The Pak Chong VIP bus Experience, what can we say?? It would have probably been ok if we didnt have a male transfestite looking after us with dog breath and perfume that could kill mosquito's within a 10 mile vasinity. She was absolutely rank, even putting us of our seaweed flavoured crisps that we had become particularly fond of. We havent eaten them since haha. Dont even get me started on the food token we were given for the service station, I have never looked and smelt food that has made me instantly not hungry, it was aweful. I wouldnt have fed it to a pig let alone a human!! and it takes alot to put me off food. ANyway there is nothing particularly to see in Pak Chong but it is here that you base yourself to visit the famous Khao Yai National Park, to view some wildlife and walk through the rainforests. We stayed at a guest house recommended by the lonely planet book for there 1.5 day tours which was cheap but nice and clean. At first they were fully booked up but when they knew we wanted to do there tours out of knowhere a room became available lol. As we arrived in the morning we could start the half day trip that afternoon at 3pm and then do the full day tour the next day, however after a power nap Kate woke up feeling really ill, so needless to say we post poned it until the day after the full day trip, whcih was fine with us as we had been up all night and we hadn't eaten properly so we just relaxed that night.

Anyway the next day we woke up bright and early and kate was back on top of the world. After some breaky we jumped in the sawanthiew (I may have spelt that wrong, its an open back truck) with another 2 belgium couples which we got chatting to on the way to the park. Upon entering the park we drove past and stopped at a gorgeous viewpoint, got our leech socks on and then drove slowly through the park while our expert guides located wildlife in the trees. Our first spotting was some hornbills, huge birds with large colourful beaks and boy can they make some noise!! To allow us a better look the guides set up telescopes for us and can take pics of the animals through the lens as the zoom on a normal camera like ours would not take a great pic as the trees are so high. Eventually the two hornbills flew across oour heads to a different tree which was amazing to see their size. One of the guys showed us a leech that had just latched onto him afterwards, they were only little but get bigger as they suck on your blood, but they are attracted to heat so if your walking through the rainforests they can just drop onto you without you knowing, but we were lucky. Carrying on through the park our next spotting was some gibbons, strange looking monkeys, some were white and some were black. They were just swinging around chilling out.

Once in the centre of the park we had a toilet break and a look around the toursit centre where they had a couple of stuffed tigers that had been killed through attacking and killing a little girl and a park ranger. There are very few tigers left in the nat park now but considering we were about to go on a couple of hours walk through the jungle we were a little concious haha!!! Anyway we were taken to the drop of point to start our rainforest walk passing many monkeys and entered the jungle with a guide at the front and one at the back for safety reasons. We walked through thick jungle, hanging vines and big canopies. Shortly into the walk the guide spotted a hole on the floor a bit bigger than a golf ball. After poking the hole with a long twig, with something nipping at it he finally managed to pull a huge scorpion out the hole. Before I knew it the guide grabbed my hand and slapped it on top. Im not going ot pretend I was comfortable with this but it didnt move or get moody with me so it wasnt to bad. It was really cool to see a wild one not in a cage in a zoo. Throughout the walk we saw some other birds, wild mushrooms and strange looking fruits but not much more wildlife which we were really disappointed about. As the day before some people saw three snakes on their walk. We stopped near a salt lick watching point for lunch however there were no elephants there, again a little disappointing.

After lunch we did spot one elephant but couldnt get near enough to it to take any greats pics. The thing about this tour is that everyday is different and they cannot guarantee seeing particular animals so sometimes you see alot and sometimes you see very little. Its knowones fault but because its such a huge park its a gamble whether your going to see much, especially when there wild animals.Anywya that afternoon we visited a big waterfall out of the film The Beach" which was beautiful. Leo has to jump of the top as he is being chased by drug dealers, it would be a little dangerous to do it in real life but still doable in a life or death siutation haha!! The spray from the water hit the plunge pool made a great rainbow but the camera didnt pick it up to well. Moving on from here after about an hour we were taken to another viewpoint overlooking the whole park. It really would have been an amazing picture but it was very hazy and misty so we didnt get the picture perfect postcard we were hoping for. Seeing as we were quite far into the park the rest of the day was spent driving back through the park looking for nocturnal wildlife which again for us was non existent. What was even more annoying was that once we arrived back to where the salt lick was the elephants had just left after being there for about 20 mins and we saw them walking of in the distance aaahhhhhhhhh!!!!! nevermind hey!! at least we saw them briefly. Checking out some guys video footage of the elephants didnt make us much happier as it was awesome. They were all walking of like a seen in the jungle book. Nevertheless it had still been a great day though.

That night we munched hard at some local vendors on spicy chicken, rice and cucumber and then had some drinks with the belgium crew who had just been to Siem Reap in Cambodia, which is where we were going next so we pestered them for loads of info and advice which was really helpful.

