Spring Break Vacation to Thailand Part III

Tuesday we woke up a bit earlier and went to breakfast.  Then we ordered a taxi to take us to the Khao Phra Taew rain forest.  It is a national park that has a hiking trail through the last remaining rain forest on the island.  We had a hard time convincing our taxi driver that it was where we wanted to go.  Most people go to see the waterfall that is there, but the waterfall is about dried up at this time of year.  We told him that we just loved to hike and wanted to see the forest, so we finally convinced him and he took us. We had to pay 600 Baht (about 20 dollars) for entrance to the park and our taxi was 1600 Baht for the round trip and to wait for us while we hiked.  The trail through the park follows a stream and is about 2 kilometers.  The trail was quite rough in places and there were a few very steep areas where we had to climb up and down into the ravine where the stream cut through the volcanic mountain (inactive) where the forest is located.

Pond at the base of the trail into the rain forest.

A bird (ibis?) at the pond.

Starting into the forest on our hike.

Hiking up the trail and under the trees.

Reading about the fungus of the forest at one of the 14 information stations.

Some of the fungus we saw.

Large bamboo stand within the forest.

The girls had a fun time.  In general we do love hiking, and the girls learn a lot about rain forests in their books and school, so it was fun for them to see the forest up close.  We saw some fun wildlife on the trail.  We found a spider that looked like a feather or a bird poop.  It was white and feathery and could jump very far - about two or three feet!  We also saw three different large lizards, lots of different butterflies, ants large and small, and little fish and water bugs in the stream.  Probably the most fun thing that we found was a little red forest crab!

Forest crab - Nika spotted it first. 

The little white fluffy thing is a spider that can jump!

Trail of ants across the trail.

One of the three lizards we saw.  Two were like this, and one looked more like a snake.

One of the termite mounds we saw on our hike.

The trees in the forest are neat.  They have large skirts on their bottom to help buttress them against the wind.  Some of the largest trees are comparable to the redwoods that we saw in Muir woods in San Francisco at this time last year. It took us about two hours to do the hike from start to finish.  Our driver was waiting for us and dropped us off right at the doorstep.  When we got home we changed and swam in the large pool for a couple of hours before embarking on our next adventure.

Hiking next to a tree with a skirt.

This interesting vine that is embedded in the tree.

Large tree with a skirt. 

Making our way through the rain forest!

Showing the size of the trees. 

What's left of the waterfall in the dry season.

Lexa loved these palm fan leaves!

Emerging from the forest.

When we checked in we were asked if we would be willing to sit through a ninety minute presentation about the Marriott Vacation Club.  They would watch our kids and we could receive a free gift.  We figured that it would be a time share type of deal, but were promised that it would not be a high pressure sales pitch.

Jane took our picture while we looked at the JW Marriott Resort property.

We arrived and had a nice time getting to know "Jane" our saleswoman.  She showed us around the resort and talked to us about the various properties that Marriott owns around the world.  The high pressure part came when the manager came to try to seal the deal.  We had to say no a number of times.  They just couldn't understand why we didn't want to spend $50,000 dollars over the next five years to ensure an "inflation free" lifetime of vacations in the future.  We finally convinced them that no means no, and we left with our gift certificates for $130.00.

The evening shuttle (Jeepney) that is larger than the day shuttle. 

Filling up the shuttle.

Fire ceremony at the kids' pool area.

We shuttled back and forth a few times to find a place to eat.  We did get to see the traditional fire show.  We had dinner at our hotel's restaurant.  It was twice as expensive and twice as slow as the Thai place where we had been eating.  The kids had non-Thai food (fish and chips and Pizza) and we had Thai.  The dinner was free with our certificates.  After dinner we went to bed because we had our biggest adventure of the week planned for Wednesday.

Waiting for dinner to start (or waiting for what seemed forever)!

Wiping the kids out with our vacation fun!