Treehouses and Creepy Leeches

The morning after meeting up with Nadine we held a "breakfast meeting" to determine a plan for the next few days. Travelling with three other people is so much more difficult politically and logistically than travelling with just one other person. We had hoped to get a later bus out of Krabi since the others wanted to explore the area around Karbi. But after much running around including a songthaew ride to the local bus station it became apparent the most sensible route was the 11:30 minibus to Koh Sok National Park.

We ended up staying at the Smiley Bungalows not entirely by choice...it was just where the minibus dropped us but it worked out extremely well. We stayed in cute and very cheap treehouses run by the friendliest people.

The guesthouse owners took us on a brief tour of the area just before dusk. We visited some waterfalls but the real highlight was the cave temple. At dusk every evening the monkeys that live nearby all come out to be fed. It was fun watching them play and even fight. The best were the adorable baby monkeys climbing all around.

The next day we were blessed with very little rain and we set out to hike through the national park. The first 3 km were easy going and we saw heaps of butterflies and other interesting insects. After that the trail became more challenging and unfortunately all of the signs had fallen to the ground and shattered. Resultantly, with only our hand drawn map it was difficult to tell how far we had come.

Then we wandered into leech territory, an experience I hope never to repeat. These tiny things would crawl up over our shoes and attach themselves to your ankles all without us realizing a thing. In a way it was almost better not knowing they were there because once we became aware of them we became obsessed. We were constantly checking our legs and feeling like they were crawling all over us. We decided to head back and went for a refreshing swim at a little stream near the beginning of the trail.

Other than hiking in the jungle there was not much else to do in the area and the constant rain sucked away most of our motivation to explore. We spent much of our time hanging out in the restaurant at our guesthouse. The children of the owners were unbelievably cute. I have been so impressed by how patient Thai people are with their children and perhaps as a result how well adjusted and behaved the children are.

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