This morning was pure horror comedy.
We were out and about at 7:00am and had a little wander in search of critters before breakfast. Amber was still a bit jumpy about the whole leech situation, so when we arrived at the start of the northern trail I made was I thought was a rather good deal. "We'll go down this trail until we see the first leech and then we'll turn back."
Thanks to last night's abundant rainfall, I only got to the second concrete step when Amber shouted "LEECH!".
So much for the northern trail. It was hard to tell but I swear the leech looked pretty smug at having ruined my early morning trek...
We had breakfast (again superb) and opted to go down the same trail as yesterday, but to go further.
Again we saw a host if weird and wonderful wildlife. The langurs were still around and we saw a fine example if camouflage when I almost walked straight into a male horned mountain dragon sitting proudly on a big leaf. He had changed his skin colour to a dark brown and looked for all the world like a big dead leaf. His safety measures involved being as still as possible, so I got some cracking photos! We also found an amazing grasshopper leaf-mimic, which looked just like a dead leaf, veins and all, with a bite taken out of it. Again its survival strategy was to remain motionless, so it didn't budge when I picked it up for a photo.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, the trail was full of leeches today. I estimated that we had seen at least 20 over the course our 6km trek. Of these, two had managed to get onto our shoes before I pulled them off and a third had managed to get into Amber's ankle. Luckily I got to it before it had found a suitable sucking point.
Amber found the whole experience both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure, which helped a lot. Essentially leeches are harmless and you don't feel the bite when they do start feeding, so there is no pain either. The only reason people freak out is because it's plain creepy to have something drinking your blood.
The best part of the trek was arriving at a section of river full of huge boulders and surrounded by lush forest. The whole place was bathed in sunshine and we stopped to soak our feet and relax. So beautiful. You really do have to come to a place like this to understand why we need to protect the world's rainforests. I would challenge anyone to be in this place and not appreciate its beauty.
We stayed there for a while and then headed back down the trail. Along the way we heard the calls of gibbons, but sadly didn't get to see them.
Back at Tree Tops, we packed our bags and checked out at 12:00pm. The nice lady who cooked our dinner last night gave us a lift down the road to the bus stop. For some reason we just hadn't seen all the other guesthouses along this road on the trip up to the Visitor Centre. It was a shame not to have had the chance to look round them yesterday, but in the end we did really well with our choice of accommodation.
According to the timetable, the bus was supposed to turn up at 12:30pm, giving us just enough time to scoff a bag of crisps and a cup of instant tom yum noodles.
We needn't have rushed. The 12:30pm bus never showed.
Neither did the 1:30pm one!
The owner of the snack shop informed us that the bus would turn up at 2:00pm. Could have done with that information a bit earlier!
He was right though.
We got on the bus and settled down for the journey to Khao Lak (just 100 baht each). After a bit we stopped for a pee break and hit another stumbling block in our journey: There was a problem with the bus's engine, which meant the driver had to pootle along at a ridiculously slow speed.
Not ideal, but there was nothing we could do about it, so we just went with the flow and tried to get some shut eye.
We had hoped to be at our hotel in Khao Lak by 2:30pm. In the end we got dropped off in Khao Lak at around 4:00pm.
And then we had some more bad news...
Although we had asked to be dropped off at the La Flora resort, the bus had in fact turfed us out in the main town, 3km from our hotel!
We got hacked off with all the taxi drivers trying to sell us expensive rides to La Flora, so in true Amber and Martin style we donned our backpacks and decided to walk all the way.
It was heavy going in the intense heat, so by the time we got to reception we were sweating buckets. We felt rather out of place in the luxurious reception of La Flora, with it vases of orchids, uniformed staff and heaps of top hotel awards.
The awards appear to be well deserved, we were instantly made to feel very welcome and soon we were being shown one of the nicest hotel rooms I've ever seen: Balcony complete with table, chairs and deckchairs; large double bed; day bed; two wardrobes; bath and separate shower. Best of all is the sliding smoked glass partition separating the bed from the bathroom, so you can sit in the bath and chat to someone on the bed. And this is just a standard room!
After our sweaty hike we couldn't wait to get into the amazing infinity pool looking out over the beach. At 6:00pm, the hotel put on free cocktails and canapes to welcome the new arrivals. We were all greeted by Jowell, a super-camp Frenchman (with more than a passing resemblance to a skinny Jean Reno) who gave us a bunch of info about the resort and the activities available. Nothing too exciting, especially as we had already asked about the hotel's overpriced trips to the Similan islands and decided to find a cheaper tour elsewhere. The free booze went down a treat though. Amber had already made friends with the Happy Hour guy earlier on, so by the time we left to get dressed for dinner we were fairly sozzled.
At the drinks reception we met a nice couple from London called Chris and Alex. They just arrived today after two days in Bangkok and are here to celebrate their one year anniversary. Would have been nice to have dinner with them, but they were all dressed for dinner whilst we were still in our swimming gear.
As it was, Alex and Chris were still in the hotel restaurant (View 59) when we turned up, but we sat separately as they were done eating.
The evening entertainment consisted of a Thai bloke playing electric guitar and singing Western songs over computerized backing tracks that sounded like they had been produced for use as elevator music.
It wad a shame he didn't have a full band, as he looked pretty sad up on the stage by himself. This didn't stop one table getting up and singing a lairy rendition of 'Hey Jude' with him. Tragic to see that even the world's best hotels aren't free from the effects of Brits abroad. The hotel presented the singers with flowers. They know how to get repeat business.
We had selected some DVDs from the free selection at reception, so after dinner we went back to the room and stuck on 'The American', which was excellent for the first 10 minutes. Then the DVD stopped working as a result of being horribly scratched. Bloody typical!
We gave up on the film idea and opted for some much needed sleep instead.
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