Thailand- part 5

My last day was a whirlwind tour through the city of Bangkok. We arrived on the sleeper train just after breakfast and were both flying out that night, so we decided to rent a cab for the day to share and see as much as we could in the time we had. We ended up seeing quite a bit I think. We made it to a couple of the big temples there in Bangkok- Wat Arun and Wat Po- we saw the largest reclining Buddha in the world along with many other smaller Buddhas, climbed the stairs to the top of one of the temples to look out over the city, and dropped our 108 coins into the 108 receptacles to mark all the kinds of suffering one must overcome to attain enlightenment in Buddhist belief. The temples were gorgeous. Some richly decorated with gilded Buddhas and detailed artwork, others decorated with broken bits of table china artfully arranged into various mosaics and friezes but equally beautiful in its own right. I could have stayed much longer in Bangkok if only to see all the temples there. We also made it down to one of the floating markets where vendors line up along the canal selling goods and cooking snacks and meals all from inside their little boats. There was a program going on the day we were there so we were able to see all the local school children dressed up in costumes and homemade masks getting ready to perform for their families and neighbors. The last place we stopped was the big sprawling street market that Bangkok is famous for. We rambled through the alleyways looking for jewelry, sandals, and curry spices to bring back home with us. I was even able to find a Thai cookbook to help me learn to make all the wonderful foods I had while I was there. Now I just wish I could get fruit like that where I am now :) It was time then to head off to the airport, so we packed back into the taxi and moved on. We had a bit of time left once we got there, so we had some dinner in the airport cafeteria which was surprisingly good and then headed up to Starbucks for a quick game of dominoes and a final chat before checking in for our planes and flying back to our respective parts of Korea. A wonderful trip and one I would love to do again someday!

Thailand- part 4

My next stop was Ko Phangan island. About a 3 hour ferry ride from the port at Surat Thani, I was well entertained by a man napping nearby me with his pet monkey on a lead showboating for all the children who would watch him. By the time I arrived on the island it was nearing dark. I found a taxi at the dock that would take me to my hotel about an hour's drive from the pier. I had a little trouble with the language barrier there and apparently rented the entire taxi- that would normally seat 6-8 people or more for only myself so I ended up being grossly overcharged, but I was tired enough that I was just glad to be to the hotel as quickly as I could. I do say "taxi" in the loosest terms possible here, as taxis on the island are pickup trucks that have covered beds to sit in with rails on the sides for their passengers to hold onto. Unfortunately they do not have tailgates attached, so I was clinging to those railings with every inch of my being while trying to also hold onto my luggage and praying that I wouldn't lose my grip and just bounce out the back as the truck roared up and down hills on dirt roads full of potholes and ditches on dark jungle roads. It took about an hour to get to my hotel and by the time I did the palms of my hands had turned blue from where the paint had peeled from the railings. Not an experience I would wish to repeat too often! Once I arrived at my hotel, however, everything was smooth sailing. I had a private little bamboo hut near the beach and just down from the hotel's restaurant. I was hungry when I arrived, so I headed straight down to the restaurant, had an amazing Spicy Green Papaya Salad and watched the firedancers that were performing on the beach. No pictures, since I didn't have my camera on me at the time, but they were a lot of fun to watch. The next morning I slept in a bit, which meant that I missed the tour to go out snorkeling in the reefs, but I enjoyed my day wandering around the little town there. The island itself was much more commercialized than the other parts of Thailand I had been to and I didn't enjoy it as much as the National Park or the Monkey College, but it was nice and I enjoyed having a day or so to relax. I found a restaurant that was giving cooking lessons that night and was able to go and learn how to make matsamam curry and pad thai alongside a couple of English gentlemen who were also staying on the island. A perfect night for me before heading back to the hotel for a little dessert of bananas simmered in coconut milk. Yum! The next morning I woke up early and took a swim in the ocean right there by my hut. Then I wandered into town back to the restaurant where my cooking lesson had been for a yummy fruit breakfast and then got my second Thai massage at a massage parlor there before heading back to the hotel. I hadn't planned much time on the island since I had spent so much time in the park and with the monkeys, so it was time to move on again. I took the scary taxi back down to the pier (they let me ride in the cab this time!) and then the ferry across to the bus station and the bus up to the train station. I jumped on an overnight sleeper train where I shared a sleeping cabin with a Canadian girl about my age who was surprisingly also abroad teaching in S. Korea. We got along really well and decided to spend our next day touring Bangkok together before heading to the airport to meet our planes. I loved the sleeper train. Such a nice ride for the price difference between that and the flight. And it was nice to talk to the Thai people working on the train and see the cafe workers at the stations selling snacks and drinks through the windows to the passengers onboard. A very nice trip indeed.

