Blogs from Khao Yai NP, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 5

Since Kanda’s big exam is coming up, we left her alone for a day to study and hired Mr. Jeep (the birdwatching guide we’d met a few days earlier) to guide us for our day off. It was our only meeting-free day in the park and we wanted to try to see some wildlife before heading back to Bangkok. If I could make an action figure, it would be of Mr. Jeep. At 5 foot 4 or so, he was a fairly small man with a shiny, bright smile and shoulder length glossy, wavy black hair that looked like it could have been cut from a wig and glued to the bottom of his wide brimmed canvas safari hat. When he met us in the morning at the park entrance at 6:30 a.m., he wore layers ... read more

We spent most of the morning preparing our provisions for the trip to the substation and moving our things out of our cold shower and no toilet paper rooms and into Kanda’s room for storage. We met up at the office and Kanda left us with a video camera and a camera trap with the task of figuring out how to make it work. Although we came close, we never did figure out how to set it (and she didn’t know since it had only been used once), so we ended up taking a small film camera to use in the trap. Two young rangers, Men and Bitah, came over to help us load up. We packed our stuff in the back of the truck and another ranger drove us all to a trailhead by a ... read more

We were up early and ready to go to a substation quite a way from where we are staying where the Wildcats of Southeast Asia Teachers’ Workshop would be held. Kanda picked us up in the WildAid truck, a heavy duty truck with a carryboy on the back which was handy for hauling all of our materials for the workshop. We were chatting about life in Thailand and learning more about the independence of many educated Thai women when we came to a bumping, grinding, bounce of a halt. Either we killed something or there was something seriously wrong with the truck. We hopped out to investigate and the front passenger side tire was in shreds - definitely the flattest of flat tires I’ve ever seen. Kanda darted down the road to a house and returned ... read more

We woke up early and walked to the Visitor Center where we saw several visitors with scopes and bird books out and gesturing wildly. “Hornbill! Hornbill!” said their guide, Mr. Jeep. He let us look through his scope to get a closer look. Then we went over and met with the WildAid staff Warapol, Saiyan, Songkran, Kanda and Waraporn as they reviewed the Clouded leopard Educator’s Guide. Curriculum guides are not common for teachers, so they have invited Green World Foundation to come to talk to the teachers about how to use a curriculum guide. We went through several of the activities in the guide, including a food web activity. We also did a Clouded leopard costume activity where a volunteer is dressed feature by feature in a Clouded leopard costume. This time I was the ... read more

We just spent the last 3 days at the Khao Yai national rain forest. It is absolutely beautiful and full of wild life. We saw macat monkeys, Spoonbill birds, gibbons, a water monitor, barking deer, geckos, and millions of leaches! Ok, maybe not millions, but I flicked at least 20 off of me before they had a chance to bite. I hate parasites and think someone should study the benefit of wiping out all ticks, leaches, and mosquitoes then compare it to the environmental consequences. Finally someone should do a cost analysis to determine whether the benefits out weigh the negative ramifications. Last night Barbara, Wyatt, and I dropped Mom and Dad off at the hotel and headed up to the forest (Barbara and Wyatt live in a cabin with other researchers). On our way up ... read more