Baby on beach becomes instant celebrity. Couple plunge feet first into marriage. Scandal and drama in the Monkey World!

We took a longtail from Krabi to Railay for the day, where we watched some rockclimbing, and relaxed on the beach and took in some random spectacles.

The tide was rising quickly on Phra Nang beach, and as the beach disappeared, more and more tourists appeared, quickly making it crowded. I was relaxing with my book when a commotion rose above the din and I sat up to see my towel neighbour surrounded by a throng of tourists who were absolutely (and invasively) enamored with her naked little baby, and had formed a semi-circle around them so they could take photos, make noises, and jingle things in his face. This went on for several minutes, until eventually the crowd reluctantly left the baby to his confusion over what had just occurred  But then the baby found a shell and all was forgotten.

Not long after this, we noticed a bride and groom standing in full attire on a cliff just off the beach, directly in front of a “Don’t Jump” sign, where they proceeded, to loud hoots and cheers from the growing crowd, to jump into the water. We’re not sure if that was the wedding ceremony, or if they’d married earlier and this was a trash-the-dress situation.

Grabbed some lunch from one of the many longtails moored off the beach – we figure this is the way around the “no soliciting” signs posted around – then napped and relaxed under the trees until the worst of the heat had passed (this never actually happened, it was still blazing when we left the shelter of the trees later that afternoon). 

The path that links Phra Nang beach and East Railay beach snakes along the very edge of one of the karsts where the dripping stalactites overhang it. There are lots of Macaques here, hanging out and entertaining tourists just by being their regular monkey selves. We watched an episode of Monkey Povich where several males were fighting over one of the more promiscuous females; later that same episode they were waiting for the results of the paternity test to settle who the true Monkey Daddy was. Drama in the monkey world!

Mountains and jungles and monkeys, oh my!

It’s impossible to describe how intensely amazing Khao Sok is, but I will try. It’s the type of landscape you imagine seeing on a BBC program narrated by David Attenborough. We spent a night in a floating rafthouse on Cheow Lan Lake, a turquoise man-made lake in the National Park, and spent our time blissfully swimming in fresh water, gawking at the massive limestone cliffs and mountains, admiring the lush jungle watching for monkeys, and looking at the stars.

We went on an evening “safari” in the longtail, and we had barely gone around the point when we spotted several Spectacled Langurs jumping along the shore and then climbing some vines before they disappeared into the jungle. Then moments later we saw a wild boar! The rest of the safari was a bust for indigenous fauna, but did prove to be an interesting opportunity to observe the courting rituals between the twenty-year-olds on the boat. (The noise level of which may be the reason why there were no other wildlife spottings… argh.)

The second day, after rising early to watch the incredible sunrise, we went on a cave and jungle hike. On the way there, a prehistoric looking Hornbill lifted off and flapped slowly above our heads. Amazing. The jungle was thick with bamboo, twisting vines, and incredibly tall trees with massive flanged trunks that rose well above the canopy. We traversed several small streams, and some hikers picked up temporary leech friends. Our guides made some face paint by rubbing some river rocks together, and painted us all with our tribal markings. I think we were the Cat Clan. Or at least we all looked like Halloween Cats…

Our jungle trek brought us to Nam Talu Cave. We hadn’t gone far into this bat-filled cave, just far enough that we’d lost all natural light, before one of the guides paused to allow everyone to gather, then cast his headlamp toward the wall beside our heads where there was a massive spider, at least 6 inches across (the kind of spider that when you ask me about it in five years, I’ll say “it was a good foot across, she was!”); and then he cast his light down on the rocks by our nearly-bare feet where there was an even bigger spider! And then to the cave floor where he illuminated what appeared to be hundreds of spiders which he said were actually a type of cricket. We hiked over rocks and waded through increasingly deep water, past stalagmites and under stalactites, and as you steadied yourself you could feel the smooth walls pock-marked by the various geological forces. Incredible.

The cave narrowed sharply at one point, funneling the water into a series of forceful waterfalls, and the only way forward was over the falls. To say the very least: it was tricky. Compared to that, wading/swimming through neck-high water seemed easy. But we all felt like champs after about an hour when we finally saw daylight again. Had we not been in a group, I never would have entered that cave, but there’s safety in numbers, right?

We bookended our rafthouse stay at a bungalow near the park entrance where we could hear Gibbons calling to each other, their distinctive hoots and howls unmistakable. We also saw a big scorpion on the path, which one of the owners restrained with a popsicle stick and a cleaver, so that he could cut off its stinger and move it to a quieter location in the garden. Jungle life is intense!

Morning view from the bungalows at Smilie's.

Maximum occupancy, maximum shmoccupancy.

