Going the the jungle where the elephant roams...

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The last few days have reminded me of the immeasurable joys of traveling alone with little to no iternerary.

I was walking around Ayuthaya when I started a conversation with a Hungarian-German, who was also journeying solo through Thailand. My new friend suggested that I go to Khao Yai National Park for a tour we could take together. I agreed. We were supposed to meet at a certain guesthouse the next day.

On the train to Pak Chong I ran into a tall Finn, We decided to go to the same gueshouse on the same tour. Once there, my Hungarian friend was nowhere to be found.

The tour took two days. The first day involved a swim at a local pond. The water was wonderfully cool. I'd almost forgotten the simple joys of swimming. It's especailly pleasant on a hot Thailand January day.

Next we went to a cave. It was huge, and full of interesting centipedes, spiders, and bats. The spiders and cenitpedes are the largest I have ever seen (even larger than my eight-legged friend from the Kolkata shower). Our guide took one interesting beattle-looking thing off the wall, and asked if anyone in the group was afraid of spiders. One German girl said yes. He offered to put the creature on her arm, pointing out the number of legs (six). She was a little freaked out, but after she touched it she calmed down quite a bit. Only six legs, after all. Then the guide gently put it on my neck, and he told us that it is, in fact, a spider. It merely has adapted two of its legs to be "grabbers" for the many insects who feed on the bat guano.

The bats were numerous and quite loud. When our guide turned off all the flashlights, we could still hear, smell, and feel the bats flying all around us.

The cave is used by the local monks as a place of meditation. It must be the express lane to Nirvana.

At sunset we came to a very generic Thai field to look at an unassuming cave. Then the bats came out of it. Supposedly, two million flying mammals make their commute out of the cave ever evening. It takes all of them about an hour to get pass the bottleneck of the cave's mouth. I only counted 1,904,285. Still, quite a sight!

The next morning we went searching in the jungle for great hornbills, eagles, gibbons, and elephants. The birds were spotted quickly. The gibbons required about an hour and a half of jungle hiking to finally locate. Still, it was great to see my first wild apes! Then, we went looking for the elephants.

For a large animals, elephants are surprisingly difficult to track in the jungle. Our guide found a group by the ruckus they strirred up. We spent about an hour following their path. There was fresh feces, loud branches cracking, and the distinct scent of elephant. However, so sighting was made.

We swallowed lunch along with our dissapointment, and then came to a waterfall. It was at this location that a scene from the film The Beach was filmed. While there, a butterfly landed on my arm, to make the peaceful panorama complete.

On our way back to the guesthouse, I was thinking about how lucky I am as a native American (or as some say, "English') speaker. On the covered seats on the back of the tour group's pickup truck were two Italians, two Germans, a Brazilian, an Israeli, a Peruvian, a Finn, and myself. All of the general conversation, and all communication with the Thai guides, was conducted in the language which I teach to my students in Jiujiang. There was quite a good sense of camraderie in our very international group.

Then we saw Elephants on the road! Victory! All necessary animals seen, and all requisite photos taken for bragging (and educational) purposes. However, my readers should know that I did cheat. Two pictures in this collection were actually taken at the Khao Yai visitors center, and cheaply passed off as my own. Can you guess which ones?

Back at the guesthouse, who do I meet but the Hungarian-German! My Germanic aquaitance had run into booking problems. We ldecided to head off together to the heart of Isaan in the Northeast, where we have encountered many mystical sights and experiences, and met a probable Boddhitsava.

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