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Published: April 10th 2011
"I'm horny, Horny Horny, Horny Horny
Myself and Niamh hear the static beat over the ipod coming from behind us and see a five foot nothing Thai boxer, wearing his distinctive fighting briefs powering rocky style up the beach, his mohawk maybe cut on either side with a mach 3 blade, but god help anyone who takes the piss out of his taste in music! its sunset in Ko Lanta and the sunset is simply out of this world, all the druggy heads are all out doing the lotus position watching it on the sand while myself and the others are necking an evening Chang and soaking it all in, Thailand is starting to redeem itself, once I can find a punter in Bangkok who can fix the laptop!
We have changed lodgings, our new hut is a bamboo dwelling mounted on top of some poles about 3 feet of the ground and made completely out of Bamboo. the toilet is flushed using a bucket and a mosquito net encapsulates the bed. The bed itself looking like a sort of alien cocoon in the bedroom light coupled with the mosquito repelling incense we have to burn to keep
the mossies away only completing the illusion. Niamh is barely visible when shes inside it and all you can hear coming from the net are her frequent requests for water, to check the time and most of all for "jellies and treats"
The resort is run by a Muslim Thai called Hatchy, while most of Thailand is Buddhist due to southern Thailands closeness to Malaysia most of the population are actually Muslims, in the case of 90% of Ko Lanta's population. Hatchy is a character, he's tall by thai standards and this is only accentuated by the massive turban he wears. A massive grey beard extends beneath his perpetual smile. Hatchy likes nothing better then to pop by for a chat or try to twist your rm into signing up for tours of local islands with his mates. Today's topic of conversation is centered around the south east Asian dietary choices, Hatchy is informing me that he isnt a fan of Vietnamese cuisine due to the fact that they eat "many many dog and kitten". Hatchy you see is quite the doctor Doolittle and has a whole menagerie of kittens chickens and other animals that scamper about the base
of our hut stilts, the kittens regularly getting stuck in the recess between our roof and ceiling.
IN the meantime its back on Elmo and off to the thao khao cave located in the island interior
Getting to the caves we had a pleasant drive through a mangrove and rubber plantation until we found ourselves at the guides hut half and hour trek form the cave itself. Guides are optional and you can do the trip solo but as we soon found out without a guide was like going into Copper Faced Jacks stone cold sober.
To kick it off there is a 30 minute hike through the jungle including a lot of rob climbs up some extra steep rivers. One slip on the rocks and its a long fall down and a 3 hour ride to the nearest hospital. The cave itself is a small little non distinct hole in the side of a rock face obscured by foliage and then veering straight down. There was a bit of hesitation before we dropped in.
Inside he cave was a slippy at wet tile, pitch black ad stifling hot. Your eye soon sting with the sweat
and you can hear the droplets if splattering against the cave floor as you press on. navigation was carried out via head torches given to us by the guide, bear in mind this was no bord failte approved tourist cave, this was Thailand, one wrong step and you can fall into a chamber below. Shining the head torch down revealed gaps in the floor and yet more man sized caves below, I'll post a pic if I can find an agreeable pc! These holes go down you cannot see the bottom with the head torch.
Some sections allowed us to walk fully upright and some were so large you could fit a decent sized department store drapery inside, all of them with more corridors leading off into yet more passages. The place was a labyrinth. You don't see caves like this outside of Indiana Jones Films.
Where the ceilings were lower, it was also easier to spot some of the creatures that made this cavern their home, the spiders, big fist sized creatures whose carapaces and fangs glistened in the light of the head torch.From then on I was scanning the ceiling and the floor before moving onward.
So long as the arachnids remained 15 feet above us on the ceiling we weren't overly worried...that soon changed!
Soon enough we came to a chasm, a sheer drop to yet more caves below and the only viable way across via a bridge made from plastic piping.
The guide indicated we go across one at a time, when it came to my turn I tried to stride over confidently without looking down, like John Roxton walking into Maple White Land in Arthur Conan Doyle's lost world, but unfortunately ended up edging it the whole way, its hard to balance when your forgetting how to breathe!
We arrived in the biggest cavern yet and were given a chance to explore. This cave was so large it had no discernible ceiling. I walked for a good distance in my little island head torch light. Soon I was so far away the girls voices were merely echoes, their headlights looked like darting fireflies in the distance. The only sounds are the rasping my my hiking boots on the wet rock and my own breathing. Eventually the tunnel went even deer, the tunnel so steep I didn't think I could retrace
my steps should I had continued. I eventually inched my way back to the others.
The final horror of the cave was near the exit when our guide told us to angle our torches upward where we saw hundreds upon hundred of bats chittering down at us, of course the temptation to startle them and cause them to fly down and swarm all around blondie was strong but theres far too many biting insects for me to spend the night outside on the hammock!
Upon leaving the caves we left Hatchy's huts to relocate closer to the beach, the new huts are fine but unfortunately we are sharing them with a huge amount of creepy crawlies. First off is Kermit, who is probably the most sexually frustrated toad on the island. Kermit is living inside the cavity of our wall where it meets the ceiling and upon 11 pm he begins his mating calls which are a serious of burps and whines and continues this until about 4 Am. Poor kermit, how he got into the wall, maybe a on the back of a tsunami or blow up in a hurricane is a mystery but he clearly to
high up for any female company to reach him.
Aside from kermit, who is quite harmless, are the mosquitoes who going to bed at night resembles the scene in Aliens where Ripley and corporal Hicks are trying to figure out how to secure Hadley's Hopes operation centre from xenomorph incursion. You need to set up a perimeter of incense sticks, strategically place towels at the bottom of doorways, cleanse the inner side of the mosquito net in raid and most of all maintain strict light discipline after dark. Going to the bathroom, where there is no net over the window, means you need a can of insecticide in your hand to drive off the buggers while you try relieve yourself, lashing out with your open palm and hissing curses throughout. Now if I need to pee during the night the whole process resembles the final act of King Kong battling the biplanes.
Worst of all is the cockroach, he's massive and climbs in beneath the doorway causing me the scream like a girl and ineffectually fling Niamhs huge collection of Chic lite at him. They look like insects but they behave like rats, dodging and weaving through missiles
and scuttling near my feet. Last night I stayed up, lonely planet in one hand, raid in the other clad only in boxers and a nervous layer of sweat, staring at the drain awaiting his arrival in ambush, like a poor imitation of Arnold at the end of predator when he standing on the log waiting for hunter to arrive. Any minute now and his rotton antenae will come peering out of the drain,
i'm waiting.
Before this night is over I will look down at his crushed carapace and smile.
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