Woke up for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, and this time I tried their chicken porridge, which was good. Simple (with only minced chicken) but tasty.
After breakfast, we proceeded to the lobby to await the minivan that would take us for the Jungle tour. When the minivan came at 8.30am, the driver gave instructions to the bellboy to hand us two beach towels. Slug and I were like, 'Wow, this must be a really wet excursion!', and we suddenly felt like dopes to bring only hand towels.
When we got on the minivan, there was a young farang couple on board. Then it went on to pick up a Singaporean family and then two farang women with a boy (about 4-years-old?). The guide went on to introduce himself as Chim (to which Slug and I started giggling) and informed us that it would be an hour's ride to our first destination: the Hot Spring.
Reached the entrance of the hot spring
As the hot spring was seated deep within the rainforest, we had to trek 1.4km on man-made wooden stilts to reach it. We (and Chim) were amused by the cute farang boy who insisted on leading the group by walking ahead of us.
Beginning of the trek
A signboard telling us the hot spring water is about 40 - 42 deg C
As we ventured deeper into the forest, we passed small streams, clear pools and lots of rotting leaves. Finally Chim led us to a dark spot and we started to hear noises coming from behind the trees. There was the 'hot spring', which was actually a small waterfall flowing down smoothly-polished boulders. The special thing was that there were alcoves formed by the boulders and tree roots which allowed us to anchor ourselves there and submerge in the mini waterfall.
So I quickly scrambled into one of the alcoves, chose a private spot and let the hot cascading waters run down my back. Slug was apprehensive about the water and he took a long time to get down because he was whining about the water being too hot.
The mini waterfall
Relaxing in the hot water
According to Chim, as the water that fed the waterfall came from a natural source, it contained minerals beneficial to our bodies. So I lapped them all up while Slug took an even longer time to adapt to the temperature of the water and join me in this natural jacuzzi.
After 40 minutes, the guide signalled for us to leave the hot spring, and we dried ourselves with the huge orange beach towels we were given earlier. Time to head to the Emerald Pool.
Drying out at a pavillion
We hopped onto our minivan, and it was a 30-minute ride to the Emerald Pool. At the entrance of the Emerald Pool, there was a rubber plantation and we were brought aside for a briefing on how to tap rubber (not again). Chim began his demonstration by cutting the bark of the rubber tree, and then showed us to a shed where two workers were kneading rubber (which looked like pizza dough) with their feet.
At the rubber plantation
Chim cutting the rubber tree
Rolling the rubber dough
During the demonstration, Slug and I were freaked out by the Singaporean Dad, who was fervently regurgitating Chim's teachings to his two kids. He was saying, "Look here, this is how they tap the rubber tree. They can only cut it in the morning and they do not tap when it is raining (Slug: Because rainy mornings are so comfortable for sleeping in). You see this white liquid, do you know what this is? Dah ... Dah ... Dah ..." Gee, he sounded like Joshua's father! Are all Singaporean Dads like that? Slug and I remembered our Dads weren't that eager to impart their knowledge about life's goings-on to us when we were kids. This was getting creepily mushy.
Beautiful rapids near the entrance
The farang boy wandered onto the bridge and was unknowingly captured in this shot!
Again, more trekking into the rainforest and over flowing rapids and mossy pools.
We finally arrived at the Emerald Pool and Slug and I were awestruck. It isn't called the Emerald Pool for nothing.
We slid into this shallow pool (about 1.5m) for a delightfully cool swim. We even saw tiger barbs and other fishes swimming around. We checked the water from the river that fed into this pool, but it was nowhere near emerald. So we still wonder today what gave that pool that radiant emerald colour.
Suddenly, we saw a large group of Singaporeans jumping into the pool. The crass aunties were enthusiastically discussing about "Tai Kok Liu Lian" while an uncle was teaching his kids how to swim. The kids even wore goggles and brought styrofoam swimming boards. Is this a f**ing swimming pool?!
We underestimated the banks of this pool, which were super slippery because the rocks were coated with some kind of moss. As I was trying to crawl out of the pool onto the banks, I slipped and fell, and cut my palm against the rock. Slug lamented that we always had to sustain injuries of some sort whenever we go abroad.
Back at the van, Chim handed me the first aid box when he saw the bleeding cut on my palm. We were then taken to a homely coffeeshop for lunch. Lunch was delicious (as compared to the measly packed lunch we had the day before), which consisted of green curry, chicken with cashew nuts, mixed vegetables and omelette with onions.
After lunch, we were taken to the Wat Tham Seua (Tiger Cave Temple). Along the way, we passed by a pineapple farm and Chim let us down to have a look. According to him, a pineapple plant produces only ONE pineapple a year! Doesn't that make pineapples precious? And as usual, Singaporean Dad was giving his kids a live commentary about pineapples and grilling Chim for more information about pineapples.
Then it was on to the watermelon farm. Chim plucked some watermelons (not fully grown yet) for us. I was perplexed when Slug received the watermelon from him, because ... how are we gonna bring this back?
We reached the Tiger Cave Temple a while later. It is a big temple at the base of a karst tower, which not only houses many Gods, but also is home to the monks who meditate there. The founder of this temple had seen a tiger decades ago at this very location, and so, built this temple to commemorate his sighting and named it thus.
A huge Guanyin shrine
Chim warned us about the many mischievious monkeys that inhabited the temple premises, which were known to steal tourists' cameras. We stayed away from them with caution.
But don't they look loving?
Chim told us that there were two flights of stairs in the temple compound. One had 1,300+ steep steps, which led to the meditation temple at the top of the karst tower, and which offered a wide view of the Krabi landscape. I was hoping to scale that flight, but Chim led us to the shorter flight of stairs (130+ steps) instead due to time constraints. We would be taken to see the 1,000-year-old tree as well as the monks' living quarters.
