Leeches and Limestone

We all second guess ourselves. Some more than others. But when you trade a lounge chair nestled between the beach and the pool for a dirty plastic seat at the back of a bouncing public bus- well, you begin to question the very sanity you base those decisions on. That bus is where we found ourselves, hours removed in time, but in truth, we could not have been any farther from the island comforts we had grown accustomed to. We barreled down the road, every bump catapulting us off the seat and onto each other, the floor, the seat in front of us. The driver seemed determined to hit every pothole, aiming the bus with laser-like precision at the road's many imperfections, apparently delighting in sending his two dozen passengers airborne with every bump. We did not have far to go: we planned on riding from Don Sak to the Surat Thani airport, but the ride seemed longer. Much longer. Sleeping was impossible, even for Rebecca, and before long, the threat of being hurled across the bus had both of us constantly bracing ourselves for the next bump. You just pinned yourself with your arms and legs between the seats, floor, and ceiling and hope the driver has some mercy in his soul somewhere. And that Dennis Hopper wasn't around (Pop quiz hotshot: there's a bomb on this bus...What do you do!?! (Sorry, very dated reference, I know)). Soon, I would pilot us, myself, down the Thai roadways. I could only hope that our bus experience would make my oft-erratic driving seem reasonable in comparison.

We secured our silver Honda Hatchback from the airport and slowly pulled away from the terminal. For some reason, I found it much more difficult driving a car on the left side versus a motorbike. At the exit of the airport, several exasperated drivers actually pulled around me angrily (angry for a Thai is very different though- it's more like when your parents were "disappointed" with you as a kid- they rarely show much negative emotion) and turned onto Thailand Route 401. As noted before on this very space, the main difficulty of driving on the left is not staying in the left lane, which becomes natural fairly quickly. I found staying in the proper place within the lane much more difficult. With the wheel on the right instead of the left, our car was constantly halfway off the road on the left side, (Rebecca's side, consequently) which was roughly where the car should have been if the wheel were on the left. Anyway, we got used to it. We stopped for lunch in a small town and walked around trying to find a cord to connect my ipod to the car stereo. We ended up finding a store where you tell them what kind of cord you want and they make it on the spot (this was one of the roughly 7,000 times I have questioned the efficiency and resourcefulness of Americans. Trust me, if the world comes to an end and we all have to fend for ourselves, Thais will last WAY longer than we will. (I'm excluding our friends Kelle, Keith, and Southern Roots farm from this statement)). Anyway, we found the cord. Because God forbid we take a two hour drive without some Fall '97 to backdrop the journey.

We arrived at Khao Sok National Park in the late afternoon, (see the sign! we really did! have the pictures to prove it and everything) and went to the very uninformative information desk to get some literature. The young man working the counter looked up from the Eminem video he was watching on MTV long enough to indifferently pass us a small brochure (his palpable ambivalence reassuring us that not everything in Thailand is so different than the States). We scanned the small map and, given the roughly three hours of daylight left, calculated we could hike about 8 km before dark. We settled on the northwestern half of the park. Immediately after exiting the parking lot, we advanced into the forest, which was populated by ferns, trees, and enormous bamboo stands. The bamboo was in clusters of a dozen or so, as thick as a tree trunk, and dozens of feet high. I immediately wished I had listened to Louis more when he would teach me about the wonderful world of bamboo. The hike was beautiful, but we were slightly disappointed when our far-fetched wishes of seeing wild animals never materialized. The sign at the head of the park had promised monkeys, birds, elephants, deer and wild pigs roamed the confines. We would see none of the above.

But we did find leeches. Fortunately, not the large, black, slug like leeches of Stand By Me fame, (I'm shuddering right now just thinking of that scene) but leeches nonetheless. They took the form of small, worm-like insects that stood on their "tails" with their "mouths" in the air, attaching themselves to anything that happened by. For some reason they seemed to enjoy affixing themselves to Rebecca more often than me (at least they have taste) and she would stop every hundred yards or so and hop around while violently swatting at her foot. She did view the only really cool animal of the day though, a monitor lizard that *according to Reba* was the size of a Lincoln Town Car. It was the second time that she had seen one. Each time she shrieked and grabbed me, which caused me to suddenly turn and look at her, and consequently miss the lizard. Dammit.

We followed the meandering trail for about 45 minutes before we came to the first waterfall. The "waterfall" designated a hundred-yard stretch where the limestone-green river descended sharply, more of a set of rapids than a waterfall, but picturesque, indeed. We continued along the path, ears sharpened as noises announced the presence of creatures in the jungle, even if sight did not. We heard all sorts of noises: the steady hum of insects, the cries of birds the rustling of monkeys and a whole host of other sounds we could not identify. The path seemed to grow steadily more narrow as we traversed, and the footing became muddier. Before long, we reached the second waterfall, which required negotiating a bridge made partly of bamboo, partly of a rotted out deck-board. The second waterfall was much like the first: a steep set of rapids flanked by a rock outcropping for viewing. We continued on another few hundred meters, I wanted to make it to the swimming hole. As we neared the next stop, the path narrowed even more and mud engulfed the entire width. This meant we were tiptoeing along the sides of the path where the ground was slightly higher, or tightroping across shafts of bamboo that had been laid out through the mud. At the swimming hole, I had a decision. Jump in the quick moving water, surely braving leeches, pirahnas, large lizards and whatever else inhabited the river, or turn back. We turned back. We made our way back to the mouth of the park, satisfied by a nice hike, and arrived just before dark, determined to find a nice bungalow in the little village beside the river. The first place we looked was a bit rustic for our tastes, but did boast a nice swimming hole/ropeswing beside the main office. Seeing four young Thai men bathing and swinging out into the river, I deduced that the water could not be THAT dangerous, and at their insistence, I stripped off my muddy pants, hiked up my boxer shorts and stepped up to the ropeswing. That water was wonderful: green, clear, fast, just cold enough. It was perfect to rinse the sweat and mud, and after a few swings (the Thai boys were very happy I could flip, as they could) we made our way back to town and found our bungalow at The Morning Mist. And yes, I am attempting to swing off of every rope in Southeast Asia that hangs near water.






