Friday, October 8, 2021
3:00 a.m. Unknown Hotel
Sam Ngao, Thailand
I’m awake at three a.m. because I just happened to wake up at two-thirty. But now, the lights are on, I’m drinking coffee, and the MacBook is powered up because a large bug fell on my head. When I woke up at two-thirty, at first I just lay in bed wondering if I should get up or not. Obviously, in terms of getting enough sleep and feeling rested, I shouldn’t have. But I have a lot of things I want to do today, and I fell asleep the night before at exactly ten-thirty, which meant that I got four hours of solid and helpful sleep. In my present mood, those four hours could be enough.
Anyway, I decided I really should get more sleep, and I turned around on the bed and settled into my “trying to fall asleep” position. And just then, something big landed on my head. I didn’t know what it was. This room is wonderfully dark when the lights are off. But I had the sense it was an insect of some kind, most likely one of the big cockroaches they have here. I lay still for a while and waited for this creature to make its next move, but nothing happened. I felt I had no choice but to turn on the lights and see what was going on.
An important aspect to these situations is not only seeing what the creature is and getting it off your body, but also making sure it doesn’t scuttle into some inaccessible crack, from which it can reappear and launch a second assault on your head. With that in mind, I try not to react suddenly when things land on my head. I move slowly as I get out of bed, so as not to startle the creature and send it into hiding. I remember that happened all the time in Ethiopia, where my nights were punctuated with encounters with really big spiders. And I find it more difficult to co-exist with spiders than anything else. But if your goal is to kill the intruding spider, you have to be very precise in your attack. If you miss, the spider will disappear under your bed, behind your bed, or into your bed sheets, and now you will have no choice but to try to go to sleep in the full knowledge that a large spider is on the loose in your bedroom. Without my large mosquito net in Ethiopia, I might have gotten no sleep at all ever. There were simply too many creatures in all my rooms.
I moved slowly as I raised myself up off the bed, but I felt nothing moving on my head or body. I reached behind me to the light switch on the wall. It was probably a design accident, but a light switch and an electrical outlet are conveniently placed right there on the wall above the bed. They would have been better placed a foot to the left rather than right above the mattress, but at least it is there, and I found the switch and turned on the light. And after my eyes adjusted, I saw a large brown beetle on my brown pillow. It was a big fellow, and I was glad to see that it was not a cockroach.
All this time, my brain was trying to figure out the movements of this beetle. It had to have fallen from the air conditioner, which is (also placed rather poorly) right above the bed. But what caused it to fall? And why wasn’t it moving? It actually looked dead. I came to the conclusion that it had crawled into the air conditioner as a convenient place to hide, but it had quickly become overcome and gone into a kind of dormant state because of the intense cold air. Once frozen, it lost its grip and fell on my head.
I get ridiculously strategic in these situations, and I thought out my next move. How can I safely get this insect off my pillow without hurting it and without startling it such that it runs into the folds of my bedsheet? In the end, I needn’t have worried. It was so affected by the cold that it was largely unable to move. I raised the pillow gently off the bed and carried it over to the door. I opened the door and lowered the pillow to the ground and then gave it a jerk to shake the beetle off. It landed on the cement steps in front of me and then came to life and slowly started to crawl away. And that was the end of the drama.
I like that I’m thinking about a beetle being frozen and unable to move, because that ties in with the thoughts I had as I was falling asleep. I was thinking about petrified wood and people being petrified with fear. I found out yesterday, from fellow YouTuber Brett Hall, that the Petrified Wood Forest Park is located nearby. It is just off the main highway that runs down to Tak City from Sam Ngao and the north. I hadn’t planned to take the highway on my trip today. I was going to take my usual assortment of backroads. But with this new knowledge, I rethought my day, and I decided to make visiting the Petrified Wood Forest Park the highlight of today’s scooter ride. I knew about the Petrified Wood Forest Park. It comes up a lot when you discuss local attractions. But I thought it was located much farther away to the north. I had no idea it was close and right on the way to Tak City.
I haven’t done a tremendous amount of reading, but I did learn last night a little bit about petrified wood, petrified forests, and this park in particular. I haven’t committed to memory the exact process by which this happens, but petrified wood is essentially fossilized plant life. When conditions are just right, trees don’t rot away. Instead, their organic material is replaced with a type of silica and other minerals. In essence, the trees turn to stone, and we are left with a 3D stone replica of a once organic tree.