After scaling some steep steps, we descended into the forest hidden behind the karst tower. As we trekked through the forest, Chim impressed us with his sharp eyesight by pointing out a pair of mating millipedes, spiders, iguanas and even a lazy tortoise under the tree. He even plucked some dubious-looking berries off a tree and nudged us into trying them. We tried them hesitantly and our tongues were immediately zapped by a strong bolt of grapesy sourness!
The lush rainforest behind the karst tower
We soon came to the 1,000-year-old and we were awed by its size. Its buttress roots were already larger than us!
We also came across the derelict remains of an equally jumbo tree, which according to Chim, had been struck down by lightning. Slug and I got frustrated when our cameras started to run out of power, but we tried our best to take as many shots as the remaining battery power permitted.
After a long walk through the dense humidity and with the company of the insufferable mosquitoes, we arrived at an underground cave. Chim signalled for us to descend into the cave through a small opening on the ground and everyone looked uneasy. I was raring to squeeze through it, and I realised it was not as horrific as it seemed. At least the cave had some lighting.
The dimly-lit cave
When everyone was inside the cave, we were led to a small shrine. Slug and I explored the cave interior and the rock surfaces severely eroded by dripping water. There were stalactities and stalagmites and Chim could even play some musical notes out of them (like a xylophone)!
We were then led to witness for ourselves the spartan living conditions of the monks meditating there. Yes, that small hut, slightly bigger than a toilet cubicle, was a place for monks to sleep. And every morning, they had to climb 1,300+ steps up to the meditation temple (and another 1,300+ steps on the way down)!
Next, it was on to the Buddha's shrine where Slug and I made some sincere prayers.
Buddha
A real skeleton (of some important person)
Finally, we were taken to the Tiger Cave Temple where we saw figurines of more Gods and tigers, as well as a realistic wax figurine of the founder of this temple. We also made donations for the upcoming Bell Tower, because our names would be inscribed onto the large bell. When I asked the nun, she said the bell would be ready in 30 years. That seemed too long a time to wait, doesn't it? But Chim said "If got more money, faster ready". Ahh.
Our tour ended at 5+pm and we were taken back to our hotels. We washed up and visited Noppharat Thara beach for some sunset-viewing again.
We then had a simple dinner of fried chicken with sticky rice, and egg pancakes (which were none other than roti pratas). Dessert was ice-cream and brownies at an Italian ice-cream shop at Ao Nang beach. They had unique flavours like (Ferrero) Rocher and Nutella.
Drool-worthy selection of ice-cream and confectionery
We could not believe that we bumped into the two farang women (with the adorable boy) from our tour group earlier in the day. They waved at us while the boy was enjoying his ice-cream, oblivious to us. A few minutes later, we bumped into the mushy Singaporean Dad and his family, who asked us for any recommended places for dinner. We even bumped into our next-door neighbours, the irritating Singaporean couple who had their TV on till way past midnight. They gave us the I-know-you-are-my-neighbours look, and we hated it.
Slug and I stopped at a bar for a beer and some snooker and board games. And we bumped into another farang from our previous day's tour group. How small could Krabi get?
It was getting hot at that poorly-ventilated bar and Slug wanted to go for a ride, so we cruised down the long, straight and empty road along Noppharat Thara beach and it felt good. The road was dimly-lit and quiet, and we were tempted to speed. Okay, we tried to, but we felt like the bike was going to fall apart when we accelerated to 60kmph. Lousy bikes. We parked somewhere and hopped onto the beach to erm, play with sand.
When we decided to return to our hotel, we passed by a happening pub along the road and we alighted to take a look. Four Thai hunks were performing some fire-swinging stunts and we parked ourselves there for more beer and hunk-oogling. This pub was pretty crowded as compared to the quieter ones at Ao Nang, and the main guests there were farangs.
Suddenly, we saw a farang couple sitting at a table next to ours and we recognised them to be the couple from our tour group this morning. Seems like within a night we have already bumped into everyone from that group. They called out to us and we joined them at their table and started chatting. They are from NZ. The girl is the same age as me, but she is already a bar manager! The guy, five years older, said he is a builder, to which Slug and I felt somewhat peculiar because he looked too good and fair to be a builder. We are guilty for having stereotypical notions about builders being Banglas, always.
The DJ started to play clubbing-worthy songs like The Sweet Escape, Hey Ya and Sexy Back, and the farangs started grooving on the dancefloor (which was actually a big squarish sandbox). I was happily swirling my heavy head to the music when one Indian girl pulled me to the dancefloor. We chatted and she, from Canada, told me she had been touring around Southeast Asia for the past three weeks and gushed about how clean Singapore was. Hmmm ...
At one point of time, some guy got so into the act that he started stripping down to his briefs. The farang couple was really kind to treat us whiskies and before we left, we exchanged contacts and she was nice to tell me to look them up when we go to NZ.
I was so reluctant to leave (the good songs were still rolling out!) but we still had not attempted any packing (especially that watermelon). So we left at 1+am.
Back at the hotel
Goodbye Krabi (karst towers all over the place)
We proceeded to check-in after that, and I tried to be funny by trying to smuggle a bottle of water through the checkpoint. I was aware about the restrictions on water, gels and other liquids, but I did not want to be thirsty on the plane. My water bottle was promptly fished out of my bag after it went through the X-ray scanner and I was made to finish the whole bottle (on top of the mega-sized Coke I just had!). Slug accidentally kept my two bottles of sunblock in his bag, and I was made to surrender one of them to the officer (the facial sunblock was saved as it did not exceed 100ml). I was pissed.
