time any time of year. According to the book about the place which they had at our lodge called Gibbon Calls and Waterfalls (and you can actually hear the whooping calls of gibbons all over the place in the morning), it is supposed to be one of the oldest rainforest habitats on the planet. It is a very good book explaining a lot about various parts of the ecosystem. My favourite one the author explains is the sweat bee that I'd heard of before and encountered before, but hadn't realised they were the same thing. These are tiny black bees that really hover around your head really annoyingly and are difficult to swat away. They are attracted to the salts in your sweat and won't actually hurt you I now know, so if and when I experience theme again I won't be so irritated by them.

So it's time to move on from the jungle and head to the beaches of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan

The python sleeps tonight

Day 4

Monday 9^th July

Baan Khao Sok Resort, Khao Sok National Park

We were awoken in the early hours by what sounded like biblical rainfall, though I suppose there are worse places for it to happen. You are pretty well placed to collect a lot of species here, though good luck finding a breeding pair of clouded leopards or tigers. Come to think of it, Noah would actually have his work cut out for him on the ability to collect two of every animal, what with the number of endangered species there are, if he had to do the ark thing now. Anyway, I digress. We thought “Oh, God! More rain!” as it continued for some time. We didn't think much more of it, but it was still raining when we got up finally and walked to the restaurant for breakfast before our planned trip to the local lake for a bit of jungle action (I do hope that's not slang for something sexual, which it sounds like it is). The owner said that the whole area next to the river had been flooded over night. It hadn't got over the steps into the open air restaurant, but it must have been close and this does have bearing on the later happenings today.

I was a little hungover after watching the whilst overindulging in Singha and started the day like Victoria Beckham. That is to say wearing sunglasses and regurgitating my breakfast,. We got our pick up for the lake trip which was a blue Chrysler pickup truck where we squeezed into the back seats which arrived at 8:30ish, took us to another lodge from where we set off in a songthaew with about 8 or 9 others. It was a bit of a squeeze and we were at the back so got a little wet with spray from the road. As we approached the place where we were to catch the boat the weather improved and the road dried and we even saw some sun for once.

We reached the lakeside and boarded a longtail boat with three Dutch girls and a French guy and his young son and we were away through the landscape of rugged limestone cliffs. Since it was sunny and we had forgotten to bring the sunscreen, I had to scrounge some from one of the Dutch girls or else I'd have ended up looking like a Coke can. I saw mentioned somewhere that this area is regarded as Thailand's Guilin, and as we made our way on the boat to the floating houses we were visiting I could see why. The scenery was breathtaking with the peaks covered in dense vegetation looking like dark green treacle poured over white ice cream. The impact was further enhanced by the billows of low cloud crowning a lot of the taller peaks. There wasn't perhaps as much wildlife to see as you might imagine. This is a man-made lake created for hydroelectric power so there are numerous dead trees poking up through the blue-green water where you might have expected to see birds perching, but on the way out we didn't see any. We did drift by a couple of islands to look first at a monitor lizard and secondly at a group of langurs leaping through the trees.

The pair of us in the boat as we set off.

Note the life jackets no-one else is wearing (after the day before we were taking no chances) 

Limestone cliffs

Another cliff view

Another stunning view

 A longtail boat on the same route as us

Eventually we reached the floating houses which was our base from which to go and see the jungle. As we approached you are met with the site of a few low huts perched on rafts in front of a backdrop of green-shrouded cliffs. We could have done a longer trip which involved staying here if we'd fancied it, but given that it was the rainy season at present, we had decided it was not likely to be a great thing to do, though today would have been fantastic in the sun. Here we ate some food (standard Thai stirfry) and I was a little disappointed to see I'd passed up the chance for a swim or kayak on the placid water. As it happened, for the hour or so more we just hung out, we managed to see a single macaque come down to the water's edge (again if I'd thought more about what we might have been doing, I'd have brought our binoculars and might have known exactly what this monkey was doing, though given the nature of monkeys and their general lack of inhibition, this might not necessarily have been a good thing).

So came the time to get into the jungle to start our trek to visit some waterfall. Unlike for the other possible activities here, we were well prepared for this, having encountered leeches in damp rainforest in the past. We had rugged shoes, long trousers and plenty of mosquito repellent. Our fellow travellers weren't so well equipped, having shorts and sandals, so we looked on smuggly as we set off. We were in the longtail for the first few minutes to get us upstream on a river where we got out onto the slimy mud. We set off along the trail over a couple of gullies and into the forest where we came upon a small stream which we had to trudge through and which lead to a river/stream we were to ford. I say were, since what should have been a mildly flowing watercourse of perhaps a metre in depth had become a raging torrent with the huge downpour experienced upstream in Khao Sok, so we had to stop here, just five or ten minutes into our trip. On the plus side, where we stood we could see a sleeping python in a tree nearby which was good for some photos.