According to the park’s website, the first petrified tree at this park was discovered by a local villager in October of 2003. I have no idea how this villager would have recognized a piece of petrified wood or understood its significance, but he reported it to the National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department, and an officer was dispatched to investigate. This tree trunk was excavated in stages over time, and when it was fully uncovered, it was found to be 72.2 meters in length, which is the height of a 20-storey building. And it turns out that this length is significant. I read in a Bangkok Post article that the current Guinness World Record holder is a petrified tree in China that measures at a mere 38 meters. This fossilized tree in Thailand is nearly double its length, and I understand that efforts are currently underway to claim the world record for this tree in Thailand.
It’s surprisingly difficult to track down the possible ages of the at least forty petrified trees in this park. I haven’t found a statement as yet that just comes out and says that the petrified trees are X number of years old. However, I have found articles that refer to the gravel deposits in which the trees were found. And these are estimated to be over 800,000 years old. Presumably, the petrified trees are as old or older than that.
As an attraction, the Petrified Wood Forest Park appears to fall into that category of how you feel about it depends on how you approach it. Personally, I know that I will find it fascinating. I already find it fascinating and I haven’t even been there. I’m fascinated enough just by the reading I’ve done about the process of how petrified trees are formed. But other people, who seek it out on a pleasure holiday, would probably come away underwhelmed and wonder why they even bothered to visit. The reviews on Tripadvisor are quite funny from that point of view. The first review I saw reads in part, “You get to see five very poorly preserved fossilized tree trunks. I stopped as I saw the sign driving by, but you’ll see better at your average furniture store in Thailand.” But the very next review strikes a distinctly more positive tone: “This is an exceptionally interesting and well presented park of fossilized trees. There are five trees to visit, and one is really a giant.” Clearly, I would prefer to hang out with the second person.
I’m also fascinated because I instantly thought of the expression “petrified with fear.” The connection is obvious: these trees were literally turned to stone. And a frightened person is often frozen in fear and unable to move. They have been figuratively petrified. I wouldn’t say my beetle friend was petrified, but it was frozen by the cold and equally unable to move.
I also began to wonder about the relationship between fossils and petrified trees. I did a bit of reading, and I learned that they are strongly related but still different. A fossil, it turns out, is any evidence of life that has been preserved. Therefore, the remains of an animal in rock can be a fossil. But footprints preserved in rock are also fossils. And a petrified tree is a fossil. But not all fossils are petrified. The basic idea is that fossilization includes a range of processes by which organic matter becomes fossilized. Petrification is just one of those. It’s confusing, but I think I have it clear in my head: all petrified trees are fossils. But not all fossils are petrified. And with that background, I think I have enough information to enjoy a visit to the park today.
Brett also told me that on the big highway down to Tak, I will pass by a Flintstones-themed coffee shop. I looked for it on Google Maps, but I couldn’t locate it. Hopefully, I will be able to spot it. Brett mentioned that there is a large statue of Fred Flintsone, so I hope it is one of those things that you can’t help but see. On my last visit to this area, I learned that it is well-known for the granite found here. I even visited a large granite-processing site. And the Flintstone coffee shop presumably is a result of the importance of stone to this area’s economy.
I’m not sure what else I will discover today. But perhaps the Petrified Wood Forest Park and the Flintstone coffee shop is enough for one scooter ride. And at the end of my ride, I have an extremely pleasant surprise waiting for me. A Mystery Benefactor knows about my intention to spend a couple of nights in Tak, and he reserved and paid for a room for me at the Soho Boutique Hotel. I have two nights of relative luxury waiting for me in Tak City. This hotel even offers a breakfast buffet. On top of that, this hotel is located right downtown and just a short walk away from a bridge across the river that is probably the city’s most visually interesting attraction.
6:30 a.m.
I decided to go back to bed for a couple of hours. I was writing about the petrified forest until four, and then I slept until six. I was lucky in that I was able to go back to sleep. At four, I could feel that I wasn’t quite right for the day. I needed more gas in the tank. I feel better prepared now.
I also feel good because I don’t anticipate this being a particularly long riding day. I don’t have the urge to get on the road as soon as possible. The Soho Boutique Hotel is fifty-four kilometers away by the most direct route on the main highway. Even with stopping at the Petrified Wood Forest Park and the Flintstone coffee shop, I anticipate a leisurely day. Knock on wood.
Most of yesterday morning was dedicated to getting caught up on YouTube-related activities. Because of the effort involved in riding to Sam Ngao, I wasn’t even ready to do anything until ten in the morning anyway. And the afternoon was dedicated to hanging out with Brett at a nearby and very nice coffee shop. I’d sent Brett an email, and he replied, and we arranged to meet at two p.m. I’d noticed a coffee shop just a block or two from my hotel. I stopped there on my way to meet Brett, and concluded it was worth checking out. I think it was called the GameKao Cafe. From the decor, they clearly had established the place from a love of coffee. It was a place where they took coffee seriously, and they had displays to educate their customers on the vocabulary of coffee.
