Khao Yai

I’ve decided that I’m going back to Khao Yai. My father is against the idea, naturally. On the phone he kept trying to talk me out of it.

“You know that we worry about you.”

“I know.”

“And we just want to know that you’re safe. Last time you went there we were very concerned. We couldn’t contact you for days.”

He doesn’t seem to understand that that’s the point. The lack of contact. The ability to disconnect from society, to sever the cord that feels so permanent and so real for most of our lives. You always have to reconnect but it feels nice to escape, if only for a short while.

“It sounded like you had a bit of a rough time the last time you went there, getting lost and everything…”

“I wasn’t lost.”

“Well, you said you couldn’t find the path again and had to trek through the rainforest.”

“I wasn’t lost. I knew where I was. I just didn’t know how to find where I had been before.”

“Well, I fail to see the distinction.”

The story of his life, he never seems to see the distinction. I agreed to stay in contact every day to assuage his fears. I told him that the phone connection is poor, so I’ll send him emails to stay in contact, one a day.

“Are you taking your Sertraline?”

“Yes dad, of course.”

“Every day? Because you know the doctor said that it has a build-up effect. You can’t take it one day and then skip it the next day.”

“Yes dad, I was there when the doctor told you that.”

His heart is in the right place. He cares, he genuinely wants what’s best for me, and I do know that.

I asked about everyone back home, allowing him a few minutes of small talk to calm himself down, before making my excuses to get off the phone. He asked when I’m coming home. I told him soon, then hung up.

I’ve been travelling for 6 months now, the classic tourist trail through Southeast Asia. Starting in Bangkok and then through Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Vietnam next, Ho Chi Minh first and then up to Hanoi. After, West into Laos, stopping in Luan Prabang on the way across to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. Then on my way back down South to Bangkok, I passed Khao Yai National Park.

After all that travelling doing the classic backpacker stuff, drugs and alcohol, late nights blending into early mornings, hostels and cheap bar crawls, what I enjoyed the most was a complete change of pace.

Khao Yai is a large patch of rainforest a few hours North of Bangkok, up in the mountains. The communist rebels fled here back in the 70s to escape persecution. I can understand why. Mist rises out of the lush jungle mountains and sometimes doesn’t evaporate off until late morning, giving it an ethereal otherworldly feel. The elevation means that the temperature is much cooler than the surrounding lowlands. The Thai heat and humidity are still there but slightly dialled back, making long treks through the forest manageable.

I had a strange feeling when I was there, like I was somewhere familiar, despite this being my first time in Khao Yai. So many scams in the outside world encourage you to reconnect with your ancestral roots. Follow the caveman diet. Live like palaeolithic man. Stick to the ancestral tenets. Become a primal man. There’s almost always some fucking stupid product behind these slogans, but the slogans work on so many of us for a reason. There is something that you feel when you step into the wilderness. Stepping into a truly untamed and untouched landscape, disconnecting from the man-made world outside, it felt like I was returning home.

In my first visit there I saw gibbons howling in the treetops. I saw an entire troop of macaques walking along a riverbank in a carefully organised hierarchy. I saw two large horned lizards that I couldn’t identify fighting over a small insect. I saw a giant fruit bat hanging from a tree, unaware of me watching it while it slept. I saw an iguana with brilliant green scales scurrying along a rotten tree trunk that had fallen alongside the trail I was walking along.

The most impressive thing though, was when I saw a solitary male elephant. It wasn’t quite fully grown, an adolescent or young adult, and it had lost half of one tusk at some point. I was on an isolated stretch of road when it happened. I had stopped to listen to the sounds of the jungle around me. I had heard a crashing sound coming from the trees and had been waiting to see what emerged. When it did stroll out of the jungle, it stopped in front of me and began rubbing each foot on the concrete lip at the edge of the road. It worked at a slow methodical pace, dragging each foot in turn along the rough surface, unbothered by my presence, before ambling off into the undergrowth with the easy confidence of an animal with no natural predators. Within seconds it was gone, swallowed whole by the jungle.

The things I saw there beat any temple, any palace, any man-made structure I had seen in any of the cities that I had visited so far. The tourist trail lost its appeal after my first visit. Even after the events of the final day.

