Elephants, Tigers, and Manta Rays! Part 2

Well we are back from diving the Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea 200 miles off the west coast of Thailand.  The islands consist of 9 islands that are part of a National Park that has been protected for over 30 years.  The Islands are incredible, unlike any other we've ever seen.  Giant boulders dotting pristine beaches where turtles lay thousands of eggs every year:)  I surmise that the boulders were thrust up through the magma a few thousand years ago.  Then sand, water and wind did their job making them smooth and beautiful just for us to take these nice pics....

The reason we went through all the trouble to get out to these remote islands was to dive with Manta Rays.  This is one of the the best places in the world to see them.  For divers there is the holy trinity: Whale Sharks, Manta Rays, or a "real shark" (Great White, Tiger, or Mako). Hopefully we would scratch #2 and maybe #3 off the list.  The first dive was off an island called Koh Ban.  Have mercy! The water was warm and beautiful at first; but as we started our decent I felt the current slap me in the face!  As we were struggling to grip the mooring line, waiting for other divers to go down, we were getting thrashed against the side of the boat!  The current was so strong that we were flung to the other side of the boat and got thrashed against the other side for good measure.  After finally getting down to about 60 feet we let go of the line and began kicking for dear life!  There were billions of plankton and tiny white creatures, single celled jelly fish stinging, and thermaclimbs (cold water coming up from the depths) mixing together to create this surreal vision of life that is probably the closest way to get an LSD trip without taking it!  The fish were everywhere!  More schooling fish than anywhere we've ever dove, even more than the Great Barrier Reef!  The colors were absolutely brilliant.  Trigger fish, giant snapper, sea turtles, moray eels, file fish, barracuda, grouper, parrot fish, sea snakes were all partaking in the feast. But the guest of honor never showed for lunch! We didn't last too long in that current, Carmen ran out of air at 25 minutes (half usual time) cause I later learned she sucked her air dry after she was stung in the face by a killer single celled jellyfish:)! No one in the group lasted long and the whole boat was huffing and puffing like chain smokers at the top of Mt. Everest!  Divergence: What is it with 300 lb Europeans in Speedos?  Damn that can ruin a perfectly good afternoon on a boat!

We did three more dives which were much easier than the first. The reefs got even more brilliant, the day even more sunny, and the fish more abundant.  The numbers were spectacular!  And they came so close!  A turtle almost ran right into me!  He was looking the other way and when he turned around we were eye to eye!  He jumped and changed direction as quick as he could..  The group got a kick out of that one:)  No really big fish (except one very fat 6 foot barracuda with a shrimp in its mouth cleaning its teeth), and disappointingly no Manta Rays nor Whalesharks.  It goes that way sometimes;(  Oh well, we had two great days of diving in one of the remote places of the world.  Met some great people who regaled us with their travel stories and even better dive stories.  Like the guy who says oceanic whitetip sharks in the Indian Ocean bumped him twice while he was trying to get a picture of him! Wait a minute... where's my knife?  Shout out to Neal and Giles.  Great times:)

Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time....

Ok, this should be the "phrase of the day" for our trip. I don't think that we are that adventerous (not as spontaneous and fun like Rich and Ana!) but we have done our fair share of "interesting" things..
So far our dining has been the most spontaneous thing we can muster. Honestly, in this hot Thai sun, eating and sleeping is the only thing we can do! We were totally boring our first couple of days here, only eating at the hotel restauraunts. I cannot tell you how good the food is here! Of course, if you have indigenous people in the kitchen, even if it is at a hotel, its gonna be GOOD. So we had no complaints, just the cost. We are on a budget for this trip and we can't spluge all of the time. Thailand is cheap. Really cheap. Like 30 cents for a big 20 ounce cold beer cheap! Our hotel dinners were running us like $40! That is too much! So after meeting a great German couple from Munich, we got directions to a great, local beach restaurant. I shoulda known that any directions that include "go over the bridge in the mangrove swamp" I should have stopped listening! But the lure of $4 shrimp dinners and 50cent beer was too much. So, like idiots, at night, we set out for our Thai dinner. Walking down the beach in pitch blackness to the restaraunt. After some scary moments with larger crabs skittering out of our way, we started to see light up ahead. It was the bridge over the swamp....Now bridge I think is a loosely used term. It was more like pieces of driftwood, lashed together with floss, seaweed, rope or anything else that would tie. I thought it was hilarious. I was hungry...here we are on the "bridge"

We move on to the restauraunt. Now, once again, i think we over used the word "restauraunt". It was more like a couple of open air shacks with some bootleg electricity. There was no bathroom, just a bunch of chairs on the sand and picnic tables.  Now, anyone that knows me, knows that I will eat ANYTHING! The only requisites: 1) Must be dead 2) Must not be slimy. Other than that, bottoms up!!! So we come it, grab some "chairs" and are immediately ushered over to their equivalent of the viewing tank at a fancy restaurant to pick our fish.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!!??? After I saw the fresh catch that was about to be my dinner, I didn't even notice the fly paper hanging over our table, the staff walking around with bug zappers or the complimentary bug spray that was given to us with our drinks....
Bruce had a newly killed, deep fried red snapper and i had some banging shrimp something.  Our entire meal, with beer and drinks came to $20.  Did I mention that I love Thailand?

