We decided to break up our routine of lazing about the beach by actually getting out and seeing something. So we decided to join this tour: Safari "Not a boat at all!" Tour
It was a rocky start since it has been raining the past couple of days making it really hard to leave Haad Yuan. We had to wake up at 7:00 AM to catch a long tail taxi boat, but there was no one leaving from the Peace & Love bar. The driver there had hurt his hand in the rocky currents. We ended up having to ask a few people, and made it just in time for our departure but at a premium price.
By chance, we happened to stumble upon this hotel that does travel tours out of Haad Drin. The ticket price for the tour was $1,200 Thai Baht, but because we booked through this fancy hotel at the end of the beach we were able to save $200 Baht each.
We started at the elephant camp where we fed the elephants bananas, and watched them smash coconuts.
Fun Facts about Elephants:
- Recognize their name when called
- Sharpen their own tusks
- Find sharp sticks or rocks to scratch themselves when they’re itchy – they’re pretty thick skinned
- Can live up to 120 years
- Recognize their trainers
- Eat 3 kilos a day
- Fully grown weigh 2 tonnes – the equivalent of 2 pick up trucks
Then we saw how the Thais collect coconuts. The most efficient way for them is to use monkeys. These monkeys they send off to a “monkey school” when they are young because they are the most agile. They are trained to climb the coconut trees, collect them and throw them down. They are able to collect like 300 coconuts in 4 hours. And they can jump down, which makes them so much more efficient than humans. The funny thing though is that they don’t even eat coconuts. All they eat there is boiled eggs and rice.
They are ferocious though, the only person that can come close to them is their trainer. They said that they can train them to be nice, but then they won’t want to work anymore. Once they are past the first ten years of their life, they will go off to work doing tricks and such.
After that we hiked up the mountain to visit the waterfall, and the tourist view point. It was really nice and we got to meet other travellers from the States, Denmark and Rotterdaam. What a strange assortment of people.
We visited some really gorgeous beaches, and then went to the Chinese temple – Chaloklum. It’s a cool story, the temple was commissioned for them by this Chinese woman.
The Thai’s believe that there are only four necessities of life:
1) Food to Eat
2) Clothes to wear
3) Medicine when you get sick
4) Phone to call
Our guide explained that sometimes when you life a simpler life you are more happy. That sometimes people living in the city get caught up in work, and that they will step on other people to get ahead and that’s not right. That it’s not necessary to always want better, nicer things, smarter cell phones or cameras. Because you are always caught up wanting more.
I wanted to share that with you because I thought it was pretty cool and it left me feeling pretty peaceful.
