Advertisement
Published: December 8th 2007
Payphones in Thailand are incredibly difficult to operate. Once you get your coins in, you have only a few seconds in which you must dial the phone number before it times out. Basically, if you are reading the guesthouse phone number from a page in the guide book you will not enter it in time. So began our trip to the largest and most famous national park in Thailand. After about 20 tries I finally managed to enter the number in time and was speaking to the guides at the Green Leaf Guest House and safari tours. We booked a room and a spot on the tour for the next couple of days and were on our way. The rest was easy.
We left Ayuthaya by train, our first experience with the Thai trains. While it was not as luxurious as the Thai bus system, in my opinion it was much more enjoyable. In our two hour train ride we watched as the scenery switched from farmland and typical Thai rural life to mountainous, forest with the occasional village or wat perched on a hill. I might add that as I admired the scenery, Ashlee had her nose firmly planted
in her book and only looked up at the most inopportune times. Oh well. We arrived in the small town of Pak Chong and were greeted by a guide from our guest house who drove us, and a few others on the train the 7km out of the town to our guest house.
After barely settling in and grabbing a quick panang curry (my favourite Thai dish) we were off on our Safari adventure. Starting off our guide told us that we would be visiting a spring where we could go swimming. It was quite beautiful indeed, but none of us felt at all like going in since it is now winter and even in Thailand the temperature gets a bit brisk, especially up high in the hills. We quickly moved on and spent a while driving down country roads while our guide, Joe, spotted animals for us to see in the forest. It was beyond incredible, how he could spot a small white squirrel 50 meters away in a tree as we drove by. When an animal was spotted, he would slam on the brakes and we would all jump out and look at it through a telescope
he had with him. The highlights of the afternoon's spottings were a family of white squirrels with huge bushy tails like foxes and a lone kite (type of hawk). It was really quite fascinating to watch these animals up close through the scope. Otherwise, you would never get even close to them. Joe was also a bit of a trickster, at one point he gave us some seeds to suck on. He told us just to suck on them, "they are not poisonous unless you break them." Of course the second Ashlee put them in her mouth they exploded. It turns out that they actually use this as a propagation method, when the rains come, the seed pods explode and send the seeds flying out in different directions.
We finished the day with a couple of bat caves; the first was a deep cave that was easily accessible and he led us around and showed us the different kinds of bats hanging in the cave. However, this was just a lead up to the second cave, which we arrived just before sunset. While we feasted on fresh pineapple (between the two of us we probably ate 2 or 3),
Joe told us that we would soon see 2 million bats emerge from the cave. We could already see the hawks circling above, in anticipation for their meal to come. Right on cue (5:45) a stream of bats emerged from the cave and descended over the surrounding fields. This stream continued unbroken for over an hour. We stood and watched as the bats flew only meters above our heads. The path was always changing and reminded me a bit of watching the northern lights dancing. I have to say, it was one of the most incredible animal sightings I have ever seen. Neither Ashlee or I ever realized how sensitive bats are to sound: one small step on some dried leaves on the ground and the entire bat stream would basically jolt and quickly change direction.
Driving home in the dark, Joe stopped at a building at the side of the road and showed us the different kinds of geckos. He then showed us how to play with the common house gecko. I have attached a few photos, one of a gecko sitting behind Ashlee's ear, and one of it playing dead in my hand. Quite amusing although we
felt quite sorry for the little guy.
Back at the guest house, while eating dinner (panang curry) one of the guides showed us a huge centipede he had caught in a bucket. Quite the creature, but actually quite scary since they are as poisonous as a scorpion and he had found it just behind our rooms. They also showed us a tree snake they had found in the garden, they made it curl up on a stick so we could take photos.
Next morning we were up early and off to the National Park by 8AM. Our guide this day was the owner of the guest house, nicknamed "The Birdman." Apparently he is the most well known guide in the area and he told us that he has been guiding in the area for over 9 years. Driving along the road, like the day before, we stopped many times to see giant squirells, gibbons, eagles, ect... Once again, we were astounded at his ability to spot the animals in the forest as he was driving.
Once we had reached the park, we put on our leech/tick socks and he led us on a 4 hour walk through
Kingfisher
Taken through a scopethe forest. Apparently, it was a quiet day for the animals since it was windy and there were lots of other tourist groups making noise. However, we did see a few hornbills flying above the canopy as well as a male kingfisher, apparently quite rare. We watched through the scope as he raised and lowered his crown, quite a neat thing to see from so close up. The Birdman managed to take a picture of it using my camera through the scope.
We spent the afternoon checking gibbon families, both white and black coloured. We also saw many many macaques, a type of monkey that lives near the ground, and in this case on the road since the tourists feed them. They reminded me a lot of the elk in Banff and Jasper, very common but a delight for tourists. At one point, we saw whole families of them together in a group; the males jumping up and down to show their dominance while the females carried the young ones around under their bellies. Very cute.
In the late afternoon, we stopped by at a waterfall which figured prominently in the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio. Once
Our Guide
looking for animals again, the opportunity to swim was presented but it was far too cold.
As sunset approached we got back in the truck and went in search of wild elephants. Apparently there are over 200 of them in the park, but they are hard to see, especially when there are a lot of people in the park. We were lucky enough to find a young bull crashing through the bush at the side of the road. Over the course of our travels we have seen many elephants (domesticated ones) but this was a new sight all together. The fact that he was not domesticated was quite obvious; at some points it looked as if he was going to charge the truck (we are told it does happen quite often). I was glad that our guide made sure to keep a safe distance. In addition, he looked so much healthier than any of the elephants we have seen in captivity, often they have pink patches of skin on them but he was a very dark shade of grey all over. This one chalks up as another of my great animal sightings as well.
One of the best parts of the
whole experience was the group of people we were with, people much like ourselves with similar traveling tastes and sense of adventure. We spent our evenings swapping traveling advice and stories. We are now all primed for what to see in our remaining time in Bangkok and the islands in the South of Thailand. In our final evening, the guides challenged us to a game of soccer. Ashlee and I played for Team Farang along with two Dutch guys. The guides outplayed us and out skilled us by far but we managed to stay in it with some stingy defense and lots of luck. I think the fact that Ashlee was so good also surprised them and had them on their heels a bit since it seems unusual for girls to join in here.
After the game, I sat and drank a beer with the guides. They told me lots of stories and showed me some fantastic photos of animals they have seen. After 9 years of guiding almost every day they have seen some incredible sights. The Birdman showed me a photo with over 40 elephants charging down the road at him, it was worthy of National Geographic.
White Gibbons
The lower one is an adult while the upper one is a baby Also, he showed me a photo from just last week of a mother and baby elephant. He thought the baby must have been only a day or two old since you could still see the blood from the birth on the mother. This picture alone was amazing as it showed the elephants are evidently a healthy population able to still procreate in the wild, and carry a baby elephant to term (the gestation period is about 18 mos.) It was quite evident that the guides loved their work despite the frustrations of working for tourists who place unrealistic expectations on them. It seems some people would be better off going to the zoo.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 14; qc: 64; dbt: 0.0728s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
jame thompson
non-member comment
bats and snow
two more fascinating park visitations. you two will soon have seen more national parks than any Canadians yet born! How come we can't have a cave in Mill Creek with an hour's worth of bats to eat all the mosquitos in Edmonton? Sharon's birthday was huge, but she would much rather have had you here to cook panang curry than having to cook herself for the twelve celebrants. More snow in the last 24 hrs. Blackfoot is now tracked! JT