After our wonderful meal we decided that little beach side spot would be our "hang out". We went for lunch and dinner every day! Today, they came in with fresh prawns that were the size of small dogs!!!! Keep in mind, the prawns were about 1/2lb each!!! And a lunch of bbq prawns would run you about $6!!!! Did I mention that I LOVE Thailand?

Around this time, we also decided that we needed to do laundry. You can't be gone for 5 months and not expect to do laundry. We assumed it would be easy but who knew that no one in the Khao Lak area had a washer machine? In fact, the hotels were pretty much the only ones that had washing machines, let alone a dryer. What they did have was a multitude of family run laundry spots where you are charged either per kilo of clothing or per piece. Per piece of clothing ran us about 10 cents! Now, remember, no one in the area has a washing machine...so after we dropped our clothes off and start to wander back over the "bridge" over the mangrove swamp I start to wonder "How are they going to wash our clothes?"...All of a sudden, Bruce and I looked upstream into the mangroves...We saw little plastic buckets and stuff on one of the banks...So, our clothes got washed, old school style in a stream!  Did I mention that I LOVE Thailand!!!!
Tomorrow we are leaving my new favorite spot.  I won't forget the beautiful beaches, the kind people and the awesome diving. I'm sure there will be other places in the future, but I can truly say, Thailand will always have a place in my heart! Ko khawp khun! (Thank you!!!)

Elephants, Tigers, and Manta Rays! Part 1

I usually don't read Carmen's blog on a place until I write mine, so we can give objective individual accounts.  But I couldn't help myself when it came to the elephant ride!  I had to know what she wrote... She almost fainted out there in that jungle yall! LMAO!

We are outside of a village name Khao Lak, Thailand, which is 2 hours north of Phuket through rubber tree plantations and jungle. It's a wonderful place.  There is a flawless beach with absolutley no people in sight.  Beautiful Thai people who love Americans in general, and they seemed to be enamored by Americans of African descent! When we arrived to the edge of the jungle (only a 45 minute ride) the elephant crew was outside in the sweltering heat in basically a thatch hut.  There were a folks from Northern Europe milling around waiting on transport back to their lodging.  The workers smiled and bowed and said "sawadee" which means welcome or hello. I could see the polite stares and looks of bewildermint begin.  You see Carmen and I have been a few places where they haven't seen "brown" people.  We can now recognize when people have never seen us, no matter how they try to hide it.  It comes with the territory when you go places that our folks don't go:) You have to remember, some of these people do not read and don't have television or go to movies (in cities like Bangok and Phuket they do).  They don't know about Lebron or Beyonce or about President Obama!  We find  it incredibilly humbling because it's like we are ambassadors for our country and ethnicity.  In China we couldn't go anywhere without a crowd forming, even on the Great Wall of China!  Here in Thailand, they are more subdued about it, but their curiosity finally gets the best of them:) They know about the USA as this far away power that basically influences peoples lives in the city and as a great military power with the world's best technology (they are a military ally).  But most Thai people where we are haven't met an American, let alone AOAD (Americans of African Descent).  The elephant driver finally asked after 5 minutes on the elephant, "Where from?".  Everyone at the hotel had already asked so we we're prepared.  "Where do you think we're from?" Reply with utter confusion followed by a blank look then, "South Africa????" We giggle to ourselves because its obvious the only dark skinned people they've seen are probably African fisherman who frequent the Indian ocean or African government officials in the newspaper.  We tell him America and at first he shows disbelief.  I think he is convinced because because of the full jungle gear we have on and how different our english is compared to the northern Europeans he is used to hearing.  We just look and sound very different, period.  Now he is smiling and pushing branches away for Carmen as we rumble through the jungle in style on top of a 12 foot elephant!  I feel invincible. I can see why Hannibel preferred to use elephants instead of horses!  After we let our guide ask us a few questions, we started in on him.  We hit him with a barrage.  Carmen first, then me, then Carment again.  I could see he was getting dizzy because of the quickness and fierceness of the questioning. His english was failing him, but we didn't care, we need to know everything now and its as simple as that!  He was saved when he saw a small tree snake napping in a branch about 2 feet to my immediate left.  I judged the snake, no bad colors (poison snakes have certain colors or markers), so I felt no need to move.  But I heard Carmen's breathing speed up and her grip on my arm tighten.  The guide sees her reaction and giggles.  She start saying ok, ok, it's a snake let's keep moving in a nervous voice.  I began my pep talk, " You swim with sharks! You've petted cheetahs! It's a small snake get it together! We are too high in the air for any foolishness.  Their is a cliff to your right dammitt! Get it together. Plus it's too hot for you to be draped all over me!"  I nod to the guide to keep going.  Unfortunately, it just got worse as we moved forward.  He points to Carmen's side on the right.  "You see spider?"  Oh hell, here we go.  I would rather have seen a tiger than a spider, Camen's nemesis! The serious breathing and whimpering begin.  She is backing into me coiling up readying for launch! I am panicking now cause I can't get between her and the spider.  Her wiimpering and shaking and adrenaline stench will frighten and maybe panick the elephant!  I pull her towards me and wrap my arms aroung her in a light hug so I can quickly restrain her if I have to.  I speak softly in her ear, " It's ok. It's not that big (a damn lie, that thing was huge!), and it's more scared of you than you are of it (another lie, she looked pale like she was about to go down yall! Just pass out on this elephant!) I told her to take a picture of it. Because as we got closer, I couldn't help but be impressed by the size of the web, at least 12 feet in diameter! It could've caught a sparrow in that net!!!!!  The spider was juicy and huge, bigger by far than any spider I've seen. At least a foot long!  She bravely got out the camera, and got a quick shot in as she tried to fight her hands from shaking from the fear.  She clicked then grabbed me and turned away quickly as we went by.  He laughingly joined in, "It's ok, no bite, no jump, It's ok, no jump".  My sphincter loosened as we went further cause I knew the elephant was affected by Camen's histrionics!  We left our elephant to rest and we had a short hike to paradise.  A clearing with a lagoon and waterfall... It looked like heavan.  I said I wasn't getting into any damn river in the middle of the jungle!  I don't want dysentary or some strange parasite; but it was sooo beautiful, I just couldn't help myself.  It was so hot that day, at leat 105 degrees F with incredible humidity.  I just had to get in that waterfall.  I'll deal with the consequences later!