I think I'll call him Monty. The Count of Monty Constrictor

I think it's a Burmese reticulated one, sleeping off its last meal in a tree

So we walked back the boat and, working against the current and facing the wrong way, was difficult to manoeuvre to get back to the floating houses, but our guide and pilot managed it eventually.

Since we had missed the jungle trail, we were given a beer each (Chang, Thailand's second plased one but they do sponsor Everton FC) and taken later instead to another location on the lake to see some impressive scenery. Whilst watiting for the next stage and whilst drinking my beer I watched another couple of macaques leaping through some of the trees. Macaques in the wild are amazing animals to watch. They tend to be quite small, perhaps the size of a Staffy dog, but in urban and areas where they have a lot of contact with people they are a total pain in the arse, bigger (downright obese in some places) and effectively like smart rats who work in groups. I also used the opportunity to change out of my jungle attire which had gotten muddy and wet trudging through the stream, and into something more dry and comfortable. Once we set off we did actually see a fish eagle perched in one of the dead trees. We reached the location we had been heading for, and it was something special. An inlet against a cliff with one large island one one side and three small rocky outcrops at the end. It was peaceful, almost eerie but quite special. After this we set off back to the harbour and got caught in rainfall. We could see it in the distance across the lake and had hoped to outrun it, but alas not so it was time to done my very fetching rain poncho as loaned by our accommodation. We passed through the worst of this for a while but the rain had the same idea about where it wanted to go so we caught it up again as it headed towards the harbour drenching us.

 A holy trinity of rock

Close up of one of the rocks

 Here comes the rain again

We couldn't outrun it

We disembarked onto dry land again, a little wet when I learnt that the songthaew we had arrived on was broken down and that they had a broken roof on the replacement which didn't bode very well. As it transpired, the transport that did arrive was the pickup truck we had been ferried to the starting point on. Jane made a beeline to get on the inside whilst I held back to allow someone else to go inside, thinking that the little boy shouldn't go in the back and that his Dad should go with him. I also held back to see if any of the three Dutch girls wanted to. The boy sat on the knee of the guide who sat in the front so there was a spare adult place and the girls wanted to stick together so I did end up inside. The rain at the lake had subsided by now and as we set off the weather actually wasn't too bad, since it was largely dry with the occasional spit of rain. That was until we approached Khao Sok when it started to rain heavily for the last 15-20 mins of the trip. This made me feel somewhat guilty since these poor Dutch girls were getting drenched. Never mind, the guilt did pass in much the same way that New Amsterdam became New York.

We got out and freshened up in our room before heading out for a night on the tiles Khao Sok style. This didn't amount to much, to be honest since this was low season. We needed some cash so went to an ATM where we had some fun. I wanted to get B5000 out but the machine wouldn't let me. I tried again with B4000 but still wouldn't let me. I then figured out that all it contained were B100 notes and wouldn't dispense anything more than 20 notes at a time so I did two withdrawals of B2000 so we had enough money to pay our food bill at Baan Khao Sok as well as our transport out the next day. Also, I was stood waiting for my card to be returned, but a Thai girl who worked at the minimart where the ATM was located jumped in to press a button that the machine was waiting on me to press. It was asking some question in Thai that I couldn't read although the responses were listed in English as accept or reject. I was told it would have swallowed my cards if I'd not answered within a few seconds whch is not ideal in a foreign country.

We had dinner at a restaurant called Pawn, eventually. We had noticed this was busy the night before so thought we'd give it a try. However, it as full when we first walked past (not difficult since they only have about 7 tables) so wandered further up the road to find another place. The only one that looked OK and relatively busy was the pizzeria and I'm not so sick of Thai food that I want to resort to pizza just yet. We wandered back to Pawn and there were tables free so we ate here. It was a good choice since it was some of the best Thai food we'd had. My dish was gaeng som moo, a southern Thai hot and sour curry with pineapple and it was fantastic.

We'd fancied another drink at Morning Mist but they were just shutting (well, it was past 9:30) so we returned back to our treehouse and enjoyed a whiskey and Coke before bed. For once it hadn't been raining, but it was still stupidly damp and none of our wet clothes from our time here had dried. The dampness is best exemplified by the fact that there we had acquired a small frog in our bathroom, probably also pissed off at the weather and looking for somewhere to keep out of the rain.

Where'd you learn to drive a canoe, you fucking cowboy?

Sunday 8^th July, Ban Khao Sok Resort

Adventre, peril, danger. It's all in today's blog entry!      

