Thailand

Thailand

Thailand, who knew this would be the most fantastic place I've seen on earth. The mountains rise strait our of the water to hundreds of meters high. Caves form at the water line leading to secret passages under the mountains. The water is a clear, blue and green like it's an emerald sea. With all the sea caves, coves and hidden lagoons you can see why pirates came here to hide their stolen treasure. I can't imagine I'll ever see anything as beautiful as this paradise again.

We're Here

When we arrived five days ago into Krabi town my first impression of Thailand was rough and dirty. There are very rich homes standing right next to dumpy looking slums. Krabi city had young guys and girls cruising up and down the streets on scooters and open air restaurants with all kinds of funny smells coming out into the street. It felt hot, exotic, dirty and kept me a little nervous.

Real Pirates?

Our trip to the resort was a 40 minute ride in a long tail boat powered by a car engine strapped onto the end of a long pole with a propeller on the other end. Speaking of pirates the men who recruited us to get into their boat didn't look too different from what I picture a pirate to be. Then at the last minute the other couple got impatient and we had to bribe not to bail out on us so we didn't have to pay the whole fair. As the boat made it's way through this most fascinating part of the world I began to realize I was living the dream I've had since I first saw pictures of palm trees leaning over perfect sand beaches. The long boat bumped as it beached between the mangrove trees on the shore and we had arrived at our Thailand paradise.

Mixed Messages

Thailand really is a miss match of the rich and poor. As we leave our beautiful resort to reach the beach on the other side of the causeway we need to pass some piles of garbage and shanty homes along the way. There are power lines wrapped together and hanging 4 feet off the ground. At the far end of the beach we had to walk through the water so as not to trespass on the resort that starts at $650 a night. But down a path hidden at the far end of this beach you can walk to another beautiful beach and it was here we found the monkeys. Or they found us.

Getting to Know the Locals

I was sitting on the rail and this big monkey walks up and sits three feet from me. Now of course monkeys are the primary carriers of rabies in this part of the world so the first thing I did was run away. This big guy wasn't worried about me though as he calmly walked over to Eileen's coke, which I was supposed to guard, dumped it over and drank it back. As I'm watching this audacious theft his little buddies in the tree over me gave me another heart attack as they drop to the lower limbs and start demanding their tribute. Buy the time his whole troupe arrived we were becoming good friends. One climbed down a branch onto my arm and walked across my shoulders to get a banana. Another got excited about being left out and almost removed my swim suit as he climbed to my waist. Finally the first big guy got tired of games and strutted across my lap to grab the last two bananas for himself! I took them back before he walked back across. He then leaned over, put his hand on my knee, so we could have a little heart to heart about who really needs the bananas.

Secret Treasure

On my last morning I finally climbed the mountain that has a lagoon hidden in the centre. It was an almost strait climb up the rocks which formed a natural ladder. I met two spider monkeys guarding the passage as I climbed the first 20 feet. At the top of the pass I stepped on a line of tiny ants that was one inch across and streched back and forth until I lost it in the jungle. The narrow crevas down into the mountain was even mor trecherous as there were three vertical sections each 15 feet high. There were little natural steps in the rock to navigate this and the last section had a tunnel to climb down through. At the bottom of this desent was a shallow pool that stretched across the floor of the round chamber deep in the mountain. The white stone walls were thick with ferns, palms and trees yet they reached strait up to a round circle of blue sky over my head. I've seen some increadable cathedrals in Europe including the Vatican. I've never seen a temple as breathtaking and solem as this. Since I had the place to myself I felt compelled to sing a hymn which echoed to the top.