It turns out that Brett wasn’t actually a coffee guy. In fact, he wasn’t a fan of hot drinks at all. I didn’t know that about him. But he gamely ordered an iced latte. I had my usual hot latte. Unfortunately, the latte was lukewarm at best. That was a disappointment. This is such a common occurrence, I’m starting to think that in Thailand, it is considered proper to serve a milk-based coffee just lukewarm. However, GameKao made up for that with the quality of their service, an extra cup of piping hot tea, and a complimentary cup of another iced drink. The server brought the special iced drink over to us to try out, and I loved it. It was a clear liquid on ice served in a clear glass cup. And it had a slight tang to it. At first I was going to say it was a type of iced tea. But the tang made me think of a kind of fruit. I asked the server for the name, and he told me, but I don’t remember what he said. I really should take advantage of all the technology I have and do things like record people when they speak. My phone can do at least a dozen useful things that I never take advantage of during the course of a normal day.
Brett and I had a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation throughout the afternoon. We touched on a lot of interesting topics, and afterwards, I thought again that I wish I had set up a camera and recorded the whole thing. Recording our conversation would have made a much more interesting video than anything I’ve ever put together. Of course, considering our common interests, we did tend to veer back toward the topic of technology and gadgetry quite often. And Brett told me that he had come across a couple of products online, and he ordered them for me. They could be waiting for me by the time I get back to Mae Sot. Brett pays careful attention to what I say about my various cameras and microphones and gadgets in my videos, and when he sees a product that might solve one of my issues, he likes to send one to me. Brett is a “pay it forward” kind of guy.
I am particularly excited about one of these items. It consists of a camera mounting device that attaches to the shoulder strap of a knapsack. But what gets me interested is that it comes with some special adapters and attachments. It’s based on the GoPro quick release buckle mount. But the buckle mount is attached to a swivel that can rotate through 360 degrees. This buckle mount has the traditional GoPro mounting fingers. But this package also includes a rectangular strap designed to hold the Pocket 2. I’ve never seen one of these before, but it is designed to wrap around the handle of the Pocket 2 and then attach to the GoPro finger mounts. There are several potential advantages to this system, and I’m excited about putting it to the test. I like the ability to rotate the mount on the swivel. Any mount that is attached to a knapsack shoulder strap will often end up on an angle. It won’t be possible to have it oriented straight up and down. And this swivel will be able to adjust for that. And the special Pocket 2 grip might work on a regular hand grip as well. If that works well, it would bypass the need for a tripod-mount-to-GoPro-finger-mount adapter. It isn’t really possible to know in advance if this would work. As always, this is something that I would try to do. But this device was never made for that. There are no photographs of it being used in this way. I won’t be able to know for sure if it will work until I physically have it and can try it out.
By the time Brett and I had dealt with about fifty different conversation topics, the afternoon was over and evening had begun. We had even gotten kicked out of the coffee shop proper, because they closed at four. But we then sat at a counter on their outside verandah for another hour. The coffee shop owners even brought us another cup of hot tea out there. I enjoyed mine very much. Brett the non-hot-drink enthusiast didn’t touch his. It was finally time to say our goodbyes, but we ended up talking for probably another hour while standing beside his car. I enjoyed our conversation very much. The way we talked, you’d think that there was a going-out-of-business sale on English words, and we had to use them all up before they were all gone.
The evening passed in pleasant fashion as I worked on some videos and read about petrified trees and did other things. I could easily spend a week here in Sam Ngao and enjoy myself greatly. With my habits, I could spend a month here comfortably. But on this trip, I had only one day, and I didn’t actually use it to explore more of the town. I’m reluctant to leave, but I now have the city of Tak to explore. I hope to arrive relatively early this afternoon. I want to arrive with lots of light in the sky so that I can appreciate the SOHO Boutique Hotel in daylight, settle into my room, and perhaps even walk down to the bridge over the river to end the day there.
And with that, I think it is time to start packing up. The weather forecast is calling for the magical combination of sunny intervals and a gentle breeze. It would likely be an ideal day for my usual slow ramble through the countryside. But I’m going to switch things up and take the big highway most of the time. I’m a bit torn about that. I’d prefer to go along sideroads, but I don’t want to get distracted, and I want to reserve my energy for the experience of the petrified trees.