Advertisement
Published: August 30th 2008
Jarod and I took a break from Ko Tao for a week or so and headed down to Kuraburi to meet up with our Reef Check/Ko Ra Eco-lodge contacts Kim and Awe. We had a bit of adventure on the bus as we missed our stop at Kuraburi altogether and had to tell the driver in front of all of the passengers what we had done. After a bit of staring and phone conversations about the farangs (foreigners) and thirty minutes into jungle and out of town, the bus pulled over and we ran across the highway to get on another bus heading back where we came from. We were pretty embarrassed but it all worked out. Thankfully the Thais are kind in their treatment of foreigners!
We went with Kim and Awe and some of their friends down to spend a night in Khao Lak, a coastal tourist town, and then on to Khao Sok National Park. Khao Sok is a beautiful national park with massive limestone cliffs, the oldest jungle in the world, and home to a huge reservoir built in the 1980's. We made our way by longtail boat across much of the deep (around 90 ft)
and beautifully blue reservoir seeing soaring sea eagles among the steep cliffs, then took a short hike through the jungle only to get on a bamboo raft for the last leg of our journey to a group of remote and rustic floating bungalows.
We spent three days jumping off our bungalow porch to swim, kayaking around the area, eating good food and just taking it easy. On our kayaking trips we saw our first monkeys outside of a zoo including dusky langors and crab eating macaques, watched wild pigs (not feral domestics but wild) rooting along the shores, watched bats every night and listened to the calls of gibbons and the humming of locusts in the mornings and evenings. We evn took a tour of a pretty remarkable cave just across the way.
It was a beautiful if rustic place to spend a few days. It was always tricky walking from our bungalow on the end down the maze of bamboo having to be very careful where you stepped to avoid ending up in the water. A maintenance man might find plenty of work repairing this place!
We got to spend some time with Kim and Awe
as well as hanging out with another of Kim's friends Dave that we had met before on our trip to Alaska. Some of Awe's friends joined us too so we had a good time drinking a few beers, playing Thai rummy, and even saw a beautiful full moon and a brilliant shooting star!
After leaving the floating bungalows we headed for a night in the small town of Khao Sok to enjoy some good food and a very close look at a group of macaques (even saw a pair mating) and stayed the night in a jungle tree house bungalow.
After that, we spent a night out at Ko Ra with Kim getting to know the place a bit. Definitely a beautiful and remote spot to spend some time. It is about as big as Ko Tao but with the only development being the eco-lodge and a small sea gypsy community. We did some hiking around planning tourist routes and kayaking trips and doing some general brainstorming with Kim about how we will be helping out. I even tried surfing a bit from the beach but it would have to be called more of lying on a surfboard
going nowhere. It is safe to say that I have lots of room for improvement!
We also got our fist good look at hornbills! The most common ones on Ko Ra are oriental-pied and they are everywhere! Easy to find as they are quite noisy, but also elusive in that they spook easily and are often seen flying away. We saw water monitor tracks in the sand, a broad assortment of crabs, frogs, skinks, and fish including mudskippers. Didn't see any snakes but Kim has seen cobras on the island! The Thai jungle is a pretty intense place to say the least! We have a lot to learn, but Ko Ra seems like a great place to do it.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0403s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Beautiful Limestone Cliffs
Dad
non-member comment
Want to go to there
This looks sooo relaxing.. I can't believe that you and Jarod have this great oppertunity to see the world. What a huge risk but it does have a huge reward also. We love and miss you both. I hope that you can continue to find happiness. Try not to get too excited about hog heads they can only hurt you if you eat them. A good way to prevent food poision, before you take a bite, tell the waitress that the food smells funny and would they or the cook sample some of the food from your plate first. Or look at the table next to you and order whatever the locals are having. Do not do what GG does go to a steak house and order fish. Dad