After a quick dip and a few moments of reflection in the middle of all of nature's beauty.  We hike back to the elephant and start the ride back.  Our guide, who I'm getting to know pretty well by now, let's me drive the elephant back to camp!  What a rush! He grabs the camera from Carmen and walks in front of us, calling out commands to the elephant in Thai.  He tells me to use my legs behind his ears to steer him.  It's similar to a hores's reins.  A gentle nudge foward will make him speed up.  It was awesome.  I was petting her and whispering to this beautiful creature, praying she didn't smash me against a tree!  We made it back in one piece and spent some quality time with our elephant, "Gay".  We petted and talked and fed her bananas. She was so smart and you could see the thoughts and soul in her eyes.  I saw a tear come out of her eye, and I couldn't help but kiss her........

I could Thai here

Ok, I know. I say I love everywhere. In fact, those of you following our blog can probably keep a count on how many times I say "I LOVE this place". I will at least try not to be redundant with the same reasons: 1) nice beach 2) nice people, blah, blah. I will try to be specific. So this is why Thailand is an awesome place to be...

We arrrived here after yet another long day of travel from Japan. The flight was hellish not for the distance/time (it was 6-1/2 hours) but because I was seated next to a guy who was convinced that nose picking is an Olympic sport and Bruce sat next to a guy who not only snored loud but snorted and grunted. (God knows what he was dreaming about!) Needless to say, we arrived in Bangkok and ended up having to do some minor dashing to catch our next flight. It could have been an fiasco if it were not for the excellent service that Asian airlines give you. Because our flight from Tokyo was a tad late, we were met at the gate by  uniformed agent for our next airlines who HAND DELIVERED us to the service desk to get our boarding passes and to get ushered thru immigration! I mean seriously?! Can you imgaine one of the pissed off gate agents in the US doing that for anyone? I"m really going to miss the service in Asia....ah well....
We arrived at our gate for our Phuket flight and noted that of course, it was delayed by 40min. Perfect!
A smooth 1 hr flight later, we arrived in Phuket. But this is not our final destination. We were headed to Khao Lak, a small Thai town 1-1/2 hours north of the party city of Phuket. We drove thru rubber plantations and tiny towns to get the beautiful area of Khao Lak. Pristine beaches, people few and far between and of course, excellent service. We were greeted by smiles and "Sawadee" (that means Hello/Welcome in Thai), cold washcloths and iced green tea! 

