Picture taken in 2010, on a jungle trek in Koh Sok national park, Thailand.
The jungle exhales
carnal shades from leafy maw -
the cave a gateway.
These jungle treks in Koh Sok national park in Thailand are an experience I will never forget. I won't lie, being of northern stock with Irish ancestry the heat was a challenge. I spent half of the trek leaping in jungle pools fully clothed... anything to stay cool 😂
Struggeling through the mud I decided to just fall back and embrace the cooling waters, Koh Sok national park, Thailand.
At the heart of my memories of this stay in the jungle lies an underlying thirst for adventure. I'm pretty certain that the Thai rangers leading the trek viewed the whole thing as just another day's work, but this is all part of what makes travel so rewarding. Sharing their knowledge of the plants and animals in the jungle, particularly the millions of critters that could kill me, opened my mind to what lies at the beating heart of the jungle's ecosystems. They don't call it the law of the jungle for nothing!
There is so much life thrumming in the air of a tropical rainforest like Koh Sok, you can almost taste the chlorophyll in the air and smell the trees growing.
Pictures taken one morning when I took a canoe and stalked wild monkey in Koh Sok national park, Thailand.
The title image, and haiku inspired by it, are a metaphor for what lends travel its mystical feel. During the trek we passed through a cave system that started near to the top of a hill and emerged at the base of the valley. Delving into the darkness felt like passing into another world, cool and silent after the cacophony of the forest, our only companions roosting bats and giant cave spiders.
Picture of one of my travelling companions who joined me stalking wild monkeys, and our jungle accommodation 🌿
This passing from one world to another describes what many feel through adventure travel on a metaphysical level. In many ways it is a passing from one state to another, a journey that indelibly transforms you, like the jungle caterpillar entering the chrysalis to emerge finally with golden wings.
“Travelling - it leaves you speechless then turns you into a storyteller.”
― Ibn Battuta
To read more about the aesthetics of true haiku, and the difference between haiku and senryu, please check out my post: Haiku Vs Senryu - The Aesthetics of Form
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