Well we opted for the flights – who wouldn’t when you could fly in a plane with a beak!
It was still had a long day travelling some 1500kms – taxi to the airport, flight to Bangkok then Surat Thani, a bus to town and another bus to Our Jungle House, our home in Khao Sok National Park for a week.
We have a bungalow surrounded by garden! with a clubhouse for meals …
…and facing enormous cliffs which run alongside the Sok river.
The verandah is a perfect shady spot to catch the breeze in the afternoon and read awhile and at night we are lulled to sleep by jungle sounds from frogs and cicadas. The morning brings calls from gibbons we haven’t seen, coming from deep in the jungle.
We had a great day at Cheow Lan lake, formed in the 1980s when a dam was built for hydroelectricity. The scenery was stunning, with limestone crags dominating every vista.
We took a longtail boat across the lake for an hour or so, then hiked over a stretch of jungle to an inner lake, where we took a smaller bamboo boat across to a huge limestone cave, complete with stalagmites and stalactites. There are several floating houses and restaurants round the edge of the lake, built to cope with the fluctuating water level, and we stopped at one for lunch before swimming in the warm jade waters.
Our best wildlife sighting was the shy dusky langur high in a tree.
Contrasting with the speed, noise and spray from a longtail boat was our sedate canoe ride along the Sok river one morning. The scenery changed at ever turn, and we stopped halfway for a coffee break, brewed up over a small fire on the bank. We were hoping to see kingfishers, but maybe they had already been fishing as all we caught was a couple of glimpses of iridescent blue as they flew past although we did see a frog … a tree frog perhaps!
Getting up early one morning, we hiked around 4km into the park, through the jungly jungle.
The waterfall at the end was a little disappointing …
… but spotting a troop of playful long-tailed macaque monkeys …
… and then being able to swim in the river and cool off made it all worthwhile.
Since Chris is still on a 6-0 high at the moment after Liverpool’s win a few days ago, I thought we might have a special red feature … of lovely flowers we have seen. The last is a bit tongue in cheek, as the real rafflesia flower was unfortunately not blooming during our visit, so we old saw this one at the Valentine festival!
We had seen spirit houses outside homes, shops and businesses in India, but only one, and here they come in pairs, and it was maybe surprising to see them at all as most Thais are Buddhist. Nonetheless, nothing is clear cut here, and Thais also appeal to the Hindu pantheon of deities to help achieve everyday goals like passing an exam or getting pregnant. The taller spirit house resembles a Thai Buddhist temple and is a home for the guardian angel of the land, standing higher to reflect the VIP nature of the Hindu cosmos. The Hindu angel can be seen inside with a sword in one hand and a money bag in the other and this is the house also seen in India. The smaller spirit house resembles an old Thai house and is for the lord spirits of the land that may have been ousted by the building’s construction. These animist spirits can be very fickle and belief in them pre-dates both Hinduism and Buddhism in Thailand. Both houses receive daily offerings of incense, candles and flowers to keep the spirits happy as an unhappy spirit could cause sickness or misfortune. This may seem an outdated idea in the 21st century, but Thais are obviously not willing to take the chance and why should they!
Tomorrow we head beachwards for some sea and sand …
Off Travelling Together 