Thursday, June 18, 2009

Klong Jack Relaxation

4 December 2008 - 20 December 2008
We are still staying on Ko Lanta at Sun Moon Bungalows. At this point we kinda feel like one of the family here; it's going to be very difficult to leave this place! I now understand the people who come to Thailand and never return home!

Sun Moon Bungalows are a two minute walk from Klong Jack beach, a quiet stretch of sand that never seems to have more than six people on it at a time. There are a few restaurants, some basic beach huts and a bar or two and that's about it. Heaven!

Life here is pretty quiet (apart from all the sounds which I'll come to); the 'village' consists of two shops selling very basic dry good, a travel agent (every village needs one!), an elephant trekking outfit and a mosque.

Now, to come to the sounds of Klong Jack: Elephants trumpeting, the mosque's call to prayer at a minimum of before sun rise (Rohan's favourite) and after sunset (some days it calls more often, but I have as yet been able to discern a pattern), the cicadas shrills and Gibbons (monkeys) calls just before sunset and the first bird to sing before sunrise - ahh, peace.

Before Matt headed off to have his own Thailand adventures, we had a joke going about monkeys attacking us. Well, low and behold we got chased by macaques (monkeys) yesterday on our motor scooter! To be fair, we'd pulled over to get a closer look at them and we broke the number one rule : NEVER make eye contact! One hissed at us and the other chased us, but we sped away on our mechanised bicycle to safety.

Other exciting happenings on Klong Jack - elephant riding in the jungle, playing Jenga (language warning accompanies this vid), Muay Thai (Thai kick-boxing that Rohan, Jim (a Thai guy), his girlfriend and I went along to. It was mostly young kids from the ages of 8 -15 Thai boxing. Certainly not my cup of tea, watching kids beat each other up, but a 'Thailand experience' nonetheless. I find it interesting out of a country so filled with happy-go-lucky, peace loving Buddhists emerged Muay Thai. . .) and volunteering at the animal shelter on Lanta Island. This island is mostly Muslim and generally Muslims dislike and are afraid of dogs, so one can imagine the fate that would befall them without this shelter. It's run by an American woman and there are about 20-25 dogs living there. They have come to her in a variety of ways and are in various states of disrepair (bum legs, missing tails, bad stomachs, etc.) but at the shelter they are fed, exercised, bathed and generally looked after. While Rohan and I were there we walked a few dogs and bathed a few others. If anyone would like more information about the shelter or would like to donate time, money, food, leashes, whatever, here's the url: http://www.lantaanimalwelfare.com/.

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