Our third day started well. The rain had subsided from the previous day and the sun had even come out, though everything was still pretty wet. We could hear birds singing unlike the previous day. So we went over to the restaurant to get some breakfast which was good. We then headed up towards the village to see what else was about here. This gave us our first proper view of the local scenery, and it was stunning. Huge limestone peaks, draped in velvety green vegetation with billows of llow cloud cascading over the higher points. The rest of the village, however, was fairly low key being not a lot other than more resorts, a few bars and a couple of mini marts, but should make for a decent night out at least. I had been looking for some anti-fogging spray for my specs which seemed to be in a constant state of fine condensation because of the humidity. We didn't find any. We did stop for a drink at one particular restaurant, at the Morning Mist resort where they had Wifi so I could update the blog, check up on stuff online, etc.

 Some of the views of the Khao Sok locale

These pictures were taken just from our accommodation as we walked into the main village

We had arranged a canoe trip down the river through our accommodation to begin at 2pm, so we had a little lunch (pad Thai, or fried noodles, for me) and got in the canoe. I was a bit disappointed to find that I wasn't the one doing the paddling as I had been looking forward to a bit of exercise, it being about 4 days since I last hit the gym. However, no. The driver was a young Thai guy who didn't speak much English. Anyway, we set off with our life jackets on and it was a pretty leisurely trip on a fairly fast-flowing river (due to all the rain), but not apparently dangerously so. We spotted a couple of very striking birds (which was what I think was a stork-billed kingfisher and something else which I think was either a Gurney's or a hooded pitta - they look different in these references, I know, but it was the striking electric blue around their head that stood out - which get their name, presumably, because they're well-bred) and it was going well until we came upon a narrow tree trunk (maybe 20 or so cm across) across the river, half submerged. Now, I noticed it fairly early on and was thinking “how do we negotiate this?” then a few seconds later the driver used three of his few words of English to exclaim “Oh, my God!”. We hit the trunk and stopped, running aground on it. Again I was thinking “OK, now what do I do to help us get over this, I hope it doesn't puncture the boat” (though it was a canoe, it was actually air-filled, a bit like an inflatable dinghy) when all of a sudden the stern got caught by the current, dragged under and the boat flipped over backwards. We ended up in this brown, river, underwater with a strong current. We'd both worn life jackets and I remember thinking a I saw this dull brown of the murk “OK, the life jacket will start to bring me to the surface soon”, which It did, but took a little longer than I anticipated. I can't remember if I was past the log when I emerged or got over it afterwards, but I was moving down river. Jane was around somewhere and I saw what looked like some safe area on the bank and I think I may have pulled her over to it somehow (or not, it's now all a bit hazy). Our pilot/driver/guide had also made it over there. We got out and were left on the bank and he was clearly mortified. We stood there for a few minutes as he went to recover the canoe, still held behind the log a few metres back. It was at this moment I realised I had lost my specs in the incident. Jane later said she had initially been trapped under the boat (though this must have been for no more than a few seconds).

Once our man came back, we got back in the canoe and carried on down the river. There wasn't really much choice in this, to be honest, since there was nothing around there and nowhere to abandon the trip and go back until we got to the end. We reached a major road bridge over the river and I helped him drag the boat up the concrete slope to the roadside for our pickup. It came a while later. Too bloody long in fact, but I guess we were supposed to have stopped at some swimming hole for a bit etc and had no way to communicate what had happened to the tour company (and even if he did, his phone would have been knackered in the ducking).

We decided on the way back that we weren't going to pay. Almost drowning on a holiday trip through the fault of an inexperienced guide is pretty solid grounds for this. Reflecting on this a few things come to mind, like what could have happened. We could have hit our head/s on the log or each other and been knocked unconscious. We could have opted out of life jackets and fared much worse. Our guide could also have gotten into difficulty (he wasn't wearing a jacket). On a less serious note, we could have lost a camera, wallet, something else difficult to replace. As it happened, all we ended up was wet and I couldn't see very well. Oh, and lost my flip flops which I had bought for about 40p in Borneo, so not happy about this. Worst of all is thinking about what would have happened if we'd done this with our new child to come. This really does freak me out. I guess the thing is we had no actual idea what the trip was about, what we would have needed on it. Given the way it started and went on for most of the time, I would have had no qualms about bringing a kid or a camera or anything else for that matter, but one incident made all the difference. Still, it's not healthy to dwell on these things

On arrival back we told the owner of the hotel and she was so apologetic. She immediately told us we wouldn't be charged, but that she might have to still pay the company who ran the trip (Bew Khao Sok Canoes, in case you're wondering. I'd give them a wide birth and I shall shortly be giving them a severe kicking on Tripadviser.com). I said she shouldn't have to because it was due to them using guides who weren't properly trained. He should have been more vigilant and known how to deal with this sort of thing. Personally I would have turned so we approached the log side-on,but I'm no expert, though it seems it would not have been so catastrophic, even if we did end up in the water.

