Sweaty jungle and a chilled sunset

Flag of d Koh Lipe, Thailand
April 02, 2014

I awoke on the land that time forgot after a massive downpour during the night. We had stayed up drinking and I was hoping to see lots of stars that night being on a remote island with limited electricity but instead we got some fairly impressive lighting displays to make up for it. We had to be packed and out by 10am and we were sternly reminded of this by Attila the Park Ranger at 9:40am. Everything was thrown together quick sharp and off we trotted to find some breakfast and tackle the restaurant Gestapo.

Some simple breakfast later and we packed the bare minimum that we needed to head off on the trek in search of the waterfall. The path started out with the apparent intention of educating you in what lay ahead. Steep rough climbs, massive boulders to clamber over and huge tree trunks to negotiate all seemed to warm us up for the rest of the walk. It was a good few kilometers to the waterfall and occasionally there were some easy-going level tracks but mostly it was guess the route through the middle of a jungle and at times the track was hard to follow. Especially when it was very overgrown and quite often just huge boulders to scramble over whilst climbing higher into the hills. When we reached a point where there were ropes to help you pull yourself up the steep rocks we knew we were in for a fun time. We clambered and crawled for a couple of hours shadowed by a French couple who were equally as bemused about which route to take but somehow between us all we managed to find what appeared to be the right route as every few hundred meters we would come across a new crude sign pointing towards the waterfall.

After a few hours trekking we reached a point where we could go no further. There were 15ft high smooth boulders to get over that blocked our way. I’m no climbing expert but I’m sure you couldn’t make it over them without either a JCB or some sort of grappling gun. The Jungle however was lush. Your typical Tarzan jungle, with soft elastic vines that offered a natural rope and helped you on your way. There was always many a scuffle from a large animal somewhere nearby to keep you on your toes and an unbearable wet heat that sapped energy from you. I don’t think I have ever sweated so much as in that jungle. My top was saturated to the point where I must have been able to wring out a good half pint of liquid, and only the very bottoms of my shorts were still dry the rest were soaked through. It was good fun though. Watching Dani freak out at some of the wildlife en route. Massive beetles and various things flying around your head that looked like they could do some serious damage to an Elephant let alone a human.

The route back down was just as fun as the rain had made everything very slick and we only felt a little disappointed that we hadn’t reached the waterfall. We had passed many a small waterfall whilst clambering up the river bed and rocks but came across no impressive falls that we were hoping for. On the way back we passed a couple with their baby and a Spanish girl who was trekking with them and we stopped for a few minutes to have a craic on. The Spanish girl referred to a bar on sunset beach on Koh Lipe where you could sample some local produce but I wasn’t sure if I read that the right way given a small language barrier, I kept the thought in my head for later. We said our goodbyes and we trotted off to relax on the beach and have a swim for a few hours before leaving Adang and grabbing a boat back across to Lipe.

On the way back over with our taxi boat a good fifty yards from the shore we spotted someone waving from the beach on Adang who also needed a lift so we got the guy to turn back and pick them up. Sure enough it was our Spanish friend and we chatted away as we headed over to sunset beach. We found out that we had actually seen and passed the waterfall on Adang, just that it was very small due to the fact it is pretty much dry season here, we had actually continued to trek further than we should have hence how it became too overgrown to carry on.

As we got closer to the shores of Koh Lipe our new Spanish friend pointed out the bar where we could indulge in some local wares, the Boom Boom Bar and we again bid her farewell as we hopped off and she continued through the island to sunrise beach where she was staying. She said she would be round for sunset and we would catch her at the bar later. After an hour trundling about looking for somewhere to stay I spotted a familiar face walking towards me. It was Tim the American lad who was working at the animal shelter in Langkawi. Small world again I thought so I cut my search for places to stay short and headed back to where we had left the bags at the bar and decided to grab the cheapest place we had found so far….Porn resort! Not much porn action going on but some very flimsy huts to bed down in for the night.

With our bags dropped off and back at the bar we settled in to our deck chairs to watch the sun go down. Not long into it and the Spanish girl re-appeared and also seemed to know Tim as well as us from the night before…and by the look of it in a slightly more intimate way than we did! We sat together and chilled out on the beach with some very laid back tunes, some good local wares and a beautiful Thailand sunset. Your typical image of what Thailand does best.

We sat out for hours, eventually moving back into the bar and sitting with the local herb community for company. As Tim and his new-found friend left we headed back to the delights of porn resort to bed down for the night. Once in our flimsy hut we greeted by several guests from the animal kingdom. Namely three huge spiders, one that was somehow inside the mosquito net and a beautiful 2 inch long specimen of the cockroach family. I’m pretty cool with all of that and couldn’t help crying with laughter at Dani flapping about like maniac with a room full of her worst dreams. Fear written across her face as played a game of move spiders around the room. Once sorted I drifted off like a baby leaving Dani to stay awake on watch in case any of those man-eating spiders got a bit too friendly.

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