Monkey School

Somjai's Home

Thailand- part 3

After leaving the National Park, I went down to Surat Thani and spent a day at a monkey college. Monkey schools are centers where the monkeys go to be trained to pick coconuts from the tall coconut palms on commercial plantations or at local homes. Some of the training centers and handlers have a bad reputation for mistreating the animals.The school that I went to was begun by a Buddhist man who was disturbed by how the monkeys were beaten and overworked. He devised his own training method based on the tenets of Buddhism- that all living creatures should be respected. At his school monkeys are trained by playing various games that give them the skills, strength, and stamina that they will ultimately need to work on the plantations. His methods of training the monkeys were so successful that the Thai government observed his teaching and used him as a model for revamping the public school system throughout the country. His school has been studied by scholars and even had its moment in a BBC documentary. He has passed on now, but his daughter Somjai is running the school now in his absence. I was able to stay at her home in a small cabin in the yard and watch the monkeys lounging in their pen. The night I arrived it was too late to see the monkeys training, so Somjai took me on a tour of her neighborhood. I was able to meet a few of her friends and neighbors- I went to the home of a family of fishermen who shared with me some sticky rice in coconut milk that they cooked on a grill wrapped in leaves that they harvested from the riverbank behind their home. Then we went down to the farmer's market to pick up some fresh fruits and things to make for dinner. That night she invited me to eat with her- her husband was out of town- and she made tuna simmered in coconut milk, sticky rice, some pan fried pork, and an omelet made of eggs from her own chickens. It was delicious! The next morning she showed me around her property- the rubber trees she planted a few years ago that would be ready to draw rubber from for the first time this year, the cashew and coconut and banana trees on her property and her neighbors, her cow and chickens and her husband's pet goose that only really likes him :) She was really a wonderful host and taught me a lot about everyday life in her home country. The bananas weren't ripe when I was there, but I was able to sample the little fruits that the cashews grow from (a little bitter and chalky, but not too bad with a bit of salt) and the green coconuts that grow on the short coconut palms that the locals eat. Apparently the dry brown coconuts that we see in the states are a different variety of coconut altogether- they grow those in Thailand for use in cooking and making palm oil for cosmetics and such. The green coconuts that come from the shorter coconut palms are what the Thais consider eating coconuts and I quickly came to agree. When split open these green coconuts had only a fine lining of flesh within the gigantic inedible rind, but this little bit of flesh when scooped out with a teaspoon and eaten was delicate and almost custardy with a wonderfully light coconut flavor. It was amazing. It might be a while before I try to chew my way through a tough brown coconut again! After breakfast and our walk, it was time again for the monkeys daily training- each monkey trains approximately 30 minutes each day and she usually has about a dozen monkeys at the school at any given time. How long the training takes depends on the individual student, but usually lasts about a year or so depending upon the level of training the monkey requires and is capable of. She showed me how the monkeys first start out, learning to spin a coconut around. They use this technique to patiently spin the coconuts until the thin fibrous strand holding the coconut to the tree breaks- instead of using a knife that the monkey would have to have strapped to its wrist as it climbs around in the tree. Once the monkeys are comfortable spinning the coconuts on the ground, they're trained to climb a little off the ground on a stick she holds and spin the coconuts from higher and higher heights. Later the monkeys are taught to spin the coconuts from short palms and then tall palms, taught to swim (in case they fall in some water on the plantation), taught to swim down and retrieve items such as dropped watches and such, and taught to untie intricate knots so that they can free themselves if their leads get tangled while they're up in the trees. I was able to watch various monkeys be trained on each of these tasks. The swimming they don't seem to love as this particular breed of monkey (short tailed macaques) are not natural swimmers. But the knots they really seemed to enjoy. I was at one point able to join in as the monkey that was working on knots that day was able to untie a rope that was knotted around my ankle and another jumped up and hung from my arm to retrieve a coconut I was holding for him. I was amazed at how soft their hands are- it felt like I was holding hands with a small child. I would have thought they would be much rougher spending so much time hanging from trees. It was a really wonderful experience. Somjai was great and invited me to come back someday when I had more time and she would show me how to help her train the monkeys myself (actually she wanted me to come to her town and teach there next year too.) It was so incredible being there that I would really love to return one day see her again. But as I had only accounted one day for the monkey college, I was on to my next destination that afternoon.

