Got up bright and early this morning and headed to the meeting spot for a bit of brekkie before our tour.Again we piled into the van. There were 7 of us all together, the canadian and dutch couple from yesterday and an Australia/French couple who are on their way to live in France!

We entered Khao Yai national park (imagine Jurrasic park with no dinosours). On our way through (after having a conversation on when does a forest become the jungle! we again stopped at many points where the guide had seen more birds a squirrel, monkey and a lizard. Really had no idea how he saw them as none of us could see anything with out the telescope that he would set up!

After putting on some rediculous looking 'leach socks' which were a good idea as Dave soon fell victim to one of the blood sucking little vampires on his leg.They should have given him gloves too, as it wasn't long before one was stuck on his arm having a feast!

We started our trek by diving straight into the jungle (sounds more exciting than forest!). Not following a path, we faced a grueling 4 hours of trekking up and down steep slopes through trees cobwebs and tall grass stopping every ten or so minutes to look at a a bird - as pretty cool at first as we saw hornbills, eagles and parrots but after 4 hours of birdwatching we and the Oz/French couple soon got a little bored.

Finally it was lunch -sticky rice and stir fried veg. Whilst eating we all soon became entranced by watching a team of ants trying their damned hardest to get a crisp down a hole - to say we had been looking at tropical birds and creatures in the wild this so far was definatley the highlight!

After getting back to the van the guide had heard news of a wild elephant on the side of the path, further into the park, so we flew down the road and couldn't believe it when wesaw him.

Playing with a carrier bag he had found, it was unreal to see a wild elephant out on the roadside. He was pretty scared to see us but we got some great photos at quite a scary distance! Then he vanished back in jungle making his trumpet sounds.

The park is famous for a 25m waterfall which is in itself famous for being the one they used for scenes in the movie - The Beach. Obviously we couldn't resist having a swim, though claire had to wear a t shirt as she had to cover up because of the Budhist culture.

After our swim we went back to the van where the guide had managed to find a snake. Not daunted by it he held it letting us take photos before much to our horror it spun round and bit his leg. We were in shock but soon found the funny side when he started to laugh and say"no worry, no worry, not poisonous!" Don't think our reaction would have been quite the same.

We watched the sun set before heading back to our hostel not forgetting to check out a pack of monkeys causing mischief and some deer in the road on the way out.

When we got back we soon settled with beers and food for the night.