The next day we had our first lie in of the trip wohoooo as our half day trip didnt start until 3pm and got did we feel better for it. The first half of the day we went into town to do a few bits and bobs and get some U.S dollar for cambodia whcih proved unsuccessful after goign to 5 banks as they had all run out, a little random. Anyway the first stop on our second day tour was some natural springs for a swim with 2 french couples and a couple from holland who were a top laugh. The water was so refreshing and really warm which we didnt expect, it was like swimming pool temperatures. It was so clean and clear and it was a great start to the afternoon tour. We also spotted some white squirrels and some macaques in the trees, which look like little parrots. Moving on we were taken to an underground cave temple. As we descended into the cave there was a very musty smell and was very dark. We knew there were going to be creepy crawlies down here as we had spoken to previous couples who had done the trip and they were right. We saw a hairy tarantula in its nest, a scorpion spider, which looked like a spider but also had scorpion style pincers. I held this one as there not to harmful. We also saw Because it is cool, dark and moist it is a great place for these insects etc, apparently there are snakes such as pit vipers down there as well but we didnt see any. Monks actually come down here to meditate and prey for up to 6 hours sitting in pure darkness on little matts, which we thought was clearly insane with whats down there, but whatever floats your boat!! Carrying on down the cave we spotted some bats hanging from the ceiling and some other crazy looking insects, which we have forgotten the name of now. Our guide picked some bat poo of the floor which was like very fine soil and told us to smell it and to our surprise it didnt smell at all bad but when we got up close and he shined the torch on it there was a mass of little insects eating the poo, it was discusting!!!As fun as it was sniffing bat poo it was time to move onto the main bat cave. At dusk millions of bats fly out this cave to go feeding. However as this is a regular outing for them at the same ime everyday around 6pm there were about 4 hawks flying around the top of the cave waiting to catch them for a good feed which was awesome. Anyway eventaully the first lot of bats flew out and it really wa incredible as bats kept flying out of it for at least 45 miinuts, there were millions and it looked so cool with a huge dark shadow lining the sky. Im not sure how they do it but everytime they all go to close to each other they were just disperse again without hitting into each other at all, it was truly incredible. It was so interesting to watch but because it was dusk and getting dark quickly we couldnt get any great pics as we didnt have our tripod fro the camera. However others did and the pics still didnt turn out great so that made us feel a bit better. As it was a full moon that night our guide set the telescope up for us to take a closer look and took a cool pic for us through the telescope, which was really great as it was the Loi Krathong festival that night where on the first full moon of November, small lotus shaped boats made of banana leaf containing a little candle are set adrift on the river where you can make a wish. Its supposed to be good luck as well. So on returning to our hotel we had an hour to get some dinner with the rest of the gang and then we headed to the festival. It was really great as we were the only tourists at this festival as most people celebrate it in Ayuthaya or Bangkok so the Thai's made a real effort to show us a good time. We took a walk down to the river to get a banana boat, kate got a boat and I bought two baby catch fish to release in the river. This was the same sort of idea as the boat but you just set the catfish free. Anywya I released my fish which was emotional haha and Kate lit her incence candle and placed her boat on the river making her wish, it was really beautiful watching everyones boats floating down the river all lit up. After the religious side of the festival we walked back up to the food stalls, games, and the dance floor and local band. It was really great!!The french and Brazilian couple being absolutely crackers were straight on the dance floor, he was awesome and clearly had his latin, portuguese, Brazilian dancing hat on (very smooth). But we thought it was only courteous to join them so nest thing we knew we were all dancing with the locals having the best. They absolutely loved us haha. One guy told us how happy he was that we were joining in with their celebrations and I knicked his russian hat and was dancing about with him, he was so old but still had the moves. Kate was off with her new thai lady friends and the other girls on our tour learning to dance the thai way, brilliant! Pulling ourselves away from the dance floor, which was difficult as they were so nice, we went back to the guesthouse and all decided to go to the bar down the road for some drinks. There was a karaoke contest in the bar with a huge pig roast which was gorgeous. All the thai girls singing were dressed up like tarts and couldnt sing to save their lives, it was a really random but still very entertaining. We had a great night with them all but poor Jess's voice must have been worn out by the end of it as she was having to translate between us and the two french lads who couldn't speak English. It would have been great if we could have all spoken the same language because the lads were awesome and Kate got on really well with the girls, however they could speak English, but it was great to meet them and we still had a barrel of laughs. They even offered us to come and stay in Paris with them when we get back which would be cool. Anyway after saying our goodbyes we got to bed about 1am to get some sleep for our early morning get up of 6am for our long journey to cambodia which we were a little nervous about after talking to belgium couples about how dodgy the border crossings can be.

Anyway talk soon xx