With a map, a couple cans of Coke Light, and a camera in my backpack, I headed west on the advice, “Just take any road and you'll end up at one of the waterfalls.” Which happened. Amazingly.
I ended up at Khao Luang National Park. Had I a work permit or brown skin, it would have been a 20B trip. But I am farang, so it was 200 to get in. Love it.
Up a broken dirt and gravel road, past a closed-down visitor center, the road split: cabins one way, parking and camping the other. After three tries, I figured out how to park to the attendant's satisfaction. Lotta fun, that: a middle-management sort of hefty woman standing with her chin sucked in and chest poofed out waving and pointing at where I should be. At least there are some global constants, right?
The trail is a 2K loop with a vert of about 800 to the top of the highest falls. Along the way, there's a stop at every fall with a shack for a picnic or shelter at every overlook, which is to say, there are seven stops in the kilometer to the top. And it's not that the hike is
long or grueling—it's paved, for the most part, or has stone steps—but it's a series of crazy steep climbs and relatively brief flat spots under a pummeling umbrella of equal parts heat and humidity—80/85 or 110 all around seems about right. And, given the biodiversity and density, it would be about senseless to move quickly. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Anyway, the jungle really is an amazingly dense place. On the one hand, there are what sound like tablesaws running all the time—I'm pretty sure they're giant grasshopper/cicada type things—and sundry birds and other whatnots keeping up a constant presence that borders on sitting in a cul-de-sac of DIY dads on the first nice weekend of the year.
And then there are the numbers of butterflies and lizards and strange sounding leaves blowing about, each of which flits and distracts attention. And once you're looking at a butterfly, you can't help but key into the flowers and leaves and bark and solid background wall of greenery and general vivacity that is doubly distracting through its apparent unawareness of its own remarkable existence.
As for the waterfalls, I guess I should just say that the years spent around granite and glaciers somewhat biased me. But they were nice enough for sitting and basking until I realized that it was raining—not a perceptible difference in feeling, just that the glasses speckle from the outside instead of fogging over from the inside.
Botanical density means that it's not so difficult to find something to grab as you're sliding down the rock. What becomes difficult is convincing whatever it is you grabbed—namely a thorny vine—from letting go.
This is when you're glad you don't know whether or not it's poisonous so you won't worry unless your hand turns gangrenous.
ON the way out, there were a number of piles of durians under gypsy-rainbows of cloth bags. Evidently, harvesting in national parks is okay, too, provided you're of the proper nationality.
It remains to be decided whether the larger concern is the racism or eating wild durian.
By the time I got back on my bike, the novelty had worn off. My face was dry and scummy from the baking pavement, screaming wind, and steady stream of pollution. Feeling had just returned to my hands and feet. Riding with ear plugs helped tremendously, but it would've been nice to have some music. At least the ergonomics were close enough to human to keep me sitting upright and comfortable, not some torturous bicycle configuration.
Of course, half an hour into the two-hour ride, it started to rain. Then it started to rain HARD.
Things fragged a bit:
Who'da thought that:
raindrops would bruise when you're not even going flat-out?
after not very long at all, riding through a tropical monsoon storm gets to be quite chilly.
once the rain stops and you do start going closer to flat-out, the heat is a relief and almost enough to dry you out?
Thai bike cops wouldn't have specially-colored bikes immediately distinctive and screaming for attention?
Thailand has a speed limit?
a Thai bike cop would be as stout and podgy as his stereotypically-Nebraskan brethren and on a bike graced with no more power and much more automation and hardware than mine?
a radio call could so quickly erect a barricade in the next town?
my smiling, laughing, German would get me through a police barricade in Thailand?
Really—how could some newby farang who stupidly stumbled into a bike unwittingly outrun a bike cop?
So here's to slower roadtripping for a while—road sauntering, maybe. Now, at least, the bike's paid for. Another week and it might be insured. Maybe a month after that, title will come. And by October, I should be eligible for a local driver's license. And if I make it that long, whoo boy howdy look out, farang's going wild on the Pan-Asia freeways.
No comments:
Post a Comment