Monkeys, Leech/tick socks, and wild elephants

Ok, so they’re not actually monkeys, but I call everything that is a primate (other than gorillas and orangutans), monkeys. I think most people probably do that (?) Anyway, I went to Khao Yai National Park on Saturday to escape the concrete jungle and get back into nature, of the forest variety. Khao Yai was the first national park in Thailand, established in 1962. It’s home to tons of different species of plants and wildlife, including tigers (just a handful left), bears, wild boars, snakes, lizards, birds, gibbons, and macaques, among many others. It is also an important habitat for around 250 or so wild elephants, which are becoming more and more rare in Thailand as their habitat is destroyed through logging and development. The trees in the park were awesome in their enormity and it felt great to breathe in some clean, fresh, earthy air.

Unfortunately for me, since I really wanted to get out there on my own, the park is not easily explained alone as it is quite large and the trails are not very clear in a lot of cases. So the only real option that makes sense is to go with an organized group from one of the guest houses. BUT, due to transportation details which I will not bore you with, I didn't arrive to Pak Chong as early Friday morning as I anticipated, and so I wasn't able to catch a group that day and had to wait til the next day. In order to entertain myself, I went into town to see the market and then lounged by the really peaceful little pool behind the guest house in the afternoon. On the up side, our guide ended up being an excellent animal spotter—he saw things that I never would have had a chance of seeing on my own . He also had really powerful binoculars for us to take turns using. Besides me our guide and driver, our group consisted of a middle-aged French Canadian couple and a young German couple. Interestingly, out of the Thai guide, the Germans, and the Canadians, the Canadians' English was the most difficult to understand!

We left from the guest house in a songthaew, bundled in long pants and sweaters since it was actually cold there (relatively speaking). When we arrived at the park, our guide gave us leech/tick-protecting socks that we slipped on over our socks and pants, with drawstrings that are tied just below the knees. This time of year is not bad for leeches (been there, done that!), but there are a lot of ticks (lots and lots of very tiny ones) that carry Lyme disease just like at home.

The down side of the group scenario was that our 'hike' ended up being more of a meandering ramble through the forest, when what I really wanted was a severe ass-kicking. But again, it was a trade-off, because our guide was able to point out things like where a wild boar had sharpened its fangs on the bark of a tree, claw marks from a bear extending up the heighth of another tree, a type of eagle far off in the distance (but clearly visible through the binoculars), monitor lizards, barking deer, several gibbons high high up in the tree canopy, swinging from branch to branch. and mud that an elephant had rubbed against a tree. We saw a lot of traces of elephant in the form of huge turds, but the guide told us that it was very rare to bump into elephants mid-trail.

But, as we emerged from the forest into a stretch of grassland, headed to a lookout tower for lunch, our guide spotted a group of seven elephants in the distance. I was VERY excited since I am genuinely a little obsessed with elephants. They were far away, but it was still exciting in that waiting-for-the-big-game-and-it-suddenly-appears African safari kind of way (not that I've ever been, but it's how I imagine it to be, anyway).

After lunch we were taken to one of the many waterfalls in the park. Since it was a Saturday, the park was absolutely packed with both foreigners and Thai people, and though the waterfall was beautiful, it certainly wasn't very peaceful. I'm sure it is also the most popular waterfall in the park, since it starred in the movie The Beach. After I enjoyed the view from the bottom, I went up to see what all the people were doing at the top of the falls, half-expecting to see Leonardo DiCaprio walk out of the woods. Unfortunately he didn't show up, but that Moby song from the movie played in my head all the way back to the songthaew.

Before we headed back to the guest house around dusk, we cruised up and down one of the “Elephant Crossing” roads and just as we were about to leave, an elephant surprised us by sauntering out of the woods over to a 'salt lick' area. I never knew that elephants eat small amounts of soil to get nutrients like sodium and calcium that are lacking in their vegetarian diet. This elephant put on a show for us, digging in the dirt with its tusks. I arrived back at the guest house sufficiently tired and satisfied with the day, with just enough time to grab my backpack and catch a ride to the bus station, on my way to Bangkok.

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