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Saz and Dave's travels
Today we got up early to go on a sea cave kayaking trip. We got picked up at about 8.30am by 3 guys in a mini-bus where we found out we were actually the only ones on the trip! Usually there would be about 10 people but luckily for us we were the only ones who had booked for today. We stretched out in the mini-bus on the 45 minute journey to Bor Thor village where we were taken to a restaurant and given a cup of coffee. We then got into our kayak - Dave at the back and me at the front - and had a bit of a practice at turning as Dave had never been kayaking before! We worked out a system that seemed to work although at first we had to duck a lot under the low lying branches of the surrounding Mangrove Forest.
We paddled with the current to a massive lagoon which we got to by going through a tunnel under the limestone mountain. The tunnel was pretty cool as there were loads of stalactites and stalagmites although it was quite dark and it took some careful paddling to avoid colliding with them! After the lagoon we went on to some more caves, one of which the roof was so low we had to lie down and push our way along using the rocks overhead!
At one point we saw some Dusky Langur of Leaf Monkeys up in the trees which was lucky because they are extremely shy. It was really good that it was just me and Dave as we had 2 guides all to ourselves and they told us loads of interesting facts about the area, such as all the different types of trees and the history of the area.
After about 1 hour we paddled to Thom Pee Hua Toh which is a massive cave where there are loads of prehistorical painting and some fossils in the rock.
We got out of the kayak here and had a proper look round. The guide said they found the paintings here along with a very big boned skeleton and it seems many generations of prehistoric people dwelled here, shown by the changing style of the cave paintings.
At about 12 we paddled back to the restaurant which was quite hard work as we were now paddling against the current!
On the way we stopped to look at a rickety oyster farm that really stank. When we got to the restaurant they served us the most amazing lunch that was enormous and even we couldn't finish - prawn soup, chicken and cashew nuts, shrimp fritters, fish curry, vegetable stir fry and rice.
We then got back in the minibus a bit soggy still from our water fight in the kayaks and drove to the national park where we were going for a swim. On the way it clouded over and started to rain which was a bit disappointing but it was still hot so we went for a swim anyway. We swam in a freshwater river amongst the roots of the Mangrove forest along with a thousand locals and not one other westerner in sight. All the women here swim fully clothed and people looked a bit alarmed when I went in in my bikini top and shorts - oh well!
We didn't stay long at the river as it was a bit crowded and cold. On the way back to our bungalow, the 3 guides got some deep fried bananas and sweet potatoes and some strange concoction wrapped up in a leaf which they shared with us.
We got back at about 4:30pm and felt pretty happy as we had had a really good last day in Krabi as tomorrow we are off to Koh Samui.
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