In the jungle, the mighty jungle

Don’t touch the yellow fluffy thing, said Cher, who was walking us through his piece of jungle in Doi Inthanon National Park.

His English being as good as our Thai, he mimed what would happen if we did, and clearly, it would be a rash thing to do.

We had traded the concrete jungle of Chiang Mai for one filled with flying lizards, gibbons and snakes, and were staying the night in a hut made from bamboo and concrete.

Cher was guiding us through the rainforest. Wearing blue gumboots and carrying a machete, he took us up a thin, winding track through the paddy fields and coffee plantations and into the forest.

We admired waterfalls, huge ants and dragonflies, tiny frogs, birds, lizards, a small snake and the really rather big giant Asian honeybee hive on a cliff. On the road was a squished flying snake and a banded krait, more venomous than a cobra, which were also lurking in the foliage.

The next morning we were invited in to share a cup of the freshest coffee in Thailand – a huge black kettle boiled away over an open fire, and within seconds they had hand-ground the beans and we were sipping the stuff.

Thirty years ago the Karen hilltribe people mainly grew opium but the King took a dim view of this, and now they produce coffee – supplying Starbucks and the rest of Thailand, as well as flowers and vegetables.
We drove to the summit of Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in the country, and admired the moss and New Zealand-like climate, it was cold, cloudy and drizzly.
It was time to return to the smoggy, crowded city full of monks and tuktuks.

I know which jungle I prefer.

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