Khao Sok: Brown-water tubing

Excellent views all around

You know what is an excellent cure for post-hike and leech-battle sweaty-ness?

Floating down a river for a couple miles in a giant inner-tube, for less than $5 American. Everyone can get behind that!

Monica relaxing for once

After our leech filled hike in Khao Sok we traded our sweaty hiking gear for swim suits and jumped into the Phum Duang river that passed by our guest house. The tubing was scheduled thru our hosts at the Jungle Huts (I assume they get a cut of the price we pay). We met our guide at a little hut filled to the brim with giant black and blue tubes, covered in white writing. And then it was just a matter of slipping down the river bank and jumping in.

Starting out the river was quite shallow. I could wade out to the center and my shoulders were still above water. But the water was almost completely opaque so it was hard to gauge depth once we were sitting in our tubes.

That river was unlike any I've seen in Washington. Those rivers run almost directly from the Cascade Mountains into the Sound; they are cold and clear and not something to tube on. This river was slow moving, warm, and full of suspended sediment.

Our stack of tubes

I imagine there is quite a lot of life living in water as well. I tried not to think about it, as we floated down. If nothing bit me I'd walk away happy.

Turns out I didn't need to worry. We didn't see any creatures. Just a lot of limestone cliffs, lush jungle, and low hanging branches.The views were breathtaking.

Monica, my savoir!

Our appreciation of the views was only punctuated by our guide trying to tip us out of our tubes. He'd float behind us, slip off his tube, swim underneath ours, and push us, face first, into the river. In thoery that would have been fine. I can swim, the water wasn't cold, but I wasn't about to start drinking it and being tossed face first, with no warning, tends to cause some unexpected inhalation. I managed to avoid being dunked, but Manda and Monica weren't so lucky.

We floated for a fair few miles. The river was relatively calm, punctuated by short stretches of "rapids". Rapids, consisting of turns where the water was slightly choppier than smooth. There wasn't any white water.

When we reached the end of the tubing adventure, we waiting for a truck to pick us up for the ride back to the Jungle Huts. We swam about in the river by the bank. The current in that location was quite strong, maybe it always was. There were a fair few splash fights and piggy back rides and probably quite of bit of water swallowed.

It was an excellent end to a outdoor adventure day. On the docket for tomorrow is more hiking. Yay leeches!