The tranquil sounds of the blaring alarm woke us, fully rested, bright faced and excitedly ready for a new day of adventure (this is all a blatant lie). As we rolled out of bed just past 6am (missed the sunrise at 6.12am, dang) we gorged ourselves once again on the ridiculous spread of breakfast. I got my eggs scrambled right in front of me with cheese, and a smiling (with all teeth) man brought them over to our table. Saaah delish. We stuffed the last morsels and drained our freshly made (by us) smoothies just before 8am, when we moseyed over to the reception desk to try and sort out our bike ride. I definitely asked for the waterfall tour, which they explicitly state begins at 1pm. BUT they booked us in for 8am, which is the time of the bike tour to the local fruit markets. After we thoroughly confused the two people at the counter who had very limited english (but still did their best and tried ridiculously hard to understand and help us) the bike tour guide came over and explained to us - in near perfect english - that we would be going to the waterfall with 2 other people at 8am. So we were set!
It cost just over $20 for the ride which went over 4 hours, and we saw so many amazing things. The guide was awesome, he's our new best friend and knew everything about everything and answered all of our questions perfectly. He introduced himself as Dn. (That's the only was I can think of spelling it, because we asked if it was Dan or Don and he said no, and made a noise that sounded pretty much like dnnnn). Dn took us down, picked out bikes that would be suited for us and adjusted them so they were 100% right and comfortable for us - such a legend. He then tossed us 2 bottles of water as well and making sure our bikes were as stocked as they could be with bottles as well (you can't drink the tap water here, it's similar to Bali so bottled water is precious). We also met the two other people joining us, a super fit and happy almost-middle-aged couple (they had kids our age but looked about 30, sooo) FROM AUSTRALIA! It was awesome, we chatted for ages. The woman introduced herself to me first as Danielle (Dn had a hard time pronouncing this so from then on it was Danni), and her husband was Shaun (probably spelt Sean but this confuses me so much so we are just gonna go with Shaun. Like the sheep). They were from Melbourne and travelled heaps, this was their third time to Thailand so we quizzed them for all the information they could give us, and by the end of the trip we were all great friends. It's awesome meeting people who are from the same place as you are from, it's like an instant connection that breaks all age and circumstantial barriers.
Even though it was only 8am, it was stinking hot. We pedalled for about 20 minutes with the sun pounding down on us, then Dn stopped and took us down a side street which opened up into a massive, bustling market. We would have never known it was there. He chained our bikes and gave us a comprehensive guided tour of all the different types of food that was being sold by loud and enthusiastic locals. The place was massive, crowded and stunk so bad, but it was such an amazing cultural experience. He led us through all the fruit stalls, showing us how to tell if pineapples are sweet and when mangoes are ripe. He explained all the weird fruits we had never seen, and which were grown right there in Khao Lak (the suburb/city where we are staying). He was just a plethora of information and we learnt so much cool stuff. *Note: If you're vegetarian/don't like fish or meat talk, you should definitely skip the next paragraph*
Towards the end of the fruit section it was starting to absolutely reek and I was thinking how the hell can people buy food when the place smells like literal shit and rotting fish. Then we got to the fish section. There were thousands of fish, hundreds of different types. Blood and guts everywhere and the people behind the counter would sharpen their knives on a block, then violently cut the heads off the fish and slice, dice, and fillet them right there. As we were watching, I thought I saw the fish wriggling as the man sliced it's head off, then I realised he was literally reaching into a barrel of squirming fish, absolutely alive. Feeling decidedly sick (but not as bad as Danni who is a vegetarian) we tried to hurry this section along. But then immediately regretted it as we saw what the next section we were heading into was. I thought fish guts smelt bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as pig, lamb, and beef guts in a steaming, hot, sweaty, crowded rotunda with flies going crazy. Vom. There was literally everything, and I mean everything. Pigs heads, tongues, intestines, brains, feet, tails, hearts (felt like grade 10 biology class). Of course, nothing was refrigerated. We tried to hurry through and stop Danni from fainting, but Dn was insisting to show us all the dried fish and explain the traditional preserving process - all we wanted to do was get well, well away from the pigs heads (which were right beside the drying fish). I can't even explain how bad it smelt.