We returned to our room, showered, changed and went out for the evening. This added a few more clothing items to our “wet list”, since the place was so damp and humid that stuff just doesn't dry. We headed out for a couple of drinks and a bit of internet at Morning Mist. Here we chatted a little to some Australian guys who were over from Perth to celebrate one of their number's 50^th birthday by doing a motorbike tour of this part of Thailand. Here I got some stick for wearing dark glasses, as you might expect from a bunch of respectably lairy Ozzies. We ate here also, later on, mainly because they do reasonably priced cocktails. Their Singapore Sling was made by the numbers (incorrectly if I'm being pedantic, it was made according to a cocktail menu book, not the original Raffles recipe, having no Benedictine etc), but not bad for that and very well presented with pineapple slice and flowers. Food was fairly Thai standard, where I plumped for the gaeng phed goong or red curry prawn which was quite good and quite spicy.

 Beer to destress at the Morning Mist

You can see where it gets its name from looking at the mountains in the background. Mind you, this was sometime in the afternoon

We had a few drinks in a bar nearby as we watched Andy Murray getting his arse handed to him by Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final. During this we were surrounded by very well-off British kids who'd just finished their first year at Bristol University on a trip that Daddy had paid for. Then after one or two too many Singha we were off to bed, having to negotiate the dark dirt track to our accommodation by torchlight which is difficult in itself, but made moreso by having to wear prescription sunglasses and the fact that it was raining (for a change).

Siam, the one and only

7^th July

Baan Khao Sok Resort, Nr Surat Thani, Thailand

We arrived in Thailand to warm sun and lousy beaurocracy at immigration (as per). We were met by a man from our destination in the jungle and we set off once we'd got ourselves some baht from an ATM. The trip took about 90 mins and the weather worsened as we got closer. As we turned into the area the resort is, the heavens opened and we were subjected to a tropical downpour which lasted, well, actually it's still going on now some 9 hours later. I took a picture of the downpour but it's not too clear it's peeing down, but you can see how muddy and swollen the river is

Baan Khao Sok on arrival. 
Wet wet wet. I definitely was feeling it in my fingers and feeling it in my toes (Thank you sports sandals)

The lodge itself is enchanting, on the river, surrounded by jungle. It's called Baan Khao Sok and I'd highly recommend it. The family who run the place are friendly and very hospitable. They have two adorable kids and a range of pets. The cat is so friendly that as soon as I sat down it was on my lap. We waited for the rain to subside and had a drink before getting shown to our digs for the next three nights which was a proper tree house, by which I mean a hut built on a large tree. It has a mosquito net and a ceiling fan. This is real jungle accommodation: no air-con, no telly though we did get a warm shower. I can't remember the last time we stayed at a place like this and it's great!

 Our first taste of Khao Sok animal life

 The latest in arboreal living

We had planned to go out and do a little exploring, off up to the local village, but the rain has put the mockers on that. We had lunch in the restaurant at the resort which for me was a tom tum gai (chicken tom yam soup) and Jane had chicken and fried noodles. It was good, if (from my POV) a little mild in the spice department and lacking in exotic veggies. As it turns out, the guy who drove us from the airport is the owner and we chatted to him and his wife for a bit before heading back to our room through the pouring rain.


That evening, again, not wanting to get stupidly wet, we just stayed around the lodge where we ate again (gaeng phed moo or pork red curry. Yes, Thai for pork is pronounced "moo". I'm thinking of becoming an animal shrink to make a killing giving therapy to Thai pigs with their identity problems). Even though we weren't doing anything in particular we were still surrounded by jungle wildlife. There were bats swooping around the restaurant area (good to keep the mosquitoes at bay), insects flitting about including a large, what I assume was some sort of green leaf insect which had a vivid pink abdomen presumably as camouflage to look like a flower bud. It was striking but got away before I could take a snap. There was also a huge brown cricket which I take manage to take a picture of. The most exciting thing, though was the appearance of what I later found out to be a mangrove snake of perhaps 1.5m slithering down a tree branch to the river. Again, since it was outside and it was raining I didn't risk the camera, but this is what it was.

Less a katydid, more of a Jiminydidn't

This cricket was about 8-10cm long with antennae at least twice that

  The only other guest staying at the time arrived, a French girl on a long trip around the world arrived, having been to the lake trip we were planning to do so we chatted to her. What a trip she is on, having already come through Russia, Mongolia, China and heading on to Indochina. Jealous, much?

Generally there wasn't anything to do so we had a beer then went back to our room and played cards over a couple of whiskeys and Coke before bed.