6-21 Krabi Day 3

Today we finally decided to give in to the persuasions of the resort owner and do some excursions. For 1800 Baht ($54) we were going to do a half day kayaking and half day cooking school. An hour drive got us to a floating dock in an inlet 1/2 mile from it's opening to the sea. The shoreline was think marsh and mangrove trees-- completely inaccessible unless your name is Bear Grylls. Chris and Matt got in one kayak and Mike & I got in the other. Our guide today was a wiry but tough little Thai guy and we were the only group. Over the course of 4 hours we gently paddled through a narrow maze in the mangrove. On either side of us were cliffs 300-400 feet high. It was sort of like kayaking through Yosemite valley. Our guide would slap his paddle on his kayak and the sound would echo all around us. We paddled through 2 caves, each 100-300 feet long. We saw a decent amount of wildlife such as a few monkeys, lizards, crabs, birds, and bats. For lunch we stopped at Skull Cave, which is composed of 2 huge caverns (30ft x 70ft x 20ft high)and open entrances on each side, allowing lots of light in. Our guide told us all about the history of who used the cave and why. 10-15ft up in the ceiling were small pockets where thousands of years ago, someone had climbed up sat in the pocket and painted images onto the ceiling. We saw images of fish, a crocodile eating a human, a hand, and one strange alien-looking figure which was pretty spooky. In the second room we climbed up close, so close we could touch the paintings if we wanted. In any other country, access would be roped off and photos prohibited. Here is this cave, we got our faces right up in it. We could see every minute detail.
We hopped back into the kayaks for one last stop. We entered a narrow cave that opened up into a 50ft diameter pool with sheer cliffs all around 150ft high and covered in vegetation. We hung out for a while chatting with our guide and he started to open up to us. As it turns out, this guy was the son of a muay thai gym owner and had undergone a grueling training regimen all through childhood. He got involved in drugs and gangs at age 16 and ended up in jail for fighting. Bangkok jail is absolute hell. Read the books 'The Damage Done' or 'My Life in Hell', which are two accounts of Bangkok's jail system. The preface to The Damage Done is an account of one evening where a German cellmate wouldnt stop a blood curdling scream and was unresponsive to help. They found a golf ball size lump in his neck and.....it was moving. They cut it with a razor and it peeled back like a new flower, letting hundreds of maggots pour out. Apparently a cockroach had burrowed into his ear and laid eggs. This was an excellent example of why Thailand was no place for my brother to be running around like a jackass, which is only a matter of time.
Our guide had been beaten badly by the cop who arrested him. Years later, he had the cop killed. In jail he was forced to use his muay thai skills to kill people. After 2 separate trips to Bangkok jail, this guy was only 32 years old and had spent 10 of those years in jail. The look in his eyes and the way he talked about it convinced us all that he was fully serious. He told us how he and the resort owner used to get into trouble when he was much younger. These guys used to be real troublemakers, then the resort owner got a job with the gov't doing who knows what.
After kayaking we went straight to our cooking class. It was just us and 3 other Americans. Over the course of 3 hours we were to make spring rolls, papaya salad, seafood salad, two types of soup, fried rice, red & green curry, stir fry, and desert of mango with sticky rice. The instruction was given by an older woman who got all spun up, really trying to keep things moving along quickly. We struggled to get all our ingredients chopped, smashed, squeezed, and properly placed on our plates so that the cooking order was maintained. We relocated with our fresh ingredients to our wok stations. After a clumsy effort at making egg rolls and soup, we sat and gorged ourselves. 5 rolls each and 2 bowls of Tom Yum. The next round was making curry, which is mainly pulverized chili peppers mixed with spices and coconut milk. I put a whole bunch of peppers in my mortar because it was time to separate the men from the boys. Matt made a healthy effort, but the scraggly red beard he dawns is just a mask that hides a frightened little boy inside. Sure enough, I got a little curr-azzy with the curry and got it in my eye. I thought I was making curry, not pepper spray! Man did it burn! Everyone got a good laugh, except me of course. I sat out for a while until it came time to heat it all up in the wok. We sat down with a huge pile of food and we all agreed it was the best Thai meal we'd had so far. We could barely move after dinner and made our way back home, moaning and groaning the whole way. Mike took leftovers back with him, which is no surpise, even considering he doesn't have a refridgerator.
We went into Ao Nang Beach for a sunset cocktail, then returned to the resort for a chilled out night at the pool. We met an American girl who was half way through a one year English teaching position at a local grade school. She joined us at the pool for some frisbee (we have lighted frisbees compliments of Chris) & chatting. We got some good advice on where to go and what to do in Railay Beach and Koh Phi Phi. For a good hour we talked movies. I've got a good list going for all the must-see movies mentioned between the 4 of us. We ended the night in anticipation of the next day's trip to Railay. I wanted to get there and do some climbing. Hopefully I can get the guys to stick around there a few days.

I caught a nasty virus onto my memory card in Krabi and my pictures were all erased the next week by an aggressive antivirus in an internet cafe. From here on, most all the pictures are from Chris' camera.