You'd think the curry aisle would smell better, but the powerful smell of dead things was even stronger than the many different types of curry pastes. There was a light at the end of the tunnel and we headed outside to the "fresh" air (which still smells like sewerage but it smelt like daisies compared to the fish and meat markets). Dn took us to a street stall which sold unknown things, and bought us a few different things to try. We had dried pulled pork, and curried crackling, which was nice but I had zero appetite after the markets. Sculling some water to try to keep breakfast down, we went into more of the outside markets which had more fruit and drink stalls. Danni and Shaun both bought a cold coconut, which the man cut open right there and stuck a straw in it. Doesn't get much fresher. We both tried a sip and it was the sweetest, nicest coconut water I'd ever tried. Dn explained there are lots of different types of coconuts and the age determines a lot of the flavour as well. Generally, the ones that get exported the Thai people wouldn't usually drink because they are bitter and strong varieties instead of the mild and sweet ones we were drinking in the markets.
There were dogs everywhere, running around and dodging the traffic. Some were feral, some had 3 legs, and some were absolutely adorable, but one thing they all had in common was that they had heaps of friends. Dog friends.
After we were "rested" we set off again, through the streets of Thailand. At one point we were literally on the road, pedalling next to the scooters, being overtaken by honking trucks and cars. It was pretty scary but Dn seemed to think it was totally normal, and the more we looked around the more normal it seemed. Once you got over the initial fright, it felt pretty safe because everyone was aware and gave way to you, and there was plenty of room on the road shoulder. It wasn't long that we were on the road before we turned off and headed into the mountains on a path. We rode up to a temple which was amazing. In all of the dirtiness and poverty stood a breathtaking, white temple with green dragons and gold trimmings. We took some photos and got lots of lessons before I saw something way more interesting. A monkey!
He was just casj sitting on a cart with a boy about our age, happy as could be. Then we saw another one, way up a tree with a rope connecting him to a lady on the ground. As we watched we saw her point to a specific coconut (metres above her head) and the monkey swing over to it, point to check it was the right one, and when the lady gave a signal he began twisting and working at it until it fell to the ground. They repeated this over and over to our amazement, the monkey was so intelligent. It was like watching a tiny, nimble human, the way they were communicating and understanding each other. I was appalled that it was on a leash and spent it's whole life in captivity, because it was so human-like it felt like slavery. Dn told us not to feel bad, because the monkeys grow up as part of the family. He said the woman on the ground was probably the "mother" of the monkeys, in that they respected her and even thought that she was their mother. He got talking to the family, and they let us get photos of them. The young boy said something to one of the monkeys (it looked like a relative of the baboon) who turned around and showed its pink butt to the cameras. It looked like the monkey was laughing with the boy. They told us not to get too close because they are really protective, and Shaun made the mistake of backing up a little too far to get a photo. They bared their teeth and growled and were actually really intimidating, Dn said they were protecting their cart and their family. We thanked them and said goodbye, and they rode off looking so happy (the monkeys had juice boxes), and Dn reassured us that it wasn't animal cruelty, it was a way of life for coconut pickers to include one or two monkeys into their family and raise them like children. The chains were just to stop them running away and getting hurt, or getting stolen because a trained monkey is pretty hot property.
We continued our journey going further uphill, and through massive plantations of rubber trees. There were thousands upon thousands of them with the little taps and bowls collecting them. That's our Nike shoes...
The ride was 14km but it felt way longer on the dodgy, uphill roads with potholes and patches of gravel (and dogs that you had to dodge cos they just sat on the road and didn't move). There were so many farms and little huts in the mountains as we got closer to the national park, and the bitumen road turned into gravel and dirt (which was not comfortable on a hard bike seat). Finally we reached the national park, where we were greeted by two barking puppies (who were so unsure of us they wouldn't even say hello to Dn or let anyone pat them) and playing kittens who chased each other up trees. We had to pay 200 baht (about 8 bucks) to get into the park, and then we hiked about half an hour (red faced and sweating) uphill through the humid jungle. Dn showed us some honeycomb that had fallen from a tree that was made by the local breed of bees, and told us that the honey is not good to eat but they make a syrup from the honeycomb by soaking it in water that I assume is like cane sugar syrup.
We finally got to the waterfall and oh my god. Words just can't describe. It was so beautiful. We crossed a little log bridge over the running water which had a handmade railing of bamboo on one side which was very appreciated, especially after we got off the log and onto the steep, slippery rocks. There was another smaller bridge, and then we were on the flat rocks with a second-to-none view of the cascading waterfall. The pictures don't even do it justice.
