Today was definitely a day that tested my comfort with western/ modern culture and lifestyle. We took a short plane flight to Trang (pronounced trong) where we met a few more doctors that we would be working with. The medical supplies wouldn't be making it to the hospital, so surgery was pushed back until tomorrow. Dr. Sam Su Ran the main Thai opthomologist of this mission planned a few pit stops on our way to the hotel since our day was now open. First stop, lunch. I was excited to try authentic Thai food as compared to Americanized Thai food, I just hoped for nothing too spicy or to out of the ordinary. The dishes ended up being quite normal and things I had eaten before in the US. I was a little worried when out Thai friends told us to not drink the water until they made sure it was ok. It ended up being fine, but made me a little nervous for future stops.
The next place we stopped was a cave. We took a boat down a river to get to it and once inside we came to a stop where we could get out, our guide showed us different formation from the cave rocks which were quite interesting. My favorite was all the tree roots that were in the cave from above. The two events that happened next was something that I was completely unprepared for. The cave ceilings were quite low, having to duck at times, but it was lit by lights through the walls. On our way out and back on the boat, we turned right instead of going straight out and kept going into the dark, our guide told us to lie all the way down and not to move. With a dinky flashlight he pushed us deeper into the dark side of the cave as the ceiling got lower and lower. it came so low that my nose would gently brush the ceiling. I had to keep myself calm and not think about it, after about 5 minutes Katie asked how much longer and he said "300 meters"! It felt like forever, John made the time pass with some jokes and finally we saw light. Our guides kept trying to ensure we were alright with "believe me, very exciting, believe me!". I was happy to finally see light and eventually sit up right. Getting out of the boat and still laughing about our extravaganza my mom found me and quickly told me to come look at the monkeys! I saw a few up in the tree's, but one of them was quietly sitting on the roof. Being touristy we "ooed and awwed" over the monkey until we were interrupted when we heard a loud noise and the monkey fell off the roof falling face first to the ground. I thought someone had shot him, but there were no signs of blood. The little monkey just reached out to us as he swayed and fell. His eyes rolling to the back of his head as he tryed to find somewhere safe. Confused on what happened to this poor animal I asked Nancy what had happened and she pointed and said "that man in the black shirt hit him with a sling shot", I looked at the coward and saw him laughing, he approached us and in broken english said that the monkey was crazy. At that point it took everything in my power not to scream at this worthless human being and take a sling shot to his head. I looked back at the monkey still reaching out to us as he obviously showed signs of head trauma. Kim had tears in her eyes as she took me back to the van knowing I would make a scene if I weren't pulled away. The man was still laughing.I sat in the van and looked around and noticed some monkeys eating from the trash cans. They were probably pests to these people, but this is their home too. They are the ones in their home and in no way were this monkeys threatening them or putting them in danger. If anything another tourist attraction and another way to bring people to their stupid cave. On the way to our next destination I tried to not think about the monkey, but I couldn’t help it. It bothered me so much. and why? It was only a monkey right? I thought a little deeper, if that was in America and someone had shot a squirrel with a sling shot just for fun, people would be extremely upset and if this person did that all the time, some sort of animal abuse unit would be called. Sure its "just a squirrel", but we realize that it feels and can experience pain, we give something horrible like that for no reason? Grrrrrr.
I ended up falling asleep and when I woke up we reached our third pit stop, the beach! Absolutely beautiful. Colorful umbrellas decorated the un-crowded shore giving it a tropic feel. After 20 minutes of picture taking and gawking, we were brought to the shade of the tree to a big table filled with food, i looked at my watch, only 3 hours since we had eaten last, wow these people sure like to feed us. The meal was definitely more exotic then the first. Sea snails, kfdklsfjdk, and durran. My first encounter with durran, luckily was a good one, but I would soon despised this fruit. With durran its only appropriate to cover all the senses. Let's start with sight, durran is about the size of a soccer ball, spiky and has a thick outer layer about 2 inches thick. AND that’s just how it looks. Moving on to the SMELL. overly ripe fruit + dirty socks + BO + propane= durran aka smells HORRIBLE. At least we were at the ocean and the smell was diluted a bit. The taste and feel of the durran is less horrible of the smell (thankfully). It quite mushy which is the reason I didn't care for it, but the taste is a nutty almond flavor, hard to explain. Finally we got to our hotel, I mean our resort (Bara Resort). I knew it was "nice" for a country hotel because of the toilet. It's a flushing, toilet paper included, western toilet, thank you Jesus. I all for trying new things, but I'll stick to the western style toilet, I'm over this squatting, drip dry what not.
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