Jenny arranged a great 3-day tour into Khao Sok National Park. We spent the first two days staying in treehouses along the Sok River. The first day we had ladies come to give us Thai massages in our rooms. It was wonderful. They are incredibly strong and really dig into your muscles twisting you into all sorts of interesting positions. It is like yoga, but without the work.
We also attempted to adjust to the humidity and keep cool during the day. Fortunately, there was a swimming area in the river just outside of our treehouses. We went for a paddle to cool off.
Day 2 we went on an elephant trek. It felt really awkward to be positioned on little metal seats on top of the elephant. Stephen and I each thought that we were leaning too far over to our own side. Pretty soon we adjusted to the bumpy ride and the elephant guide with sharp stick walking behind hollering 'Hai!' every so often to get the elephant moving. Whenever he did this we clutched the sides because it got even bumpier as the elephant tried to speed up.
On the way back from the waterfall our guide had me climb down onto the elephant's neck. This was great (a little scary at first)! I felt like I had much more control balancing on the elephant's neck and best of all - I could rub her head and shoo away the insects. She was lovely! Whenever I started sliding too far one way or the other she would use her big ears to press my legs into the side to keep up. She was really smart! The kings of Siam and Burma used to fight each other on elephants. They had to have several men positioned around the elephants' great legs to protect them from attack. They even had special elephant armour.
Stephen's notes:
Kho Sok National Park
Limestone karst forest with loads monkeys. A chance to start popping the malaria pills..
Good things
Lazy days floating in the river and sleeping in mosquito nets although the mosquitos are not so lazy..
Monkeys turn up at around 5pm to play in the trees above our little tree house
Had a lumpy ride on an elephant in the jungle and gave her some bananas
New desert - bananas in honeyed coconut milk - it's like rocket fuel!
Bad things
Monkeys try to take all the tiles off the roofs - fortunately it didn't rain
