Ao Nang is a touristy city by the beach with a boardwalk feel. There are a plethora of bars and restaurants on the main strip, a big long beach, and not much to do unless you want to hop in a longtail boat or minibus to somewhere else. We found ourselves here with four days to kill, and not a lot of money to spend (that’s the problem with planning nothing beforehand; sometimes you end up with a week and no idea what to do with yourself). So we became beach bums! We spent our days and evenings walking around, lazing in the shade or in the water, and becoming intimately familiar with the cheap pad thai food carts on the street.
We did take a kayak tour one day, which was absolutely worth the money. We paddled through a mangrove forest, watching sunning monitor lizards and narrowly avoiding getting mobbed by long tail macquaq monkeys who were very interested in any snacks we might be hiding. We then paddled into a canyon, with towering limestone cliffs looming over us on both sides. Not for the first time on this trip, we felt like we’d stumbled onto the set of an Indiana Jones movie! Finally, we exited the canyon into the open sea, and paddled to our very own “private” (if you ignore the 25 other kayaks) beach. It was a beautiful trip–definitely the highlight of our time in this part of the country!
After a few days we took a longtail boat to the next bay over, Railay Beach, which is famed for its huge limestone rock formations and world-class rock climbing. The small strip of land by the beach is completely hemmed in by cliffs, so the only way to reach Railay is by boat. Our accommodations were at the top of the island, and we had some delightful chats with the monkeys who inhabited the area. We spent two days on Railay, taking time to explore the many caves where the limestone seems to flow off the cliff faces like water, lounging by the beach and doing a little hiking. Justin tried his hand at climbing one morning, and made it 27 meters up one of the cliff faces!
Our last destination before we would leave Thailand was Khao Sok, a national park about four hours drive north of Railay. We decided late the night before we were to leave Railay that we wanted to see Khao Sok, so we made arrangements in the typical way in Thailand: we approached a random lady at a booth in the street that had advertisements for tours. We told her we wanted to travel that day, she made a quick phone call, wrote us a receipt and told us when to be at the pier. We forked over the cash (about $22 for both of us) and the arrangements were apparently made. It started pouring down rain as we were catching our longtail boat off the beach, so we were thouroughly soaked by the time we made it to our first bus station. Here a random lady asked where we were headed, then promtly disappeared. 20 minutes later, while we were wondering if we were in the wrong place, a man drove up on a motorbike and asked us where we were going. We told him Khao Sok, and he nodded and said “Come!” Confused, we indicated that there were two of us, with bags, and there was no way we were fitting on that motorbike. Unconcerned, he again told us to “come” and took off down the street. Now very confused, we followed the man down the street. Before long he lost us, but we saw a taxi truck ahead and thought maybe that was our destination. The truck promptly drove off right as we reached it.
Maybe not.
We came to a busy intersection, and there was the motorbike man waving to us across the street, sans motorbike. He then led us to a deserted sidestreet, where there was a city bus parked, and gestured for us to get on. This was a full-sized city bus, with absolutely no one on it. Feeling bemused, we got on and sat in the front seats, happy to stretch out and dry our sopping wet bags. Motorbike man got in the driver’s seat, and off we went, big diesel engine chugging away. Travel in Thailand is incredibly easy and well-organised, but oftentimes a bit baffling if you don’t speak Thai.
30 minutes later, we pulled up to another bus station, where we were ushered onto a minibus full of other tourists that was bound for Khao Sok. We wound up the road in the darkness, stopping every hour or so to pick up some friends of the bus driver that seemed to be waiting for us at very random intervals along the empty highway. At one point we headed off the highway on a dirt road into the woods. We eventually stopped in the middle of the dark woods, and a women with a child on one hip and a rusty old bbq grill on the other came walking out of the trees. The grill went in the back of the van, the woman and child went in the front, and we headed back to the highway. Eventually we actually made it to Khao Sok, where we were dropped at a dark intersection and got to walk about 2 km up a country lane to our hostel.
After our adventurous day of travel, we were a bit worn out. We spent the next day mostly sleeping at the hostel (possibly suffering from heat exhaustion), but by the next day we were ready to explore Khao Sok. Khao Sok is a park full of thick jungle surrounding a giant man-made reservoir. The rainforest here is older and more diverse than the Amazon, and is estimated to contain over 5% of the world’s known species. Why did they flood such an ecologically sensitive area to make the reservoir? Apparently this area has the highest rainfall of any watershed in Thailand, and the power generated at the dam powers much of southern Thailand. According to wikipedia, many of the species had to be hand-relocated to save them from the rising waters (imagine volunteers frantically looking for and trapping frogs and bugs as the water is slowly rising). The reservoir is ringed with towering limestone cliffs, and the scenery is truly stunning.
We took a longtail boat accross the lake to a floating guesthouse, where we had lunch. These guesthouses are common on the Cheow Lan Reservoir, and consist of many small single-room floating bungalows, with a large common room floating at the center. After lunch the boat dropped us off on a muddy riverbank in the jungle, where we walked about 5 km on an equally muddy path to a half-flooded cave. We donned headlamps, stripped off our clothes (we had swimsuits on underneath) and squeezed through the small cave entrance. What followed was an amazing half-hour walk/swim through the caves that this underground stream had carved. We ooh-ed and aah-ed at glowworms weaving silk threads from the ceiling, watched subterranean spiders climb the cave walls, and climbed a small waterfall ourselves, with the help of a strategically placed rope. The caves are closed for much of the year, and even when they’re open you need to be carefull and have an experienced guide with you. If it starts raining while you’re inside, the caves flood very quickly, which would obviously be bad news! We were so glad we were able to do this walk, how often do you get to hike up an underground river in the middle of a jungle?
Once we had hiked back to the boat we were brought back to the guesthouse for a beer and a swim in the refreshingly cool green-blue lake. Then we made our way back to the hostel, and the next day were headed for Krabi, where we were due to catch our flight to Vietnam. On the bus ride back we met a couple from Miami who were planning to take a campervan next year and travel all around South America with their dog and two cats in tow. We love the people we meet while traveling!
As anyone who’s ever gotten food poisoning knows, it always strikes when you have something important to do the next day. Dana, of course, came down with a nasty case the night before we were due to fly out. So, we got to spend an additional week in Thailand (surprise!) and we got to renew our visas, as they expired the day after we were supposed to leave. This was a rather expensive case of food poisoning. We have no idea what it came from, except to guess that it might have been the lunch we had on the lake (fried mystery fish or questionable street food banana rice that our guide brought?)
While Dana continued her recovery, and not very much in the mood for food, Justin went to check off one last box for Thailand - a cooking class. We figured that, considering how much Thai food we eat a home, it would be nice if we could make some for a change. The class was nine people, with Justin being the only one without his partner present. Oh well.
The instructions included a seafood soup known as Tom Yum, Red Curry, Pad Thai, and spring rolls. All of the dishes were surprisingly easy, once you have the right tools and ingredients! As a parting gift, we were given a cookbook, with some helpful tips inside.
After a few awful days, a nauseated and wobbly Dana and a luggage-and-sometimes-Dana-laden Justin made it to the airport, and finally caught a flight to Hanoi. On to the next adventure! Hopefully with less vomiting this time!
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