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Published: November 3rd 2009
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29th oct 2009
So I'm currently heading out of bangkok on yet another over night bus, my 4th since arrive here in Thailand. This one cost 350 baht (about £7), lasts 12 hours and takes me to the north of the country - Chiang mai.
It's been a very normal feeling couple of days which has suprised me, since my last stint on khao San road left me mentaly broken and running for the most relaxing island I could find. My current blarzay attitude gives a relatively shocking realisation that - I have changed!
I must now have gotten used to this travelling lark in some way or another and it's a great feeling for me, just 10 mins ago I was giving a couple of newbie travellers from America some advice about the up coming bus ride. You maybe saying 'so what', but I feel a great sense of achievement in the fact that just 18 days ago I was on a similar journey out of the same place thinking what the fuck is going on here and why have I done this cruel thing to myself. My 'journey' IS happenng :o) if you catch my drift....
---- What the hell are you doing here?!? ----
So they say it's a small world but I am starting to really believe it with the amount of times I've said goodbye to people for what i thought was the last time and then seen them again a few days/weeks later many hundreds of miles away. Id say it was a small world, but its not! its massive with so much to see and do.
------- Camera woes -------
The reason my blogs are coming in blocks of 5 is partly due to the fact that I write them on my iPod touch at times like this, which means I then search for free wifi spots to upload them to my email. The other more annoying reason is that I have to find a internet shop with computers that will accept the travelblog sites photo upload software you need to download before uploading. This has cost me a hell of alot of time and money over the past few days. I've been to at least 12 different places in the khao San area and the last one totally wiped my camera card memory!! One thing I cannot stand
loosing is my photos, everything else can be replaced except them. Luckily I had backed up my photos to my travel hard drive in koh Tao 6 days ago but even still, the whole khao sok rainforest experience has gone :o( i have my friends that she copied for me tho so not all bad.
In any case you'll be pleased to know I have just made a mental note to STOP COMPLAINING so much on my blog as it can't be very interesting for you guys lol
------ Khao Sok National Rainforest Park -----
A couple of days ago I was in the tropical rainforest of khao sok national park. A real jungle expirience :o)
We (meisha and I) had travelled from koh Tao island by boat to chumporn which was a pretty awful place from where I was standing, like new York city but without the lights and atmosphere and tourists and...well... I guess not like new York at all on second thoughts. Just a cockroarch infested hell hole.
An early rise at 5 am saw us loaded onto a mini bus for a 4 hour slog to a bus stop in Surat thani; not another
tourist in sight, the the most pleasant part of the trip was a 3 hour bus ride with the locals. It seems that you really have to be as far away from the tourist trail as poss to really appreciate the kindness and humility of the locals, they really are nice people.
As we were dropped of at our khao sok bus stop it was like someone had lit a fire under a sprinkler, the rain suddenly came from nowhere and chucked it down! We had to laugh, it was like someone up there was saying 'welcome to the RAINforest!' :o)
The place was beautifully wild, we settled at a group of bungalows called the jungle huts. An hour after arriving I settled out on the porch for a cig and noticed a big brown snake slivering around a plant pot about 3m from me, by the time I'd shouted to meisha to grab a camera, it had noticed me and disappeared.
Next up was a canoe trip down the river which was great. Not many animals to be seen but I wasn't expecting much to be honest, we saw about 5 mango snakes curled up above our heads
in trees and a few kingfisher birds which were stunning but quite shy. To be honest, it was just nice to be crusing slowly down a river like you see them doing on documentary tv, in fact it reminded me alot of the Vietnam war films I've seen, exactly the same fauna around, I kept imagining an ambush lol I took many photos of the scenery and videos of the rapids sections, but they have sadly been lost in cyberspace as mentioned before.
After a peaceful night sleeping in our jungle hut we set off on our forest trek, reminded me alot of walking though the woods around Arundel castle with my Dad and siblings many years back actually.
Again, we didn't see many typical rainforest animals as it was only a half day trek for 6 hours and you need to venture a good few days into the forest away from civilisaton for that, but we did see plently of stunningly colourful butterflies and even a turtle trying to climb a shear vertical mud bank which was amusing. The highlight of the day was reaching the 'waterfall' which was more like a set a high grade rapids I'm
hoping to raft in new zealand next year, but cool non the less.
We took the opportunity to go for a swim. Our 14 year old guide took the sensible option of doing this after the waterfall, but meesha and I for some reason thought it would be better to fight the fast flowing water above it haha we didn't last long before shitting ourselves scrabbling for grip around a slippery boulder just meters from the surging torent of the 'falls'. I could just imagine our guide watching on, saying 'dumb ferangs!' hehe. Also I think I took the days record for the amount of leeches i'd managed to pick up on the trek, the mossie repellant worked a treat for getting them off, the only problem being the anti coagulant they inject stops your blood clotting so hours later your pin prick wounds leak so much blood that it looks like you've been shot! At least we scared the other trekers walking into the forest on our way out. Haha
Oh and a side note to those doubters out there, I did the whole trek in £2 flip flops (the only footwear I have now
That I've lost
my walking sandals on a drunken night in koh Tao)
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