Adventure to the Monkey Jungle Part 1: The Journey

Monkeys have for a long time been a favorite animal of mine. So when I discovered the possibility of being able to see monkeys in their natural habitat, I of course had to get there. It might have taken a taxi, a train, a ferry, another train, a tuktuk and a longtail boat to get us there, but eventually Steve, Jennifer, Johnny and I were in a river through a mangrove forest, surrounded on both sides by hordes of monkeys as we tossed them bananas.

Without a vehical, the small resort town of Klong Khone is a bit of a challenge to get to, since no public transportation goes directly to it. For someone who doesnt speak nor read thai it is even harder, since the resorts cater to Thai, not foreign, tourists so nearly all of the information is in Thai.
I found that the closet large city was the town of Samut Songkram, and endeavored to get there. That meant taking a small railway line, called the Mahachai Railway. This line, now owned by the State Railway of Thailand, was originally a private rail line for transporting fish, and never got connected to the main line. Not being able to find a train schedule, and wanting to budget time for getting lost on this trip, we decided to all meet in the lobby of the apartment at 6am.

At 6:15am Steve and I received a knock on our door. As i woke up to answer it I 1) realized that the alarm i had set did not work for some reason, and 2) had a horrible flashback to the time that I was late for a directing scene my freshman yeah and had to be woken up by my co-actors (sorry about that, Kelly). Steve later told me that he had a similar flashback.
15 minutes later we were downstairs hailing a cab. Telling the driver where to go was no small issue, given that the train station, an unlikely destination for us, had the same name as a much more popular skytrain station. Our security guard helped us explain to him where we wanted to go.

The taxi stopped at a seemingly random curb, and there was no train in sight. He pointed towards a market and we went there. Out of nowhere the tracks and train appeared. We located the ticket window and ordered tickets to the end of the tracks. The train was leaving soonly, so we boarded and got comfortable. The first leg of the journey was an hour long. Upon leaving the city limits, we entered a jungle area, the ferns were huge, and every so often we would pass through small provincial towns. The towns seemed quite nice, and i had half a mind to get off the train and explore. However, we had far to go.

The tracks ended when the train could go no further, due to a large river being in the way, and no bridge having even been built. We asked some locals where the boat was, which seemed straightforward enough. They didnt speak any english, but we knew the thai word...however in thai knowing a word and pronouncing and toning it correctly are two very different things, but eventually we were sent in the right direction. On our way to the ferry we got a handful of "hellos", and stares from people and it became quickly evident that people of our skin tone were fairly uncommon in this town. Jennifer and I both bought spring rolls from a street vendor who seemed very pleased to be serving us.

We got to the ferry and paid our fee of a few baht and were handed a ticket. Standing almost directly next to the ticket both was the ticket taker, who immediately took our tickets after we had got them. It was an odd system, seeing as everyone could see if we had paid or not. Shareing the ferry with us was many motorcycles, as the ferry was the only way they could get across the river.
When we had arrived on the other side, we disembarked from the boat onto the pier, but waited for the cycles to drive out of the boat and up the gangplank.

As we wandered into town, we were unsure of where to go, so we started walking. It was quite pleasant. As we walked by houses the townspeople they would smile and wave at us, and it was quite peaceful. A Japanese man riding a bike, who spoke fairly good English came up to us and asked us where we were going. He started leading us to the train station where we ran into a monk named Wegeta (at first it sounded like Vegeta, which would have been awesome).

We were informed that the train didnt leave for another 3 hours (on this side of the tracks the train only runs 4 times a day) and invited us on a tour of his temple. He showed us the festival grounds where the village had had their new year celebration, and explained to us a bit about Buddhism as he showed us the Wat. The Wat was smaller than most that we had been in, but this was the smallest town we had visited thus far. It had an outdoor area, were there were some statues set up, and a large pictures of astrological animals. He then took us into their ordination hall with the principle Buddha image. Wegeta invited us to take a picture posing in front of Buddha, which I had understood as something that should be avoided out of respect for Buddha, but we figured if the Monk says its fine, then it must be.


After we finished the tour we headed over to the train station to wait. Two young thai children joined us, and just kinda hung out around us and played with us while we waited there. I found them to be a nice diversion.

After much waiting (and, for jennifer, sleeping) the train was ready to go and we hopped on board. On this leg of the journey we passed by many salt fields, and debated among ourselves if they were salt fields or not (they were). Durring most of this time Steve slept, and provided us with much amusement, as the ride was very bumpy and his head would bounce with every bump of the train. He also sleeps with his mouth hanging wide open like a cavern, which was just funny.

After about an hour, we reached our final train destination: Samut Songkram. Upon getting off the train, we walked into the local market, which was situated on the tracks. The costumers, walked along the rails and the shopkeepers pushed their wares all the way to the tracks.

After a little bit we heard a train whistle, and the shop keepers started pulling back all the goods and closing the awnings of their stands. Some of the larger vendors (like the butchers) had carts on wheels so as to be able to move them more quickly. Some of the items, such as fruits, were left by the track if they were low enough to be cleared by the train. I was ushered into a shop and waited for the train to pass. I must say i dont think i have ever been so close to a moving train before, but all of the people at the market were very chill about it, as this was old news for them.

When the train had past, everything immediately sprung back to its previous state as though opening a pop-up book. Awnings swung down, people walked onto the track, fruits were moved back into position, and the slowly fading sound of the train was all that remained of any hint that a huge machine had just driven directly through the area.
By this time we were all feeling a bit 'heuw' (hungry) and ventured to find a food vendor. We stumbled upon a small resturant in another part of the market, and ordered chicken and rice (which was the only thing we were able to given the language barrier). It turned out to be quite enjoyable. After eating we went to find a way to Klong Khone. We were directed towards a tuktuk driver, and using my phrase book i asked him how much it was to go to Klong Khone. He said some things in Thai that i didnt understand, and pointed in another direction. Jennifer then interceded and started to communicate the idea of a swimming monkey by both saying "ling nam" (water monkey) and by acting it out, switching between jumping and scratching like a monkey and swimming. The tuktuk driver, greatly amused agreed to take us there.

I am no stranger to the tuktuks, they are my favorite form of transportation around bangkok, but i cant say i was prepared for this ride. He drove us out of the city and onto a highway. He proceeded to reach speeds that i did not think tuktuks could reach (ill estimate 50-60 mph) and was even passing cars by driving on the shoulder. I think he may have ruined rollercoasters for me, because there is no way that any amusement ride can beat the exhilaration of riding, in a 3 wheeled vehicular, open to the air, with no seatbelts at that speed.
After a while, when we were just starting to get used to flying down the highway, he slowed down and pulled off on an unassuming side road and started driving down it. He drove us deeper and deeper into this area, making a turn every few minutes. We passed lakes, and houses and stores every few minutes, and saw acres of forests in the distance.

Eventually, when we thought we were going to never stop riding this tuktuk into the bush, he pulled into a very nice resort looking place. We got out and paid the tuktuk; he gave us his number to call when we needed to be picked up and we went to see if there was a room available.
The man at the resort who seemed to be in charge was the only one who spoke english, but other than his accent, he spoke it very well. He told us that they had only one room left, an 8 person bungalow, and that it would cost us 4000 baht. Being that there were only 4 of us, that was a bit steep of a price. Eventually we got him to agree to a 2000 baht price. I inquired about the boat ride to see the monkeys and he said that one could be ready in a half hour. We signed the papers, handed over the money and relaxed after all the traveling while we waited in great anticipation for the boat to arrive.