Thailand- part 2

The next place I visited- still inside Khao Sok National Park- was Chieow Laan Lake. An hour or so down the road from my previous location we took a long boat another hour past the towering limestone cliffs and all the little caves and islands to the far side of the lake. There I traded in my lovely jungle tree house for a small community of tiny bamboo huts floating on the water. As hot and humid as it was I was unspeakably grateful to have a little hut from which I could walk three steps out the front door and dive straight into the cool sparkling waters. A nice group of travelers there, we were able to do a little hiking through the jungle (this time with a guide!), listen to the wild gibbons calling out from the trees on the the bank, and of course do a lot of swimming. In my two days at the lake I think I hardly got out of my swimsuit! We ate all our meals at a floating restaurant attached to our bank of huts which was lovely. Lots of fresh seafood and nice Thai meals. Again quite a rustic experience- walking back from dinner that first night we looked over to see the cooks washing our dishes right in the lake water. I guess that explains why all the little fishies were swimming around by the restaurant! While there we were also able to take some nice longboat tours around the lake and out to see the sunset ans also do an early morning kayak tour to look for all the local wildlife. We saw of course the wild gibbons that we could hear all around us as well as a couple different kinds of monkeys and some interesting birds and insects. I got a little sunburned in my days there as being right on the lake left no respite from the reflecting sunlight, but other than that it was perfect! Our guide Yu took wonderful care of us at the lake and helped us learn a lot about the history of the region. (Despite all the teasing from our Canadian couple in the group who couldn't get over his name... Hey Yu! What do Yu know?) :) Apparently Chieow Laan is a fairly recently made man-made lake with the original villages still down below the water. It makes this lake a haven for divers who like to go down and look around at the villages preserved at the bottom. Many of the people who work in the park- like our boat driver and the cooks at the floating restaurant- were once residents of those villages. Now they make their living giving tours and taking care of the travelers that visit. It seems to work out well for everyone. The lake itself is a water reservoir for the rest of Thailand and the villagers all agreed to give up their villages before the lake was created. Such a nice relaxing couple days before heading on to the next part of my voyage!

Thailand, February 2010

Slightly out of order and terribly overdue, this was my trip to Thailand last February. The first leg of my trip I spent in Khao Sok National Park. It was ridiculously hot and sticky (I can't even imagine what it would be like in summertime!) but gorgeous! I loved every minute of my time in the park and do not regret at all not spending more time on the famous beaches instead. I spent my first couple days in the jungle there sleeping in my own private tree house near a little river. The cabin was lovely and rustic though a bit more so than I'd bargained at a few points- I was immediately stung by a fire ant in the shower (and was subsequently much more careful of what might be in my shower with me!) and had a lovely view of the treetops through a picture window in my shower stall, which of course gave anyone walking the hiking trail below a lovely picture window into my shower stall :) But aside from a few minor quirks it was heavenly- the windows opened up to let a nice gentle breeze through and the color tinted windows near the door filtered in a beautiful rainbow in the afternoons. I even had my own little porch to sit out on and watch the wildlife and the river down below. There was a little restaurant just down the way that had amazing authentic Thai food and lots of fresh fruit juices and just across from their patio was a cave where a group of wild long tail macaque monkeys lived. The monkeys would play in the river around dawn, then wander down past the cabins and out into the jungle for the day before returning around dusk and retreating to their cave for the night just after sunset. They were so gentle and calm that they would come quite near to anyone standing quietly by- I got to see them playing and grooming and even get a nice view of the babies the moms were carrying. They were amazing. One of my favorite parts of the whole trip. My first day at the tree house I went down below the restaurant and got my first Thai massage. So relaxing. Not what I had expected- it's a bit like forced yoga and I was told more than once "it's supposed to hurt" :) It's surprising though how nice it feels afterward! Then on my second day I went a little down the road to a rubber tree plantation and rode an elephant- another of my top moments of the trip! We rode through a little stretch past the rubber trees and through an open field up into the jungle and stopped by a creek at the base of a waterfall before turning around and heading back. The elephants are so tall you have to mount them from a platform and then sit on a little bench saddle on their back strapped in so you don't get bucked off as they lurch from side to side. They have a calm and gentle gait but like to take big steps so I had to hold on from time to time. I was surprised too by how much they have to eat in a day- they sleep very little but eat and drink almost constantly throughout the day. Perhaps due to their size. The whole time we were walking they were munching on sugar canes and the like. Such beautiful animals. I wished I could spend more time there with them. That afternoon I tried to do a little hiking in the park- there were a couple waterfalls near to where my cabin was as well as some rare flowers that were blooming right at the time of my trip. Hiking in Thailand, as it turns out is something best left to locals. The heat and humidity made dehydration a serious concern and also troubling is the local wildlife which includes king cobras, pit vipers, tarantulas, occasionally wild elephants, and the rare but still present wild tigers. I got a little way up the trail to one of the waterfalls, but turned around when I saw the beware of wild elephant signs. Most of the other travelers where I was staying were on holiday down from Germany, France, and Spain and spoke very little English. But on my last night there I met some fellow English speakers at the restaurant and we had a nice dinner together before I headed out for my next destination.