My Big Girl Pants Are Kinda Tight And Uncomfortable

When we were traveling together, Doug would laugh at me as I would always want to do anything that was deemed "fun" or "worth seeing" regardless of the source of this declaration. Before he left he advised me to think twice before doing something just because someone else recommended it.

So fine - but when the recommendation came from the person I traveled with for 2.5 months - well I thought I was safe. And so, based on Doug's recommendation, I stopped at Khoa Sok on my way across Thailand.

I randomly selected one of he places recommended in Lonely Planet and showed up at their doorstep. They only had a room for one night, but it was already dark and after 7, so I took it.

They showed me to my room, I put my stuff down, and came back to have a lovely dinner. After dinner, I innocently walked back up to my bungalow to be immediately dive bombed by cicadas. I ran back down the stairs and had a moment. I then tried to reason with them.

"I come in peace" I proclaimed. "I just want to get into my room."

After a couple of minutes of really really wishing Doug was here to do something about this, I hoisted on my big girl pants and walked back up the stairs and quickly went into my room.

I was safe for the night!

That is until the mosquito net came crashing down on me in the middle of the night . . .

Now the events of the next day were, mostly, entirely my own stupidity. There was an "Adventure Tour" of the park that I could sign up for and so sign up for it I did. The tour was billed as involving a steep climb as well as walking across rocks and through some streams. I figured it was nothing I couldn't handle.

Ha!

I set out with four Germans in their mid twenties and our guide. We hike straight up for about an hour and arrived, rather sweaty, to see the Rafflesia Kerrimeyere (or wild lotus) which is the world's largest flower. We were very lucky to see a total of three in bloom which is pretty spectacular as each flower only blooms for a couple of days and usually can only be seen December through February.

As we headed from there to the waterfall things got a bit more dicey and I often had to use hanging roots of trees to navigate down. By the time we got to the waterfall, we all felt we had had quite the adventure, but it was beautiful and well worth it.

From there things were disastrous. We were supposed to scramble down the rocks of the waterfall to get to the bottom. Given my natural grace and agility I opted to slip and slide my way down most of the waterfall. I ended up flat on my butt twice and nearly flat on my butt another dozen times, including once when I almost took out our guide as well.

Finally we made it to the bottom where we were rewarded with lunch and a cool swim in the waterfall.

But I was not out of the danger yet! We still had more rocks to climb and when we finally reached the wooded trail I celebrated by falling flat on my face.

An exhausting 8 hours after wee started, we were finally home. It was no small miracle that I was still in one piece.

I should also mention that during our trek I ended up standing right next to a snake that was sunbathing on a rock. As a testament to how much I had already been through, I didn't even react to the snake - no shriek and no dance. I just complacently stood there while everyone took their pictures and prayed to god that I wouldn't fall on it as I walked by it.

When I arrived back to the lodge, they had a new room available for me. On my way to put my stuff down our guide pointed out the most enormous spider I have ever seen. I just kept walking.

Once inside I took a quick shower and lay down for a nap. Not three minutes later I heard the all too familiar buzzing of the cicada.

There was not one, but two! in my room. The roof of the room didn't quite meet the wall which allowed my friends a free night stay. As they flew madly about I tried a method I'd seen refined by my mother and took shelter under the covers. Unfortunately, this method only works if there is a Michael in the house. Michaelless, I was forced to bust out the big girl pants again and get out of bed. I decided the best solution was to leave the room for dinner and hope for the best.

I had a lovely dinner with my German friends, who had fared only slight better on the adventure tour and were also exhausted.

After dinner I discovered that the cicadas were gone. Woot! And a lovely little gecko had popped in for a nosh. It's amazing how something that a month and a half ago in Hanoi I had wanted removed immediately from the room was now a friendly surprise. I can totally bunk with a gecko!

During the course of the evening my friends, the cicadas, came back. I did my best to hide from them in the mosquito netting.

In the morning we arranged a peace agreement that I would pack as quickly as possible if they wouldn't move. Thankfully they kept up with their end of the bargain and I was happily on my way back to the beach.

The thing I found so interesting about all of this, is that when Doug left we agreed that the hardest thing I would find about traveling on my own was dealing with the bugs. And then he sent me to the buggiest place in Thailand . . .