Khao Yai National Park

Now that the first semester is about to finish, I'm finding that I have lost all interest in lesson plans and making worksheets, and have just decided to let all the paperwork do what it does best (pile up) and catch up with my blog. Have been really lazy at keeping it up to date, even though we've managed to fit some cool stuff in on the weekends.

Thailand's largest national park, Khao Yai, is a place we've been talking about visiting for years. But when it's a toss up between turquoise waters, white sand and a good book or hiking through leach infested jungle, strangely the jungle always lost out. This time though, when we were invited to join our friends in their chauffeur driven car (admittedly a rather large selling point), for an overnight trip up to Khao Yai, we thought we should make the effort.

We arrived around lunch time and had lunch at our guesthouse. I had kind of hoped that it would be slightly cooler where we were staying, but it was hotter than ever and when we ate our lunch sitting outside under a tin roof, it was like sitting in a tan cabin without the perks of getting brown. It took us all about half an hour before we crashed out on our beds (or wooden board might be a better name for it) trying to escape the heat.

Our first tour that evening was out to the bat caves. We went down into the caves where around 2000 insect eating bats were sleeping. Thankfully and surprisingly there was no smell, but there were creepy crawlies everywhere. Our tour turned into something out of fear factor as the guide tried to initiate us all into the wonderful world of underground bugs. Now I'm reasonably good with wildlife, but not when it comes to anything with over 4 legs. I have absolutely no desire in the world to have things crawl on me, for picture purposes or otherwise, call me a wimp, but many legged things just freak me out.

From the first cave we went on to watch the daily swarm of bats flying out from another cave. This cave had around 2 million bats inside and it takes around an hour for them all to fly out. Once outdoors and away from the bugs (or so I thought), it was cool to watch the endless stream of bats undulating across the sky on their way to find food. It wasn't long though, before our guide found something else freaky to harass, and everybody ended up taking turns wearing a rather large millipede (alright, I'll admit it, I wasn't game for this one either). We ended the evening tour with a dip in the dark in some cool, crystal clear, fresh water pools on the way back to the guesthouse.

Bright and early the next day, after a rather back breaking sleep, we piled in the back of a pick-up truck and headed out to the park. Pretty much as soon as you enter the park gates, you start climbing up the winding road into the hills. It's amazing how a little bit of height can make all the difference when it comes to air temperature. There are few places I visit in Thailand that I can call refreshing, but Khao Yai is one of them. That is at least until you decide to hike through the dense undergrowth of the jungle floor, then it's just wet.

Within about five minutes of getting into the park we spotted wild gibbons. These daredevil creatures were playing about 60 feet up in the tree tops, launching themselves from one thin bendy branch to another. Over the course of the day we were to see various feats of athleticism (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it), including tree hopping with babies and accidental base jumping out of trees. The most memorable thing about the gibbons though, was the constant noise from there howls and cries. Typical perhaps for the nation they reside in, they seem to sit next to each other and all shout at the same time without actually listening to what anybody has to say.

I'm sorry to say that while the gibbons were possibly the most impressive things we saw, they didn't hold my attention quite so much as something smaller and a lot less unique. Apparently the muddy forest floor of Khoa Yai is home to thousands of leaches. I'm not sure exactly how many I saw, but the moment we stopped and everybody else looked up into the trees to catch sight of the baby gibbon or some rare bird, I started looking down at the floor at the instant attraction my feet hold for leaches. It is quite shocking how fast they can move and find peoples feet to climb on to. I can now officially add leaches to the list creepies I don't like.

We ended up hiking through the jungle for about 3 hours (that's our group whose guide didn't get us lost). It was kind of cool as we were more off the beaten track than I expected us to be (hence some people got lost). We didn't see a huge amount; frogs, lizards, some cool birds, but it was still good to do something different. We had lunch at a tall viewing hut overlooking the salt lick where the wild elephants come and stand (sadly minus the elephants), before heading over to the waterfall and seeing some rather cheeky (and rude) macaques on route.

When we had entered the park that morning, about 4 ambulances shot past us with sirens blazing. Our guide told us there had been an accident at the waterfall the night before. It was while we were making jokes about the fact that it had taken them over 12 hours to respond with ambulances, that he told us a foreign man who was working as a teacher in Bangkok. The man had gone for a swim and got swept under by the force of the waterfall, then resurfaced before disappearing again. They were still looking for him 24 hours later when we arrived. Obviously we weren't given the option to swim (not that I think any of us fancied it). In fact the closest we could get to the waterfall was the viewpoint above. There were boats and divers still on site, and you could see the excessive amount of water coming down the falls due to the rain.

After the waterfall, when we were heading back towards the guesthouse, our eagle-eyed guide spotted a scorpion crossing the road and grabbed it before jumping in the back of the truck with up. He then proceeded to drop it on the floor of the truck. Thankfully he got it again quickly and it seemed to put up with the picture taking quite patiently. Needless to say that was one creepy crawly we were all rather happy to see removed from the truck.