Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Since our last update, we went for an elephant ride up to a water fall. The elephant ride was not quite what we expected, but an experience we will remember. We were driven to this elephant business where we were put pretty much straight onto the back of an elephant from an elevated platform. We were on the same elephant sitting side by side in quite a comfortable saddle. From the first moment, something was not as we expected. There was a sherpa who was obviously the elephant "tamer" shall we call him. Anyway, this guy (who we couldn't really speak to because he didn't know english, and we don't know thai) was yelling at the elephant (in thai) and hitting in quite regularly (with a stick). As far as we could tell the elephant was doing everything we expected the elephant to do, yet it kept getting yelled at and hit. It was happily taking us along the trail to the waterfall albeit at a slow pace. I think Kerry and i looked a little bit shocked, as the calm, serene elephant ride that we had expected, turned out to be seeing a guy hit and yell at an elephant. Anyway, the poor elephant gradually carried us up this rocky creek bed until we got to the "water fall" which turned out to be a 2m drop in the creek bed with a trickle of water going over it. We were told (we think) in thai, that in the wet season it looks a lot more spectactular and that our timing was unfortunate. Anyway, back on the elephant which took us back to our origin, and when we got off it, we fed it some bananas which it was very happy about. We were relieved to see the man who had been yelling at the elephant the whole time, be quite affectionate with the elephant when we got off it. Now, i don't know much about elephants, so maybe thats the only way they go where you want them to, by yelling at them. I'm all ears to hear about other people's elephant experiences.
We have spent the last 2 days on an organised tour of Kao Sok national park. One of the biggest attractions in this park is a lake, it is a huge lake, i mean 160 square km huge. We were taken by car to the lake (about an hour's drive), where we were then put into a long tail boat. We went from one side of the lake to the other (30km) which took a little over an hour in the boat. It took us to some floating raft houses where we were to spend the night. The raft houses are made of bamboo and are floating on anything that floats really. Some were on top of several big logs roped together, others were on old drums and others were on copious amounts of bamboo lashed together. The raft house accomodation is run by the thai national parks authority, there is probably about 15 rooms. The raft house, while it was on the water, was within 15 meters of the bank. We checked into our "raft house room", were fed a lunch of champions and then were guided through a very famous cave. The cave was like nothing i had ever been in. It was a 1 hour trek to the cave, and then we spent an hour in the cave (covering a distance of about 700m i think), before we emerged at the other end. The cave involved a combination of walking, wading and swimming to get through. We managed to take our camera through with us, to get a few photos, but it was in a plastic bag in the really hairy bits, so the photos might look a bit tame. There were a few animals in the cave, namely, some very very big spiders, toads, albino fish (that have never seen daylight), and lots & lots of sleeping bats.
We held the camera above our heads as we swam, while trying to juggle our torches as well.
After we came out of the cave, we were taken back to our floating raft house where we had a nice swim in the water (fresh water), and then fed like royalty. After dinner we were herded back into the long boat and taken out into the lake further where they cut the engine, and we floated aimlessly for about an hour listening for jungle animal noises and staring at the full moon above.
After going to bed reasonably early we hopped in the long boat after lunch and were returned to the other side of the lake and returned to our accomodation in Kao Sok. Overall, a lovely 2 day trip. Tomorrow we are taking a bus and ferry to the island of Koh Pha Ngan. Here we hope to find a small village to spend a few days, and i might do some scuba diving if the opportunity presents itself. I have put a few photos taken over the last few days up the net for you to view.
Heath
- comments