We enjoyed a late wake up, and prepared breakfast using the excellent eggs and fruit our hosts left us, reinforced with some more fruit we had bought ourselves. A movement in the trees behind the breakfast table revealed a creature that looked very much like a squirrel. On closer examination, the pointed nose and the sharp teeth revealed its true identity – a treeshrew – an agile arboreal insectivore. After enjoying the visitor and finishing breakfast, we drove to an old military base outside town. It was the home of some Airforce museum or exhibition, but that wasn’t our destination. On the far side of that base, close to a forest-covered mountain, lives a large group of Spectacled Langurs. These monkeys, which are rather shy and hard to see elsewhere, were reportedly easily seen here, as they have become accustomed to human presence and lost all fear of people.
Indeed, on our way to the far end of the base a sentry stopped us, took my driver’s license, asked “monkeys?” and pointed us in the right direction, where we quickly heard and then saw several monkeys on one of the trees. Soon more monkeys gathered and we spent a long time watching them playing around and interacting with each other. Especially interesting were the games the younger monkeys played with each other and with the adults, and the way the adult females treated the babies (whose fur was light orange, in contrast with the adults grey fur), with more than one female – perhaps mother and sister – taking care of the same baby in what seemed like alternating turns.
On the way out of the base, we saw several butterfly lizards on the grassy sand strip between the road and the beach. They were never far from they burrows, into which they would run with surprising speed at the slightest sign of danger (including curious photographers). Our next stop was at the monkey temple on the top of the hill near the marketplace. All along the stairs, macaques were on and around the stairs, and we had to take care not to step on any of them. While taking photos of one monkey in the temple, another snuck up on me from the low wall surrounding the temple, and took the water bottle out of my bag’s side pocket. It held the bottle rather firmly when I tried to pull it back, and another larger male approached us and bared its teeth, so I reluctantly let them have it. The first monkey proceeded to remove the cap with its teeth, then put it on the wall and jumped on it, leaning and licking some of the spilling water.
On the way back down we saw some of the younger monkeys using broken ceramic tiles to “draw” on the stairs and the nearby rocks. Some held the tile shards with pieces of torn plastic bags, and we wondered whether they were trying to avoid dirtying their hands. It was hard not to think of the activity as something as a form of expression. After an afternoon rest and a round of card games with the kids, we headed back to the market for dinner and entertainment. The previous afternoon, the sister of our hostess told us she was preparing for a cooking contest taking part as some of a local festival, in which candidates from the city itself and 6 or 8 adjacent villages would compete. She and her daughter even came by to our room and offered us a tasting of the delicious coconut dessert they were working on with another sister.
At the market, the happening held on a large stage and broadcast over large screens resembled the Eurovision more than a cooking contest. The contestants did seem to be doing something involving cooking, but the whole ordeal was accompanied by deafening music and everyone on stage seemed to be more concerned with dancing than with cooking. Since we couldn’t follow what was going on, and didn’t manage to recognize our recent acquaintances on stage (or rather, we thought we could, but didn’t agree on their identity), we left the stage and went looking for dinner. At that point, it started raining pretty heavily, and we sought shelter under the thick plastic sheets covering the stalls. At some point, one of the overhead sheets gave way under the weight of the water it accumulated, and several liters of water poured directly on Tamar’s head to much cheering and rejoicing of everyone around. She took it proudly, laughing and saying she enjoyed the shower. The weather was of course warm enough for this not to bother us too much, so we carried on as usual, with the exception that this time I bought some chicken soup at a stall which had some tables and chairs under a large plastic cover, so we could all shelter there. While I was waiting for the others to bring the other dishes there, an old lady decided to give me a lesson in the use of fork and spoon – the standard Thai utensil pair – showing me that the fork should be used the way we use a knife, and the spoon the way we use a fork. On the way back we watched the preparation in a huge cauldron of some slime-textured dessert. The one they were preparing at the time was dark purple in color, and we suspected its basis either red beans or red rice, but the one I tasted and liked was green, most likely containing pandan leaves, and with notable coconut taste. It was nearly phosphorous, extremely viscous, and delicious!
The next day we had another glorious breakfast, and spent most of the morning in and around the room. Around noon, Lilach and I took a bicycle trip in the surrounding fields, while the kids preferred to stay in the A/C and read. Later that afternoon we headed towards Kui Buri National Park, about an hour drive north, where there are several herds of wild elephants, and one is nearly guaranteed to see them. We understood that you go looking for them in a 4×4 car with a driver and a ranger, and the recommendation we read was to arrive relatively late in the afternoon, as the chances to see the elephants are highest near closing time. Unfortunately, at a certain point the road signs on the highway said “Kui Buri, 34 km”, whereas our navigation software insisted that we should get off the highway, drawing a clear path on the map that seemed to end in the heart of the park. We made the mistake of following that path and ended up making a grand tour of the pineapple fields surrounding the park. When we finally traced back and followed local signs that said “wildlife watching”, we got to the ranger stations just around 5pm (the park closes at 6), and were told that the tours leave between 2-5pm, and all of them, regardless of when you leave, return around 6pm, as the park closes. Anyway, the last tour for the day has already left. Come back tomorrow…
So we drove back and returned to the market for another delicious dinner, and the kids were again offered free desserts at a couple of counters. At their insistence, we boarded the small Ellis wheel that was assembled there, together with some other amusement park attractions. Perhaps to make up for its modest size, we were left wheeling up and down for perhaps 15 rounds until finally released. That night, Lilach got notice of some comment letter regarding her recently published article, which required urgent response from her. She worked into the late hours on her response, and I kept her company, reading, helping with some technical issues and catching a large, beautiful, Tokay gecko that was hunting insects on the wall behind her.
Family Trips 