We rose early in Thongsala—almost as early as when we got up to watch the alms procession in Luang Prabang—to walk to the pier to catch the 7am ferry back to mainland; a 3-hour trip that felt like 20 minutes, thanks to the magical anti-nausea time portal. To a bus, to a transfer station for an “hour” wait, to a van, to another bus station. We had just finished taking the last bag out of the van when the driver, after a quick chat on his cell, whistled and announced hurriedly that we were to get back on the same van. “Bus left. We chase.” Seriously?! Awesome! Let’s DO this! My visions of a thrilling, high speed van chase didn’t amount to much, however—there was some swerving, but he hardly honked or anything!—and we caught up to the big bus in just a few kilometres.

Our big, Khao Sok-bound bus acted like a commuter bus and stopped every few minutes to pick up passengers from the roadside, and of course, when I thought all the seats were filled and we were going to finally get on the road, we just kept picking up more people who had to stand in the aisles, until my view was limited to the narrow strip of window between the curtains on my right, and the heavily deodorized armpit of the man in the aisle on my left. (Though not good with heavy scents, I admit that it was preferable to the alternative.) Other than taking the sharp curves at full speed, the rest of the drive was relatively uneventful.

Will the transportation be more “civilized” in Malaysia? Gosh, I hope not. You can’t make up stories like this! (Or this. Oh, good times.) Oh, and though I haven’t technically shared my seat yet with livestock, the baggage area on one of our previous buses did have a few totes of baby chicks. We could hear them cheeping. Transit adventures abound!

Mauve-y sunrise in Thongsala

The view of mainland from inside the ferry (the windows get wet because it's real splashy up top!)

High speed van chase!

The view from our Smiley Bungalows just outside the entrance to Khao Sok National Park

Thongsala

After a blissful week at the north end of the island, we headed back to the pier town, Thongsala, for a couple of nights, mostly just to facilitate the early morning ferry. We found a cheap bungalow steps from the beach, and since we were on the west side of the island, we got to watch the sunset (at Bottle Beach, the sun sets over the mountain about an hour and a half before actual sunset). While we were watching, a cute puppy came up, and absconded with Mark's flip flop! It was a bit of an effort to get it back, involving me chasing him down, trying (in vain) to distract him, and eventually just having to pick him up, and then he dropped it. Phew! To replace those flip flops would have cost, like 3 bucks, so I'm really glad we got them back.

The following morning I went to a yoga class at the nearby Siam Healing Centre. The studio was gorgeous! Open to the air on three sides, a beautiful blend of warm woods and concrete. The breeze blew through, and on one side we overlooked a field with palm trees (and some power lines on the otherside, but never mind those! look back to the palm trees!). Being in Thailand, I was not expecting a Russian teacher, nor was she, or the other student, also Russian, expecting me. But it was a really great class, and nice not to have to hike 5k to get there!

After class Mark and I got a few things to eat at the food stall area in the centre of town. There was a vendor selling 50 different kinds of fruit shakes. We went for combo #42: mango, beet, lime. Major yum.

Then we rented a moto and zipped up the west coast to visit a few beaches (Haad Salad and Koh Ma) to Chaloklum, and back on the main road where we ran out of gas... We've been consistently putting in too much gas, so we thought for sure we'd be fine. Yeah, we were wrong. But luckily it was a very short walk to one of the many roadside stalls selling gas in old olive oil bottles. And Mark did a stellar job of keeping to the left side of the road. We only got it wrong once, and only for a few seconds. No Phangan tattoos for us!

Sneaky puppy!

Bottle Beach

We’ve been relaxing for about a week on Koh Phangan, the island world-renowned for its Full Moon Parties (and Half Moon Parties, and probably also Three-Sixteenth Moon Parties). That happens at the south end of the island. We're tucked up at the north end at Bottle Beach, far away from the revelers, in a fairly secluded bay that you can only get to by boat. Well, there is also a road that leads here from the east, but it’s not well connected to the main road, and it’s rutted and washed out in places, loose sand and gravel in others, and extremely steep everywhere else. We hiked it to get to the next beach, and watched anxiously as a few people on motorbikes sized up the slope to go down, and those that didn’t abort entirely were basically in a slow, controlled skid all the way to the bottom.* Or you could hike the grueling, also steep trail through the jungle to the next beach to the west, Chaloklum Bay, but that takes 2 hours.** So, boat-only access.

By a boat that is enough to make one afraid of being in boats. At least on the day we took it. Our longboat bounced and crashed over the waves (memories of leaving Lazy Beach…), taking on a lot of water… It was scary. To me, anyway. Or maybe it was the cumulative exhaustion from the previous 17 hours of travel: 12-hour night-train from Bangkok, 1-hour bus to ferry pier, 3.5 hour ferry from Surat Thani, 20-minute taxi to Chaloklum, 20-minute longboat to Bottle Beach.

Ok, now that we’re here, let’s never leave.

Backpacking. It's a rough life...

The open road

“The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs! Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!”

— said Toad to Rat and Mole in The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, 1908

Island living...

All these long walks on the beach are starting to chafe my feet. Feel sorry for me? Yeah, me neither.

Bottle Beach. Koh Phangan.