Mangroves, Mud, Monkeys

"Bring a swim suit." Typical Thai fashion, given a few facts, and you are left to fill in the details. Of course we assumed we were going to the beach, so I brought my white and pink two piece, with my matching white and pink sarong to wear as a cover-up over my suit.

All 14 of us, our two American friends, and the rest newly met Thai friends, piled into a 14 passenger party van. Well, if it was night, instead of at 7:30a.m., I would have pictured it as a party van. There were huge round speakers in the roof, and fluorescent lights ran up and down the interior like a disco. But instead of dancing, we half-slept on each other and chatted as the shock-less van bounced the two hours to our unknown destination.

"Oh, you might get muddy." That was a side note our Thai friend told us as we got out of the van to the traditional Thai-style resort next to what looked like a lake.

Clad in orange as a construction cone, and bright green as 80's running shorts life vests, we split up into two long Native American-style wooden canoe boats with motors, and a hand-made flat plastic red roof covering us.

Thus began the adventure, not at the beach, but in a mangrove forest. We rode through the water neighborhood of the fishermen surrounding the forest, gazing at fences which were sticks stuck in the mud, with only about a foot of the stick poking out of the water to gently remind the other fishermen where their "land" began and ended. The river houses, instead of having two cars sitting in their driveway had two or three boats which looked similar to ours stacked up under their houses.

We jetted through the muddy, gray water to pull up next to a fisherman at work. His 4-year old son sat in the middle of the boat with him, separating shrimp, still squirming around in their net, that had been dumped in front of him. He barely glanced at us, keeping his eyes on his work, picking out the good shrimp with nimble fingers that will touch more fish and sea creatures in his lifetime than the keys on a computer or the buttons on a cell phone.

After waving farewell to pro-fisher boy, we were steered into an inlet and stopped. Of course, we weren't told why we were stopping, Stone-Faced Captain just stopped. We looked at the island next to us and reared back. Monkeys were swinging and mangroves were swaying before us.

"Aww, cute monkeys!" we thought as they played on the trees. But then they started to come down and run across the island to us. One brave soul flung himself off the island and grabbed the edge of the boat like we were his hoped for rescuers, causing me to scream and leap back, rocking the boat. But then the bananas came from Captain which made them scatter as they attacked each other over the small yellow treasures.

We squeezed a little further down the inlet, where we stopped again. Captain, without at word, got out of the boat, stepped onto the island, and suddenly was knee deep in mud. We giggled at how shocking it was to see him so deep in mud, but then he got a plank of wood to put from the boat to the island so we could join him too. Oh boy...

With much snickering, slipping, sucking, and sludging, we stomped through the mud, and were passed mangrove saplings. We weren't told what to do, but were pantomimed to take off the material that covered the roots, jam it into the mud and squish more mud over it until it was firmly in the "ground". After about 10 minutes of tree planting to prevent erosion in the future, we were back in the boat.

As we pondered how deep the water was, we saw that slowly the water was disappearing. Before us was a desert expanse of the mud. Then as we wondered how we would get through the mud in the boat, the boat in front of us flew away through the sludge, spraying an arc of mud behind it. Woohoo!

But instead of making an arc of beautiful mud behind us, we pulled ahead, sputtered, and left nothing. We had stalled.

Thankfully Calm Captain had a cell phone, called the other driver and asked him to stop. We had fun blowing our emergency whistles on our life vests, much to the annoyance of Captain, but much to our delight.

Eventually, instead of having the boat come to us, we went to it. I was first to hop onto a wooden plank surf board which I was pushed on as I waved farewell like Miss America to my friends. Captain pushed me over the mud so smoothly I felt like a snowboarder sliding on snow to the other boat.

After everyone made it, a little more muddy and wet than before, but full of adrenaline from the adventure, we laughed our way to the river house stilted high above the waters where we would eat lunch. We climbed up the smooth and silken wooden rungs of the ladder to our feast.

Sitting on the wooden floor, we ate: fresh shrimp, huge prawns, bass in sweet and sour sauce, squid, Thai omelette, oysters, clams, hummingbird flower, tom yum soup, rice, coconut and sticky rice, and sweet satisfying Thai grapefruit. How delightful.

Then it was time for extreme mud boarding through clam infested mud. But we soon discovered that the smooth ride over the mud, isn't as smooth without an experienced mud boarder pushing you along. We got stuck. Some of our legs disappeared with only our chests sticking out. Some of us just sat in the middle of the mud in awkward positions, trying to stay on our board somehow, laughing and shrieking until we were saved.

Eventually, Im not quite sure how, we all got over to the waters where we used netting to scrub our legs and and arms and hands and feet free from as much goo as we could. Then the boats carried us back to land-- our stomachs now full, our skin now clothed in mud, our legs and arms now covered in scratches from sharp clam shells, our minds full of memories, and my white and pink swim-wear now brown.

Mangroves, mud, and monkeys. When I woke up on Monday morning I never dreamed that's what my day would be made of.

How I love you random Thailand and how I will miss you in busy, scheduled America.