Our day. Such a good day. Up at 7am packed our bags and left the room leaving the key in the room we walked the couple of hundred metres down the road to the new room which is a much better standard, and it is only two months old. We had a coffee whilst we waited for the cube. The owner is from Belgium, Thierry, he has been coming backwards and forwards to Thailand for four years but established the Tha Lane Discoveries business only in the last year. He started it because he became fed up with his original business of setting up the Internet in hotels and businesses. Thierry started by explaining a little bit about the trip and what we would spend the day doing then off we went following the road out of Ao Nang to our first destination which was where we would go kayaking. The cube has been especially designed by Thierry to carry no more than six people and it has waterproof soft seating and is quite high up so you get to see the scenery around and about. Today there was just us and another young couple from Sweden, Thomas and Natalie. We pulled off the road after about 20 mins of driving to stop and look at some of the amazing limestone stacks which just appear to loom up out of the ground. It takes 40 million years for one metre of limestone to form and where we were there was one stack which was 4000 metres high. These stacks all use to be under sea level and they are what have been left behind when the sea retreated and the acids in rain etc have helped to form them as they are today. All of the stacks have a great variety of vegetation growing on them and it is unbelievable how some of the trees grow with half their roots extending into the rock with the other half just growing downwards trying to find something to grasp onto. The next stop was the place where we would meet up with other tours to go kayaking. We were in a group of about 10 kayaks with two local guides, as it was a very low tide, much lower than normal, we had to walk out to the kayak in some very squelchy mud. We went across a narrow part to a big sand bar and got out here one of the guides took us over the sand bar and showed us loads of starfish which he picked up and put in our hands before putting them back into the water. Then it was a good paddle towards the canyon which was good fun, there was another group which had a couple of Chinese woman paddling and they couldnt make the kayak go where it needed to go and they kept grounding themselves on the sand bars. The canyon is beautiful, massive limestone stacks covered in vegetation with roots hanging down into the water. The limestone had caves worn away hundreds of metres up and they were covered in stalagmites and stalactites of massive proportions. The limestone was a marbled effect of black, brown, red and white. The water in places was quite shallow and as it was so clear you could see fish. Your neck starts to hurt paddling through the canyon as you are spending all your time looking upwards. The noise from the crickets chirping was really loud and every so often above this sound you would hear the odd bird calling but unless they were flying it was impossible to spot them in the trees as they are so thick and also so very high up. We were told there are also monkeys and iguanas but we didnt see any. Once you are through the canyon you come into the mangroves, these are quite spooky as it is quite narrow you have to kayak down in single file and the trees above your head touch in places making it a bit darker. The roots of the mango trees are like a tangle of legs which twist up out of the water. Thierry told us these trees actually walk, they can move a millimetre or two forwards each year. As the tide was so low we were unable to kayak through the mangroves and had to turn around and come back out the way we went in but as the tide had risen since going in we were able to kayak much closer to some of the stacks and get a close up view of the caves etc. we stopped at a little beach area for five mins before then heading back to the start point for some water melon and pineapple. Back in the cube and back along a road which gave us one of the most beautiful views looking out into the ocean with 8 different little islands dotted about. We stopped here in a little restaurant called Kayo Thong Terrace and you could sit under the palm roof seating area and have the most fantastic red Thai crab curry. From here we went onto Po Nam with this very small national park where only the locals go. It isnt very big which is why its not a touristy place. Here a fresh water river meets the ocean which is being washed upwards through another river and they meet. The fresh water was incredibly clear and we could see the fish and the bottom of the river bed very easily. There was an attendant here watching your every move as you are not allowed to swim in the water. There is a wooden board walk built throughout the area and you have to stay on it at all times apart from two places where you can swim but these areas were where the sea water was. The fresh water river was flowing downwards in one direction and the salt water river was flowing upwards towards the fresh water, they met in an area where there were a lot of mangroves growing. Thierry showed us some very odd looking tubers growing up out of the water and these are actually roots of a tree growing up to find the sun. We then continued along the board walk to see where the local fishermen leave their boats. These were pretty basic, and a few seemed to have as much water in the bottoms of them as there was water in the river. Where the majority of boats were moored up was a house being built, it was being built in the traditional method out of some very polished looking wood, it looked as if it would be beautiful once finished, it belongs to a mafia leader. As we were leaving Thierry bought us an unusual food which is a local treat. It was a mixture of coconut, sugar and water all mashed down to a thick paste, this is wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked on hot coals. I liked it but Kim took one sniff and wouldnt even try it. The other couple with us from Sweden tried it but were not keen so left theirs. Next was the rubber plantation, it takes six years for he trees to mature enough to get the sap from them for the rubber to be made. When the young rubber trees are first planted the owners plant pineapples In between to harvest so they have an income. Thierry cut into the tree to show us the sap leaking out and being caught in the bowl attached to the tree, it smells disgusting and takes up to three weeks to fill the bowl which is about the size of a small breakfast bowl. The rubber thickens into a squishy lump, this is then taken into a work shed where it is put into what looks like a roasting tin ,water and a chemical are added to soften the rubber. Once it has taken on the shape of he roasting tin it is tipped onto the floor and then by foot the workers tramp backwards and forwards on it until it is about an inch thick. The next process is to put this through a smooth mangle to squeeze out any water, from here it goes into another mangle which has diamond patterns on the roller to remove the last of the liquid, by now the rubber sheet is about as thick as 7 millimetres. These sheets were hung outside to start with and are white, then they are moved inside and they were hung everywhere. They go from being white to a dark yellows brown which is when they are completely dry. Each sheet is worth 200 Baht, thats about £4 and will feed a family of 4 three meals a day. Rubber plantation owners are quite well off compared to a lot of other Thai people. Just down the road we saw a pool which was a lovey jade green colour from the minerals etc. this is 240 metres deep and a tunnel connects it to another pool much further up the valley. Divers use to use it but after someone died they closed it and is now only used by divers who practice rescues etc, again this area is only used by locals and there were no tourists other than ourselves. From the rubber plantation it was off to see a pineapple plantation with the very young rubber trees just starting to grow in straight rows between the pineapples. I was quite surprised how low to the ground the pineapple plants were I always imagined them to grow higher up, Im not sure why but the plants were no more than knee height. Each diamond shape on the outside of the pineapple is called an eye and this developed from a purple flower. The pineapple is sold for eating, the leaves are sold for elephant food and the tuber is used to grow the next crop of pineapples, so nothing goes to waste. There are wild banana trees all over the place but they are not grown as a form of farming. Each flower which is a large tear drop has a hand of bananas developing underneath as the petal falls off so it exposes the bananas which then grow and ripen. If the locals just want small bunches they just cut off the flower so no more fruits can grow. Our final stop for the day was a local market. Every sort of fish was on sale as was some meats, none of it covered and all of it with flies and insects crawling over it. The most the stall owners did to prevent this was to flap their hands over the meat and fish every now and then. There was also veg and fruits for sale. Some stalls were selling food already cooked such as satay sticks, pancakes and waffles.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:26:28 +0000
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