***

I had set off early in order to avoid walking in the midday sun. I was staying at a small hotel just outside the national park and had rented a scooter. The 125cc engine struggled to drag me up the steep mountain roads, slowing down to half speed on the harsher inclines, but after 40 minutes of riding without stopping I made it from my hotel to the visitor’s centre in the middle of the national park. It was still only 6:30am and the lone cafe there had yet to open. Instead of waiting to get some food I decided to head straight out onto the trails.

Next to the visitor’s centre they had a noticeboard with various signs. One large sign in red and white said no drugs or alcohol allowed inside the park. I nodded in approval. No need for pollutants in the bloodstream in a place like this. Another advertised how to hire a trail guide. No need for that. In the corner I found the hiking trail map I was looking for, with routes numbered 1-9. They seemed to increase in difficulty as they ascended. Number 1-3 were short routes, 4- 9 ranged from a 3km hike up to an 18km trek, all through deep jungle. Unlike the first three, these had the words ‘Trail Guide: mandated’ printed next to them. I located Trail 6 on the map, a 12km trek to a waterfall, and set out.

I decided that if I started now, I could gain a head start on any other groups trekking the same trail. According to the signs, the guides didn’t start work until 8, so I could gain some ground on them and enjoy the route, without anyone questioning why I was alone.

Out on the trail it was pure bliss. People think of the jungle as being quiet, but it’s not. It has its own hum of activity, not unlike a city. The call of birds high above, the crashing sound of running water, the rustle of leaves in the breeze, and most of all the constant whine and buzz of insects all around. The jungle is full of life and I felt like a part of that from the moment I stepped off the road and onto the trail.

The markings to start the trail were clear and I made sure I walked at a good pace, to take advantage of the cool morning weather and to get a good head start in case anyone else joined the trail later in the day. By mid-morning I was several kilometres in and decided to take a break. The trail loosely followed a river for large stretches, and just by never straying too far from the sound of the flowing water I had been able to find my way without issue. I stopped at a small set of rapids, where several large stones formed a natural crossing to the river. I crawled out across them, took off my sweat-soaked shirt and sat down on the largest rock in the middle of the river.

The heat was starting to pick up now and it felt good to drink cold water with the warm sun on my bare skin. I stretched out on the rock, with my shirt beneath me and my rucksack as a pillow, and allowed my thoughts to drift. The white noise of the flowing water and the sounds of the jungle around me soothed me and I closed my eyes as I lay there.

After some time, my eyes opened. Nothing startled me or caused this to happen, but my eyes opened. I looked to my left and made eye contact. It took me a moment to register what I was looking at. A macaque, a large male by the looks of it, was watching me from a tree near the riverbank. It looked neither angry nor scared, it was just looking at me with intense curiosity in its eyes, like a doctor waiting for a patient to wake up from a complicated surgical procedure. Although I had no way of knowing this, I got the sense that it had been watching me for quite some time.

It jumped down from its vantage point and climbed onto a fallen tree that crossed the river just a few feet behind where I was sitting. I tried not to move while still keeping my eyes on it. As it walked along the tree, there was a brief moment when it was in the blind spot behind me. I didn’t dare to turn my head in case the movement startled the creature. The hairs on the back of my exposed neck stood up as I imagined sharp fangs sinking into my soft flesh. Several long seconds later, I saw the macaque emerge on my right side, walking along the fallen tree until it disappeared from view on the opposite riverbank.

The encounter made me feel like I had been caught poking around somebody’s house while they weren’t there. I decided to get back on the trail to calm myself down, but it didn’t help the deep feeling of uneasiness. The heat had picked up while I had rested, and the jungle noises seemed louder than before. The pleasant hum of insect life and rustling leaves was replaced by a cacophony of noise. Rushing water, whining insects and malicious whispering wind overwhelmed me and I felt a lump developing in my throat as my heartbeat thundered out of control. A knot of hunger was growing in my stomach now as well and I began to regret my decision to not bring any food with me.

I tried to ignore these thoughts and direct this surge of unwanted adrenaline into some forward progress. I began sweating profusely and my clothes started to rub and chafe. My feet were developing blisters as my old trainers weren’t holding up to the demands of the trek. Tree roots seemed to snake out under my feet to trip me and the vines of hanging jungle creepers tugged at my clothes as I laboured down the path.

