Thailand Day 5 — Mangroves, Monkeys, and Elephants

Thursday Oct 16^th, Day 5 – Mangroves, Monkeys and Elephants

A “Thailand taxi” in the form of a pick-up truck with benches in the back and a covered roof picked us up for transport to today’s excursion.  We enjoyed a lot of the beautiful scenery on the drive to the marina dock.  Giant rocks spike the ocean horizon like sleeping giants in the Sea of Andaman known as karsts.

Karst — an area of limestone which has been eroded by dissolution producing towers and sinkholes.  The karst in Krabi were formed from coral and shell deposits between 286 and 245 million years ago.  When rainwater penetrates limestone, it dissolves rock very slowly over a long period of time.  There are hundreds of them in the Andaman Sea and it has made Krabi a hot spot for rock climbers to visit as a result.

Hundreds of karsts (rock formations) dot the Andaman Sea

This morning we went kayaking on the Andaman Sea.  Paddling out into the sea was initially very rough so we hugged the cliffs where the water was calmer til we reached the mangroves.  Along the way, we spotted a man selling food to the kayakers to give to the monkeys.  We also paddled by some caves where human bones have been found as well as what appear to be ancient drawings.

Paddling out to the mangroves we had to traverse the rough sea so we stayed close to the shoreline

Once inside the mangroves, everything became silent except for our oars in the water.  We ventured so far in, the path through the trees contained a lot of sharp turns to maneuver.  If you are a beginning kayaker, this excursion is not for you.  It definitely took some teamwork and perhaps a few orders being barked back and forth between Joe and I to steer our craft through the tight turns since we were in a 2-person kayak.

Deep in the mangroves, a monkey has spotted Becky and begins his descent down

At the deepest point in the mangroves, the wild monkeys spotted us and came down in search of food.  I had bought a bag of dried fruit at the grocery store prior to our trip which I brought with me on today’s excursion.  They loved it.  These monkeys weren’t quite as scary as the ones we encountered on the mountain road in Bang Saen.  Several times, they even sat on my leg when they were trying to get food.  But I still maintained a cautious respect and did not pet them, although it was very tempting.

The monkeys were so close I could easily pet them but I didn’t want to risk a bite

The monkeys were quite bossy too.  Most of the time I threw the fruit up on the front of the kayak by my feet to keep a safe distance from them but a few times, the smaller raisins would fall down into the holes where my feet were resting.  The monkeys left no stone unturned or in my case, no foot overlooked.  They’d take my foot and with quite a bit of force, push or lift it to get down to the dropped fruit.  Which of course, I very willingly moved for them to avoid any monkey confrontation. 

This monkey is actually lifting/moving my foot out of the way to get a dropped piece of fruit

A mother and her baby stopped at my kayak to partake in the free food giveway

We also saw a lot of crabs poking along the cliffs and even a water snake slithered along with us in the water.  It was a wonderful morning on the water exploring and admiring all the wildlife that surrounded us.

We had a delicious lunch back at the restaurant on the pier.  What happened after lunch sticks out in my mind more than the actual lunch.  We had some leftover dirty napkins and my plastic sinus pill wrapping sitting on the table.  The waitress came over to clear the table and just threw all of it into the water!  Bewildered, shocked and confused, I stammered “what’s going on???” as our garbage floated off into the sea.  Becky just gave me a look of “I told you so” reminding me Thai’s don’t have the same urgency to take care of the environment that we do.

Becky says that when she takes her class on field trips, she always makes them clean up their trash on the bus.  Her students ask why since none of the other classes have to clean up.  I don’t know if it’s just a basic lack of education or just years and years of bad habits being handed down to each generation.  Becky tries to do her part but there’s no guarantee when these kids go to the next grade, that the next teacher will emphasize her same lessons.  Becky is hopeful that the Thai’s will see that their attitude about garbage is somewhat offensive to the tourists and learn that way.  Because tourism, while only a small part of their economy, is still important nonetheless.  We traveled to Thailand in 2008 and I can only hope in the last 9 years, they have perhaps made some effort here in learning the importance of proper trash disposal.

Noodles are always a solid lunch choice in Thailand – YUM!

After lunch we went to Nosey Parker’s Elephant Camp where we rode and fed the elephants.  The camp is considered a wildlife sanctuary for the elephants who are not perhaps fitting in today’s society as well as they once did.

Pachyderm Crisis – Throughout history, elephants have been revered by Thai’s for their strength and intelligence.  Then the modern world invaded making the elephant redundant.  What can an elephant do in a time of planes, trains and autos?  One option is to wander the streets like a beggar.  A more promising alternative to street walking is the elephant rescue preserves that support themselves thru volunteer tourism.  Guests learn to bathe, feed and train the elephant.  Probably one of the few times when tourism isn’t such a bad thing.

Nosey Parker’s Elephant Camp and Wildlife Sanctuary

An elephant handler who rides, handles and trains the elephant is called a mahout.   The mahout’s primary tool for directing and training the elephant where to go is called an elephant goad (bullhook) or ankus.  It’s a stick with a sharp hook in the end.  And they will stab the elephants in the head with the hook to get them to do what they want.  I’m not going to lie, that part of the tour bothered me.  I understand the elephant has tough skin but I have a soft spot for animals so I wasn’t a fan of seeing that regardless if it hurt them or not.

The bullhook seen in this photo is used to help train and manage the elephant

Riding on these magnificent creatures as the lumbered along felt like a slow amusement park ride.  We were a little nervous crossing a rather deep river to get to the rainforest but the sure-footed elephant knew exactly where to step.  Our elephant trekked into the rainforest while we admired more of the surrounding karsts that created cliff walls along the rainforest landscape. 

A beautiful rainforest enveloped us on our ride

After our elephant trek, we watched the elephants bathing in the nearby river to cool off

Our final bonding activity with the elephants included feeding them their just rewards for being such good escorts.  Their wrinkly trunks felt funny as they greedily grabbed the food out of our hands.  It was quite a memorable day spending time with the monkeys in the morning and the elephants all afternoon.  Tomorrow we’ll try our hand at fishing on the Andaman Sea.

Joe feeds our elephant as we prepare to say goodbye