Bus Crashes and Man-Eating Spiders (We're Fine, Promise!)

This weekend was an interesting one, to be sure. We planned to take a trip to Phuket Friday morning, but we overslept, so we decided to go to Khao Lak National Park and trek down to a beach about 1.5km away. To avoid paying the "farang" (foreigner) tax to get in, we went to the restaurant and bought a Coke, then hiked out from there. Coca-cola is the unquestioned Dominator of the beverage market here, and their aprons and cardboard cutouts are in every restaurant we've visited.

We started through the rain forest, and maybe 10 feet in, I see threads of a spider web going across our path. So, I duck down and slide under it. As I turn to wait for Derek, he has a terrified look on his face and can't spit out what's wrong. I'm thinking he's seen a ghost, or a giant snake, but for awhile he just gawks. Then, he points right above where I have just crossed to the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life (including TV programs). The spider, which we later learned is called a Golden Orb Web Spider, is about 8 inches from leg to leg and has bright yellow and red coloring on its body. There are yellow balls of color on the joints of its legs, and it has very beady eyes. We considered turning back, but to avoid wasting our trip, we nickname the spider "The Gatekeeper" and duck and run under him to continue. This is the best picture we could manage, but keep in mind, this is not life-size. It also dropped down a few inches while Derek was trying to get the picture, but thankfully climbed back up.

So, I give Derek the pleasure of leading purely out of self-preservation. It was a very long hike, and after the first 40 feet or so there was no longer any concrete path. Some of the path didn't look like a path at all, and it was difficult to do because I was in flip flops (having not realized that there would be no path after awhile) and when we'd make our way over the tiny path of sliding dirt over the edge of a hill, we were both sweating so profusely that if we tried to hold on to support the other over an obstacle, we'd slip trying to hold on to skin. It was immensely humid (duh! rainforest) and was a bit of a trek. We found 2 more Golden Orb spiders on our way. I think the second one we spotted placed himself there on purpose, because we were too far at that point to want to turn back for our efforts, but we weren't exactly ecstatic about crossing under another to get to the beach that may or may not even be at the end.

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Additional commentary from Derek:
I need to take a moment and mention something really quick. These aren't the spiders that you see in your house that are almost 2 inches across and you're afraid to hit with a magazine. I wouldn't go after this beast unless I had a shotgun, and even then I would put the odds of surviving at just about even. As I told Kendra at the time, when the spiders from Arachnophobia  all get together to watch a scary movie, they watch a nature documentary on these spiders. The spiders from Jumanji were based on these spiders. Kendra starts down the path and I go to take the camera out of the backpack, absently letting my gaze follow the lines of a web above the trail as I reach back and holy-hell-there's-a-spider-the-size-of-my-face! In the Book of Daniel, there's a prophesy about 'the abomination that causes desolation.' I think it's about this spider. The body of it was easily the size of my thumb and our estimate that it was 8in long with legs fits with the size we found when I looked it up. And there were 5 along the trail- 5 of the big ones, at least; I thought it best to let the ones Kendra didn't see go undetected.
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We got to the beach and enjoyed swimming. We brought goggles and saw a few fish. There were virtually no shells on the beach, and when I'd find one, I'd discover that it was always still occupied. The pretty shells are always taken by the hermit crabs and what I think is a clam, because it has a foot that looks like a loogie that it sticks in the sand to suck it further down. We see a lot of white sand crabs, which are becoming very familiar. They live in holes in the sand and run to the water's edge when the tide rolls in to gather their dinner. They roll the sand around their holes, probably while processing it for food.

We hiked back, which took almost no time at all, now that we were determined to get out of the rain forest by night fall. We were careful to avoid the big spiders that we knew of, and tried to film them for the folks back home with no luck - apparently, Khao Lak's citizens don't want anyone to know how big these spiders really are, for fear that it will scare toruists away (sorry, Jordan). That night, we baked more sugar cookies from dough left over from the Valentine's Day party. The next day, they were all gone, which means between the three of us (Annie included), we ate over 100 cookies in 24 hours. Unbelievable. So much for the "Thai Diet."

The next day, we planned to go to Phuket, but (shock!) we slept in and decided to bag it.

Sunday, though, we actually got up in time to go to Phuket, and we stood outside our building waiting for the bus, which comes every hour. Forty minutes in, we flag the bus down and ready ourselves for what we thought was an hour ride. Once we reached Phuket, the bus was unable to slam on its breaks fast enough (which happens every so often) and hit a van, shattering its rear window. As far as we could tell, no one was hurt, and we only slid forward in our seats with the stop. WE ARE UNINJURED and suffered almost no inconvenience from this wreck except to spend 45 minutes sitting on the bus, waiting for another. After a few minutes, we were approached by a German couple sitting behind us. They wanted to know if we'd be interested in splitting a taxi with them, so that we wouldn't have to wait around. We agreed, but when we tried to get off, the little bus boy made us turn around. No one could leave until the policeman was finished assessing the accident.

We finally got on another bus, ended up in the bus depot, and found out we had 5 hours to spend before our bus returned to Khao Lak. The only problem was, we had misjudged where the bus station was and were nowhere near any markets or malls or beaches. The city is the undisputed King of Tourism in Southern Thailand, and here we were at the bus stop, unwilling to spend the money for a cab to the water. We walked a ways and found some sidewalk shops. Eventually, we found a mall with coy in the fountain. And, we found a Mister Donut!!! Not exactly the same as back home, but highly anticipated! We were happy. We headed back early, because the hour long bus ride is actually two hours long, and we had run out of things to do.

Pretty good weekend overall!