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Published: March 17th 2009
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Beware of the Monkeys1
I only saw one family and they were hardly fierce... I was going to book a day tour through the kayaking place, Sarafine (sp?), but they only do private tours. I asked the owner, a Frenchman, to make a recommendation, but instead he offered to find me a driver for the same price. Hmmm....I'm not found a big tours "get off here, be back now" so I thought 'why not?'
The catch? My driver speaks no English! None!
He made it very clear that he was only a driver, not a guide. Fair enough. I don't need a guide...
I thought maybe he would want to practice English in the car...I have alot of experience teaching ESL...but no. He not only did not want to try to practice any English, he also wasn't up to teaching me Thai. The guy, Vee, is young and a bit fat, but very hipster looking. I would guess he might be gay, but maybe just feminine Thai guy. It's so hard to tell. He was also extremely SHY, hence the extreme silence.
So....it was a quiet day. While riding in the truck, somewhere I heard music in my head...you know that old 70's song? "One is the loneliest number..." Yeah, poor me.
I
was beginning to think that maybe a group tour would've been better...it certainly would've been cheaper! I found myself getting a little irritated but quickly made myself snap out of it. After all, I'd already paid the money and was in the car...just Go With It! However, after this I am heading down to the silent retreat and I couldn't help thinking I should be spending this day yakking my head off...or not.
We started off at the Erawan Water Falls. If you book a tour, do be sure they take you here first as it will get so hot later in the day you'll never want to climb to the top. I heard this from so many people and it's really true. There are seven 'stages' or waterfalls and the trek to the top, especially the last 3 is quite steep and slippery. I can't even imagine how hard this is in the wet season.
My "driver" was slow...ly flip flopping along on the trail to the beginning of the park and I thought, "surely he's not coming with me to the top?" I tried to ask him what time I should be back to eat lunch, but
it was a massive communication failure and so we slowly plodding along.
One thing this national park does that I wish ALL parks would do on trails is to 'register' your water bottles. You have to pay 10B per bottle and they mark your bottle. Upon leaving the park, your 10B is refunded. As you can probably imagine, I didn't see a single water bottle left behind on the trails. Brilliant idea!!
Vee managed to scramble up the trail, flip flops and all and I was quite happy to have him when the trail disappeared as he seemed to know exactly where to go. There are loads of places to swim under some of the bigger falls and he also came in handy when I asked him to take some photos of me! I was never quite sure if I paid for his entrance to the park....and everything else all day....but I'm pretty sure I did!
The schedule of the day also included an elephant 'trek' which really was the most disappointing thing I've experienced. The 'farm' was a horrible field that had been slashed and burned on top of the extreme dryness of the landscape already.
It was 2pm, scorching hot, no shade, everything dry and dusty with a few leaves for the elephant to munch on plus a really sorry looking trail. For the first time on the back of an elephant, it did not live up to my expectations.
After this it was rush, rush, rush to the river to the most uneventful "bamboo rafting". We were herded onto a longtail boat, driven upstream and then dropped off on the 'raft' where we floated downstream...and then we were picked up by the longtail boat and dropped off at the pier where it had all began. The entire thing took less than 30 minutes and I found myself thinking two things: "Is that it?" and "Why is my driver on this raft? Did I pay for him AGAIN?"
Next up was a public waterfall in the center of the town of Nam Tok--really amazing and free. All of the school children come there after classes and swim fully clothed. However, some of the tour groups come through here as well. Today, they all seemed to be Russian and just about as scantily dressed as you can get and still be wearing a bikini.
I was terribly self conscious about my own bikini until they showed up. Then I realized that I was perfectly decent next to the g-strings surrounding me!
The Russians were posing in the most provocative ways in this waterfall and all of the Thai school children (and honestly, me as well) were trying so hard not to laugh out loud. After this experience, I thought..hmm, maybe being on a solo tour isn't so bad after all!
Next up...I almost drown while bathing an elephant.
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