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Kon-Tiki – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin. Welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Kon-Tiki. So I was thinking I would tell you a little story about an adventure that I had many years ago. It was just making me think with this conversation, Kon-Tiki, and how it was this adventure that these men from Norway had on the ocean, I just thought, wow, maybe I could tell a story about an adventure I had.

Now this is nothing compared to the adventure these men had back many years but it’s still a little…a little adventure nonetheless. Many, many years ago, AJ and I were in Thailand. We visited Thailand and it was our first time going. And we spent about a month there and at one point we went down to the southern part of Thailand. We went to a rainforest. It’s called…it’s still there…it’s called Khao Sok National Park.

So we stayed there, I don’t know, a week, maybe a little less. While we were there it was raining a lot.

This was during the rainy season. So unfortunately many days we didn’t get to do a whole lot because it was raining. After a few days of rain, one day it stopped. It was sunny so we decided let’s go on a hike.

And we had a guide book. We’d found this Buddhist monastery in the area that was in this cave. We thought, wow, that sounds interesting. Why don’t we try and hike to this…to this Buddhist monastery in this cave.

So we had kind of a general map and we asked some people I think, this one Australian man who was managing the place where we were staying, asked him how to get there. I can’t even remember if he…if he was able to kind of guide us in the right direction or not. But anyway, we had a general idea where we needed to go.

So we start walking and having a good time but after a while it’s seeming like, “Hmm, maybe we’re lost.

We don’t…Where is this cave?” As we’re walking and walking, we’re not finding it. We figure we would have found the cave by…by now. So we actually, we did end up finding another cave but it wasn’t the Buddhist monastery. It ended up being a really nice little cave. But we thought, y’know, we really want to find this Buddhist monastery cave so let’s just keep looking.

So we keep on walking on this path and, as I said, it had been raining a lot. So suddenly we’re walking and walking and this area had gotten flooded so there was a lot of water in the area from all the rain. And as we’re walking, I suddenly…I slowly am realizing that what started out as being kind of just a little bit of water on the ground, some mud, was actually coming…the water was coming up to the point where it got up to our knees.

So…and I’m in shorts. AJ’s in shorts. And I just have sandals on, no socks. There’s leeches in the area.

Leeches are these…they’re kind of like a big fat worm but they stick to you and they suck your blood.

You don’t feel it. It doesn’t hurt, but that’s how they live. They suck blood. So there’s leeches in the area. Luckily we didn’t have any on us. But we’re also walking and our legs and feet are unprotected.

We don’t know…this water it’s up to our knees, and we don’t know what’s down below us.

We’re just in the jungle. Jungle is like a forest, like, y’know, I said, like this Khao Sok is a rainforest. So we…AJ at one point asked me, “Should we keep going?” and I said, “Yeah, yeah, let’s keep going.” So we’re walking and I’m a little nervous already but all of a sudden I hear this slapping noise; this slapping noise on the water. And immediately, what it sounded like to me because I’ve heard this sound before. It sounded like a large tail slapping the water.

So what I start thinking is that sounds like a crocodile tail. I haven’t actually…crocodile is a large reptile, like looks like a huge lizard if you don’t know. Alligator is of a different family. They look very similar.

Crocodiles get a lot bigger. Crocodiles can eat people. Alligators can, too, I think but they’re a little smaller.

So I had heard that sound from alligators slapping their tails on water or just like when they…when they’re on land and they go into water, their stomachs when they hit the water, they hit the surface of the water it can make that sound. So I think that I…I must have known that there were crocodiles in Thailand at that time. I don’t think that there really are now. I think that they’re…y’know, they’ve become extinct in the wild so you can’t really find them in the wild anymore.

But I froze when I heard that sound. And, of course, we’re in this water up to our knees. You can’t even see down to the ground where our feet are. It’s so muddy from the rain. So I just froze. I just stopped and I was really scared thinking, “Oh my gosh, there’s a crocodile and it could swim up to us and just grab our legs and just, y’know, eat us.”

So AJ about that time took a picture of me and I look…I’m smiling, I’m trying to smile but I look a little scared, too. So after I heard that noise I said, “AJ, I think I’m…I’m ready to go back. I don’t think we’re going to find this…this Buddhist monastery in this cave. I think we’re lost. Let’s just go back the way we came.”

So he agreed and until we got out of that water I was pretty nervous just thinking, “Oh my gosh, is it down, y’know, around my feet and I can’t see it. Is it going to get me?” Looking back now, I don’t know that that’s what it was. But it was pretty frightening at the time. So we did, we made it back okay.

Nothing happened. We made it back leech free. We didn’t have the little…little things on our bodies sucking our blood, which was nice.

So that was…that’s my little adventure. And I have a couple of pictures. They’re not great pictures because they’re pretty old that I’m going to put at the end of this video. One of me in the water, like I was telling you, that AJ took where I’m smiling but I look a little scared. I look a little nervous. And then there’s one of AJ in the cave that we did find that I told you about. So I think you’ll get a good laugh at seeing AJ and I from many years ago.

Alright, so that’s my story of my little adventure for this commentary. If you have any stories, adventures of your own, post them on the Ning site. I’d love to hear from you.

Alright, that’s all for this month’s lesson, Kon-Tiki. I’ll see you next month.