We then went back down a little bit of the way to the swimming hole. Dn jumped straight in, and told us that it was 3m deep - amazing! He showed us that if we sat on the edge and dipped our feet in, tiny fish would come and nibble at them. He said they call it a fish massage, it felt so strange, an he explained they eat the dead skin so it cleans your feet really well and leaves them smooth. I loved it, it was awesome, but when that got old/still hadn't cooled down, I expertly changed into my swimmers (with no towel to hold up, just Jake's shirt) and jumped in with everyone else. It was so refreshing and fun to splash around in this awesome waterfall. We all got out and while our feet were getting nibbled it started absolutely pouring with rain! It felt like standing under a shower, exactly the same pressure and amount of water, absolutely ridiculous. The waterfall went crazy, and the path we went down to get there started flooding and turning into a muddy waterfall as well! Dn said it was safer to wait until the rain stopped, so I rescued everyones stuff by pulling out my rain ponchos (that Jake said I was being ridiculous in bringing with us) and we all danced and sat in the rain, it was so peaceful and awesome. The waterfall was gushing so fast and made a little whirlpool in the middle of the pool.
When it finally died down we tried to dry ourselves as best we could and shuffled down the slippery hill back to our bikes. The ride home was way cooler and faster going downhill with a nice breeze, we were back at the temple with the monkeys in no time. Dn then took us to a tsunami memorial with a massive navy ship. He told us that this was the resting place of this ship, when it floated this far inland during the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami - 3km inland from the sea. Khao Lak is on an isle, and he said the water rising from both sides virtually covered the entire land surface. It was a really sobering experience, especially when he told us that he lived here during the tsunami. I wanted to ask him more, but respected that he probably didn't want to relive that horror. We left the memorial all thinking very hard, and realising how blessed we really are to live without fear or memory of these horrible things in our lives.
We rode straight back to the hotel from there, very hot, sore and hungry from riding and hiking almost 30km. It was about 1pm, so after a shower (we were still sweating when we got out - yuck) we headed down to the restaurant and got some italian to fill our bellies. After all that hard work I felt like I deserved a cocktail so I got myself a M...Cee2, which is served IN A COCONUT. It was totally awesome, but went straight to my head. I decided that one was definitely enough. We also decided that we deserved one of our free massages, so we booked one in at the spa for an hour each at 5pm. With all our time to kill we lathered ourselves up in tanning oil and laid by the pool, relaxing and swimming until 4pm - happy hour! I'd had my eye on the coffee cocktails, and decided to try the Mexicana - tequila, creme de cacao and espresso, topped with whipped cream. It was incredible, but so ridiculously strong. I got a lemon and lychee juice to alternate with it. We had one each and shared a third - blue curacao and tequila, shaken (not stirred) and went back to the room with spinning heads to have a shower before the massage.
When we arrived they gave us cold pineapple juice, and got us to try 3 different types of oils to decide which one we preferred to be massaged in. They all smelt delicious, it was a hard choice. We got led into a room with two massage tables, stripped down and got a damn good massage. These little Thai ladies are amazing, they got right up on the bed and used their elbows to massage out all the knots in my back, and tapped all the pressure points I didn't realised existed and released all of my muscles. We walked out feeling like jelly and so sleepy. They gave us a cup of green tea, and we wandered back to our room, put on our robes and chilled out. I've never been so relaxed in my life.
It wasn't long until our hunger outweighed our desire to stay in bed, so we decided to use our voucher for a free set meal (so many free things!). We didn't realise it was a 5 course feast... But that was a pleasant surprise. There was lots of confusion about how it worked, as there were 3 options for thai and 3 options for italian. We wanted thai but got italian, but no complaints! It was amazing. We started with bread, then a chicken mince and cheese concoction baked in half a capsicum, minestrone soup, crispy baked potato with seared duck breast, then an amazing apple pie with custard for dessert. We definitely didn't go hungry. We payed less than $8 for our two drinks, and were treated like saints when we tipped the waiters 40 baht, which is less than $2. Slipping into yet another food coma, we collapsed on our bed and watched some cliche American movie until we changed the channel and saw the very start of 22 Jump Street. We watched it all (I managed to stay awake this time - that's a first) and had lots of laughs.
Towards the end of the movie, we heard strange banging noises, which we couldn't figure out. After a while they got louder and more frequent, so Jake locked the door and we timidly walked onto the balcony to see what was going on/if we were going to get shot. What idiots we felt like... It was FIREWORKS! They finished just as we walked out, but relieved we went back to bed, finished the movie, and absolutely crashed after our massive day.
