Alex and Rory: Jungle update

Khao Sok, Thailand

Well, it has been many days since we’ve blogged or uploaded pictures. I’ve been working a lot, every single day until we arrived in Khao Sok. Angela has also been super busy at all the different hospitals and meetings after meeting…

Alex enjoyed the swimming pool at the Evergreen Place (our serviced 2-bedroom apartment in Bangkok) - we all enjoyed the fact that we had a little kitchen area so we were able to prepare some of our own food. While in Bangkok, we went to the MBK Mall- a huge Asian Mall extravaganza with thousands of stalls on several floors… we had dinner there twice.

Another humungous mall is the Siam Paragon- you can find just about anything there- it’s the swanky mall in Bangkok that reminded Peter of Las Vegas with the many themed areas, water displays etc etc. One of the largest grocery stores we’ve ever seen (like Costco sized only as an actual grocery store) was on the first floor and in the basement was Ocean World - a super cool aquarium that Peter took Alex to. There were areas to see sharks, a tunnel that went through the water and an awesome penguin display.

Alex got a little runny nose and cough at some point, though he’s getting better now. He didn’t sleep much at all for the last two nights in Bangkok. Did great on the flight to Surat Thani and on the 2-hour drive to Khao Sok, and he’s certainly getting better.

The place we’re staying in is called Our Jungle House- we’re staying a 2-story bungalow called the Thai House. We’re upstairs and Laura is downstairs. There’s one bathroom, no screens or glass on the windows (in fact the bathroom just has shutters that can be closed, but mostly feels like it’s outside), bed nets, cold showers and it’s beautiful. We hear the river (which runs just 40 feet or so in front of our bungalow), look out onto the cliffs (Khao Sok is a national Park in the province of Krabi and has been called the Guilin of Thailand for those that know Guilin in China) and we hear all the sounds of the jungle. Occasionally we hear Gibbons- but have not experienced their morning chorus yet.

Perhaps the most exciting news is that on Tues Aug 22nd, Alex (cutest baby in the world) took his first two steps. He likes playing with the dirt around a post in the main area which is at the level of his shoulders standing (it’s like a sandbox table for him). He stood up to play with it but was a little far and he actually took two steps forward and then started playing. It was very exciting for Angela to watch…though Alex wasn’t impressed. We’ve also decided that his first real word is ‘fish’ which he says pretty well and says it to fish.

Our Jungle House is about a 20 minute walk along mostly unpaved roads to the ‘main’ road. This small area of a few square miles (or maybe just one) is packed with little ‘resorts’ on the edge of the national park where people can rent rooms, though tour books say ours is the best. Then there are the activities, from hiking/treking to canoeing, elephant-riding in the jungle, boat tours, to survival classes (of some sort.) Nearly every place on the main road advertises that they can arrange these things along with being able to serve some kind of food, sell you some groceries, connect you to the internet, and do your laundry. Or give you a massage, or perhaps rent you a motorbike. Sounds easy enough, but this is definitely more like camping than anything, really. The river that our bungalow is on flooded a few days before we got here, and the water literally flowed under the building, which is fortunately elevated a good 10 feet. But that shut down at least one of the internet cafés, and perhaps it is still having an effect on the electricity (ours went out several times last night.) We would probably stay here much longer if we didn’t think that this is not the best place for Alex. The beach will be more his style until he’s a bit older!

Two days ago we took a lake tour (all of us, plus 6 other people from Our Jungle House and two guides) on a long-tail boat. The lake was formed by a dam within Khao Sok, in an area dominated by karst peaks (not really sure what that means, but they are like the mountains in Guilin.) The boat took about an hour to get to a group of floating huts run by the park which has a little restaurant. We all ate lunch then took another 10 minute boat ride to a trailhead. Actually, we had to jump out in a foot or so of water where the jungle met the lake, then slosh up to the trailhead. Alex was in our Kelty backpack with the mesh zipped up all the way. We followed the guide through the deep jungle, through a bunch of streams (water up to my thighs, and fast moving) and up the trail for about an hour to a place where a stream comes out of a small cave mouth. 6 of us (Angela, Alex, me, one of the guides, and another couple) stayed outside while the others went in with one of the guides, where they had to swim in water over their heads in one part of the cave. Laura says it was great, though! We fed Alex a bottle and let him play in the stream.

Yesterday we took a two-hour elephant ride, which we will never need to do again. Interesting to do once, anyway. In the afternoon Angela and I left Alex with Laura and walked for 2 kilometers in the park on a wide path. Today we plan to take him with us in the backpack and go much farther, weather permitting (feels like rain.)

Sorry to be out of touch for so long – we don’t have close internet access! Tomorrow we will be leaving Our Jungle House and heading to Koh Phan Ngan (sp?) where we will stay on a beach in the northeast where the waters are supposed to be very baby-friendly and prices are reasonable. We might have closer internet access, but we don’t know yet. We’ll post when we can, though!

A picture from a temple in Bangkok: