Day 12

Today we had booked to go on a Jungle Tour involving a trip to the Hot Stream, Emerald Pool and Buddhist temple. We met a nice Canadian lady called Linda who was also on the tour. The minibus picked us up at about 9:15 and we headed down the highway towards Trang again. This highway is starting to look familiar! Ominously, the tour guide asked us to ensure our seat belts were fastened. (He'd obviously driven with this driver before!) After an hour or so of 'white knuckle' driving we arrived at the Hot Stream which was supposedly 39degC which of course is just what you feel like jumping into when the air temperature is 35 degC! It was quite crowded and we eventually found a spot where the water cascaded over some rocks and we kind of wedged ourselves into a spot for a few minutes as the water ran over us. Mindful of the fact that spending too much time in such hot water could cause a stroke or similar, as was warned to us by the tour guide and numerous signs around the area, we hopped out after about 5 mins and headed off in search of a toilet. The signage here was a little indistinct and the toilet block seemed to be filled with men and women and so we decided to hold on until the next stop. Back to the minibus, walking past an ambulance which was there presumably for those that didn't heed the warnings. On we went to the Emerald Pool, a natural pool with a greenish, bluish tinge, possibly coloured this way by the massive numbers of people swimming there! We had to walk for 1400 metres to get there from the car park and this was the Jungle Trek part of the day's activities I assume. Lunch was served in a restaurant adjacent the car park and the staff had to work frantically to cope with the huge throughput of people. They all looked very stressed and there was a huge queue for the toilet, which was in fact quite clean. Using the sink to wash your hands was an experience as my clothes got wet as I turned on the water. Upon examination of the drain beneath the sink I noticed that the drain wasn't connected to anything but instead drained into a wide bucket that was completely full and so overflowed onto you. It would've worked better if they had just let the sink drain onto the ground without the bucket! Heading back towards Krabi we stopped at a temple which was a large area with many buildings and even a 'Wonderland' walk. The area was full of monkeys and dogs and my travel doctor's warnings about Rabies sprang to mind. Several people had monkeys jump at them, trying to get food, sunglasses etc. we walked through the 'Wonderland' area via quite a steep set of steps and onto a lovely path, mostly devoid of tourists and into a couple of caves. After this we returned to Ao Nang, had a swim and dinner before retiring for the night.