After several minutes I came to a point in the path where a huge tree had fallen. The way forward was blocked. The tree had managed to drag several other surrounding trees down with it and a collection of other jungle plants in the process. Climbing over or under was out of the question, the only way was around.

It took me at least 10 minutes to circumnavigate the blockage. Straying off the path made each footstep an uncertain one, as anything could be lurking in the detritus of the forest floor. By the time I had made it to the other side I realised that I should have made note of some markers, to know which point to return to on this side of the trees. It was too late for that now. I returned to a likely point on the other side and found a trail leading off into the jungle. Easy enough, no need to panic after all.

The feeling of relief from solving the puzzle of the fallen trees soon turned to complacency. I felt glad to put those negative experiences behind me and settled into a good rhythm walking. However, after about an hour I realised that the trail was becoming harder and harder to follow. While initially I had allowed my mind to wander while I walked, enjoying the sights and sounds around me as my body propelled me forwards, now it require an increasing effort to discern where the trail was leading me. It seemed to have almost petered out.

I looked back behind me and realised that where I had just come from was no clearer. All I could see was jungle in all directions around me. No markers, no trails, no distinguishing features. Even worse, the familiar sound of flowing water, that had been a constant throughout my hike, had disappeared at some point without me realising it. I was lost.

A strange thing happened when I realised this. I began to smile. A feeling of complete calmness descended over me like a warm blanket on a cold night. I was alone.

I allowed myself a moment to drink this feeling in. I’m not sure what I had expected to feel, but this surprised me. I didn’t feel lonely. True loneliness requires the proximity of people. That’s why big cities are the loneliest places in the world. This feeling was something different, with the complete absence of people there was an absence of loneliness. It was intoxicating, and I had to stay with it for a while. I sat down on a clear patch of ground and leaned back against the roots of a large tree. I closed my eyes and rested there for a while. Whether it was a few minutes or a few hours I’m not sure.

When I opened my eyes, I decided that I should leave.

Although the sun was lower in the sky now, I realised that my only hope was to retrace my steps. I had to find the river. It was my only surefire way out of here if I couldn’t find the path. The waterfall at the trail’s end was upstream, so if I could follow the river, I would eventually reach it. The national park would be shut by then, with the only two roads in and out sealed off for the night, but at least I would be back to safety. It would take me longer this way, but it was a guaranteed path to safety. The main problem was the remaining hours of daylight. If I was still in here when the sun went down, I was in real danger.

I retraced my steps as best I could, but the path I had been following looked different going in the opposite direction. It must have been an animal track I was following. For a long time I felt like there was no trail at all, I was just moving through the jungle wherever I could find a gap to fit through. The light was beginning to fade now as the sun finished its fatal descent.

Just as I was beginning to feel the panic starting to rise again, I heard the sound of crashing water far in the distance. It was faint but it was there, the unmistakable sound of life, beckoning me back into the world again. I rushed towards it until I burst through the trees to see the river. From there the journey was easy despite the dwindling light. Through the twilight I marched along the riverbank, staying as close as possible to the water's edge. Even after the sun had set, my progress slowed but I was able to make my way by following the river upstream and never straying too far from the sound of the water.

By the time I made it to the waterfall, it had been dark for several hours. I stumbled out of the jungle and into the road, dirty and dishevelled. The national park was closed, and the area was deserted. The only source of light came from a small park rangers’ outpost. As I approached it, I caught one of the park rangers by surprise. He had been leaning against the building smoking a cigarette in his camo uniform when we noticed each other. We both stopped moving, regarding the other like you would a wild animal that had been encountered out on the trail. After a long pause, he grabbed the walkie talkie from his hip and began speaking frantically into it.

***

I’ve decided that I’m going back to Khao Yai. There was something about that first trip, a feeling that I’ve been unable to replicate in the outside world. I need to experience it again. I’m aware of the risks and I’ve made peace with them. Whatever happens, happens. All I know is that I have to go back. This time I’m doing Trail 9. The longest one on the map, 18km through the jungle. I’ve heard rumours of a branch off the trail that leads to an abandoned ranger’s outpost. I might try to find it. I might not. The best plans are flexible, and anyway, the real destination is mental rather than physical. I need to feel that feeling again, just one more time.