In addition to being thrilled with our rustic (but clean) bungalow with outdoor shower and toilet (look Mom, mosquito net!), we dined on wonderful curry and drank a cold beer in the lodge area. The television screen flashed images of Cheow Lan Lake, the fantastic man-made lake comprising the other half of the National Park. Located about 65 kilometers from the river where we had spent the day hiking, Cheow Lan is the most beautiful lake I have ever seen. We went to sleep that night with visions of the majestic images from the television screen dancing in our heads.














Dammed in 1982, the lake shimmers emerald green, interrupted only by the crests of the limestone peaks that jut out of the water. Accessible only by boat, and only by a tiny (3 building) port village in the southeast corner, the lake sits utterly untouched by human hands. Caves dot the limestone walls, caves that, until 1982, must have been hundreds of meters in the air. According to our guidebook, communist guerillas in the 1980s used to hide out in the caves. We could imagine them quietly rowing their small boats around the peaks, hugging the coastline, covering the boats and spreading out in the caves. Hunched around small fires and cook-pots, plotting strategy. I thought of Hemingway's Robert Jordan and Pilar, populating similar caves a continent away. While out on the lake, the sky continuously threatened rain. We saw a bit, but for the most part avoided it. It seemed as if our guide, no more than 16 and wearing a "USA Marines" hat, knew exactly where to go amongst the islands and clouds to avoid the rain. The sky always seemed to open in front of us and behind us, but not over. He pulled over to one island and wrapped the short bowline of the longtail boat around a tree outstretched from the rock.



"You swim," he said.

I needed no prodding. I pulled off my shirt, walked up the railing to the bow of the boat, and dove into the unnervingly clear, green water. Upon surfacing and looking around, it almost took my breath away. There is something humbling and somewhat frightening about swimming in water hundreds of meters deep. Even more so when you can see 20-30 feet down the water is so clear. Looking down and seeing an unending, unchanging expanse of green. Beautiful, exhilarating, yes. But it makes you feel very, very small. Like swimming in the middle of the ocean. After I climbed back in the boat (and dove off, repeating the cycle a few more times), we motored over to the "rafthouses" we had heard so much about.

Floating independently about 100 meters from the nearest shoreline, the little bungalows sit side by side and float on thousands of pieces of bamboo. Bamboo underneath, bamboo for the floors, the railing, the poles. I shuddered thinking how unsafe anything built by Dad and me would be had we only bamboo to work with. The rafthouses were an oddity, certainly, but it seemed like they represented only a tour-boat visit now. Several of the houses looked lived in, but we assumed that they were for the few people cooking and running the "restaurant," where a dozen Japanese tourists sat happily munching on a gigantic fish of some variety. Some of the children threw what looked like cat food into the water, and large schools of good-sized fish rolled over and thrashed about the water to feed. We didn't stay long, as the weather looked ready to turn. We had a pleasant ride back to the port.



We drove quickly back to our bungalow (stopping at two markets on the way back for a cheap lunch- the large markets throughout the country quickly becoming our go-to lunch spots), hoping to make it back to the river in time for a late afternoon tubing expedition. We made it back and found our tubes and guide, and promptly hopped into the river. We had a good float, one of the faster rivers I have tubed down, and hit one more ropeswing on the way down. We had a great time teaching our Thai guide how to scream "whitewater" at the appropriate time (said very southern, more of a "wiiiiit WAW-ter" sound) and spending a good 15 minutes quizzing him on various noises we had heard in the jungle the day before.

"No, Michael, it wasn't a buuk-buuuk braaawwwwk. It was more of a bik-bik aaawwwwwwp."

Our guide spent the entire hour laughing at the crazy pharangs trying to make monkey and bird sounds in their bathing suits. I couldn't blame him. It did feel like a little slice of home though, floating down that river on an old tire tube. Yelling for all we were worth, and just feeling grateful for rivers and beer.

The next morning we packed up and drove back to Surat Thani to return the car and board the train for Chiang Mai. It was time to get north. We would have to stop and change trains in Bangkok, but that was all we planned to do there. As we got closer to civilization, Rebecca reminded me of the last time we had returned a rental car to an airport in a foreign place. Argentina, two years ago, with Lillie. We drove around for two hours the last morning, trying to find the airport. When we rented the car with Lillie, the woman at the desk had asked if we wanted GPS.

"No, we're okay," I assured her. Lillie and Reba looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"It's okay, I have our GPS right here." I raised a napkin that I had written some cryptic directions on, copied from a website earlier that day. "We're good."

This time, I paid for the proper GPS. When we arrived back at the airport, we saw a large police presence and a red carpet.

"They're ready for me," quipped my wife.

As we walked inside, the woman we had rented the car from two days earlier whisked us to the counter: "Where do you go, we have royalty coming, you must leave."

"To the train station."

She said we could not wait for a taxi, and she grabbed another employee of the car rental place, directing him to drive us the 8 kilometers to the train station. Before we could say a word, he had our bags and was hurrying us out to the curb. Confused, we followed him, unsure of what laid ahead.

But we were on to the next adventure...