Jungle Trekking

Hello again. A massive thunder storm has decended upon us, so it's a good time to get some 'blogging' done!

Jungle trekking can be quite a sedate little activity - unless you go 'off road' as it were. Just have a butchers at what went on here!
This first picture is a nice little look out on the first stop of the trek, over looking over the bay. Everything is fine at this point!

In the instructions it said 'you will reach the top of a waterfall, follow the blue water pipes down the side to reach the bottom'. Never was there anything 'easier said than done'. We got to that well known 'stuff of nightmare' scenarios where we couldn't go down any further and couldn't get back up. I could see the headlines in the 'Echo' appearing in my head 'Silky lass and Pennywell nugget trapped arll neet on a Thai waterfall like'. The embarrassment! We decided eventually to slide down the blue water pipes 'Batman and Robin' style. We might of broke the water pipes feeding the village - but needs must!

See, all smiles now that we're at the bottom.







After the hike it was down the river in the kayak to visit the elephants at their watering hole. These are all female elephants - very placid creatures. We'll meet a male elephant later and that's a different kettle of fish! Think of the difference between a Cow and a Bull!



The elephant master chap on the neck gave the elephant a few taps and she filled her trunk with water and give us a reet old dowsing.






This is trek number two a couple of days later. Elvis' smile does well to cover the information given to us by a local right at the beginning of the trek. He said 'enjoy your trek but watch out, there's a male elephant somewhere on that trail and he's as mad as Jack McMad and he's bloody mad. If you see him avoid him at all costs! It kind of set a nice relaxed mood!

Here we are at a thick jungle point in the mountain with a nice cool river. Note Moses with the large stick ready to part the waves.






Get your heed in there for a nice cool off.










This is Elvis posing next to a big Pomello fruit farm.






At the end of trek two another waterfall - this one had some water falling too! We were both in for a swim and if you sit still the little fish chow the hard skin off your feet. It would have took them hours to get it all off our hooves though!










Someone posing under a waterfall - it's like one of those Timotei shampoo adverts, except the model in that one actually had hair.








When someone says, watch out for a wild bull elephant you kind of hope he's kidding. DEFINITELY NOT in this case. Towards the end of the trek the path came out of some trees and there standing in front of this was this monster - and he was not pleased! For a cup of tea voucher, can any one tell me what steps you take when confronted by a wild male elephant? The first thing I noticed was a funny smell of pap coming from my direction and then I noticed Elvis was off in the opposite direction. Fortunately we were warned so we back tracked and made a big circle around where he couldn't see us. But get this - four days later a German couple were walking and saw the same elephant - foolishly they approached him. The guy was savagely attacked and injured, the tusk went under his rib cage and out of his shoulder, the woman was only slightly injured. The English guy who owns the place we were staying said that they had to take the guy to Bangkok in a helicopter - somehow he survived.
After fleeing the 'bull' we met some females and we were able to feed them. The woman elephants are much more placid and nee tusks, a pity the human species isn't similar.





Only one cup of tea voucher in this weeks blog - I obviously overwhelmed you with questions in the last one. Rusty and Jenny have obviously given up, probably put off by the new voucher scheme. But credit where credit is due, Milly was first in with a correct answer (eventually!) I am I said by the Diamond is of course the song - but who was that following up with the precise lyrics verbatim. If I didn't know better I would suspect the return of the Outsourcer. And was that really the FIL (Father-in-law) posting a comment - getting a bit computer literate aren't we? Then another version of I am I said, I was just enjoying the lyrics then you lost steam!! But definitely worth a voucher for creativeness.
Here's some proper answers though: The boy isn't the last one in the tub on bath neet! He's looking for mussels and prawns in and under the piers of the fishermans houses built on stilts in the river. He wouldn't be able to get into the nooks and crannies with a normal boat.
And Ginny, you were right about the mangroves. A healthy mangrove 'selects' a leaf on each branch to dump the salt from the sea water. When the leaf eventually dies, it drops off into the river and another leaf begins to collect the salt. Bloody ingenious!
In the next blog there'll be all kinds of ingredients that come together to make a gorgeous dish - you'll see what I mean......