We chose to stay in such a remote place because Khao Lak is the closest area to get to our dream dive site, the Similan Islands. The Similan Islands are also the best sights in Thailand for seeing the gigantic manta rays and even larger, whale shark! 

Our first day in Khao Lak, Bruce wanted to do a elephant safari in the jungles near Khao Lak-Lam Ru  National Park. Like an idiot, I agreed. How often do you get to ride an elephant thru a jungle? We arrived to the park, met our guide who spoke little to no English and got on top of an elephant to ride off into the jungle.  My gut started telling me that it was a bad idea. It was hot as hell, Bruce was sweating so hard i'm sure he lost a gallon of water from his body. Then, our perch on top of the elephant was a bootleg, home made contraption made up of some kind of wood and rope. Our "safety belt" was a piece of rope covered with garden hose (for comfort)...Now i'm feeling more nervous.

We head out into the jungle and for whatever reason, i didnt realize how thick and scary jungle could be. Our guide, who sat on the elephants neck, would pull branches out of the way while we passed (so we would get smacked off the back). The trail was so narrow...i couldn't believe how close the branches were. It was starting to freak me out becuase I have only one major phobia...bug/spiders, etc. Yep, this from a chick who went on a little boat in South Africa to see great white sharks, went diving in the famed "Stingray City" so I could touch stingrays and let them swim over me, and even more dangerous, went to high school in Southwest Atlanta!!!  (I gotta death wish::)) Needless to say, i'm not scared of much but anything that has more eyes and legs than me. So here I am, on the back of an elephant, riding thru a jungle in Thailand with trees and branches surrounding me. I'm freaking out slowly because I'm imagining thousands of spiders and bugs watching me and waiting for their chance to get me...So our guide, in his best broken English sees a snake, curled up in a tree directly next to us about 8 feet off of the ground...

For me, the only reason why i'm concerned because i'm thinking "if the snake jumps, spooks the elephant, its going to veer into bushes and i'll be covered in spiders"...Honestly, i don't care about snakes...not really scared of them at all. Poor Bruce was less than a foot away. He's not that scared either but it was a crappy place to be!  We continued on top of our elephant and wouldn't you friggin know it...The guide stops the elephant and in his cute, broken English i hear the most hated of all words "See, spider?"...WTF!!!!????
For my medicine friends, my heart rate was thru the roof, i started breathing 30 times/minute and seriously considered dying...The crappy thing about it is I COULDN'T LOOK AWAY. On a gigantic 3-4 foot web, not more than 12 inches from us was the biggest damn spider I have ever seen!!! Can you find it in the picture??? Just to give you an idea, we cropped most of the web in the picture so you can see the spider in the middle of the picture! It was a huge web and a bigger frickin spider!!!

  So what do you think a college educated, mid aged, physician would do? I started whimpering like a friggin stupid baby... I dont know why i'm so freaked by spiders? I couldn't keep it together. Bruce was giggling his ass off (like it was funny) and the guide, even thought he could bearly speak English, laughed at me to. The whole time these idiots are laughing, WE ARE NOT MOVING!!! The damn spider is sitting there, chilling, probably looking at me...Right before I started a full on panic attack complete with a Indiana Jones style jump from the back of a elephant, we started moving. Oh now, its too late. I'm feeling that creepy crawly feeling like something is on me and I can't relax...Thank God we were almost to our destination which was a deserted waterfall/pool in the middle of the jungle. Unfortunately, the last portion of the journey was too steep for the elephant and we had to walk about a half a mile to the  waterfall. Wouldn't you know it? ANOTHER FRIGGIN SPIDER ON THE WAY! I seriously thought that that was the day i was going to die. But you know what? I talked my way thru the extrodinary fear and walked by the damn thing. Bruce estimted that the spider was probably 1 foot across! (and insisted on telling me every little thing about the stupid thing.Like how huge the web was, how juicy the body of the spider is, oh and my favorite..how big the fangs were...he was killing me!)
All the trauma of the day culminated in the beauty of a cool deserted waterfall and pool. It was so cool and refreshing! I couldn't believe how nice this place was! I enjoyed sitting there, relaxing and reflecting on how I almost died....:)

After all of the fear of the day, we made it back to camp safe and sound. I had to reward our elephant with her favorite treat! Bananas! Overall, it was a great fun day in Thailand. I didn't die, I faced a huge phobia and got the opportunity to do something i'll remember for the rest of my life...

Tomorrow, we head off to the Similan Islands to do some diving and hopefully see the famed manta rays!!!

Check out our pics from our trip in Thailand