Awake super early to go on our jungle trek; it was like being at home in the winter when you dread getting out of the bed because it's going to be too cold so you run around trying to put your clothes on as fast as possible. Yeah that's what I done! I was wearing my fleece and scarf with leggings underneath my shorts, not risking getting chilly. We had breakfast, cereal and banana, yummy! It's getting cheaper the more north we travel the smaller the city the cheaper it is for everything; That's the way forward I think!
There were 12 of us on the trip so they put us in two trucks, the English speaking people and the German and Dutch speaking people; we were with two Canadians, an American and two English boys.
The truck ride was absolutely freezing! There was dew still on the fields of grass.
We noticed that coming into Pak Chong on the bus yesterday that they had a big sign saying that the place is cowboy land, weird to see cowboy ranches selling all the gear like the hats and boots. Can't really imagine seeing an Asian cowboy that would look strange in Thailand because it doesn't fit with the country.
On the way to the national park there were loads of hotels and restaurants all Texas cowboy ranch themes, bloody strange! It looked so much like America though even the roads that looked as though they never ended and were really wide with a yellow line down the middle!
I expected the national park to be flat, it was far from it. Very steep hills up to the main areas with the view points and waterfalls. There were truck loads of people coming in doing organised trips. There were a few monkeys sat around the cars, they were the nasty ones that would usually try to take something out of your hand but these were really tame. The park is really strict about you leaving your rubbish and feeding the monkeys you get fined a hefty bill because our guide 'Nok' said that this is there house, we are visiting them. All of the species there are endangered/critically endangered or vulnerable so they are in there to learn how to fight for themselves and breed in a 'stress free environment' they shut the park at 9pm so that the animals can roam free all night and not having people or vehicles going through the main road in there. Which is pretty cool!
We trekked through the jungle and forest all we could here were gibbons sounding the call. But we couldn't see them which was a little disappointing; however the trail we were following we had to be quiet all the time because otherwise we would just scare the animals further away.
There were loads of elephant poo along the trail and there were fresh droppings from the civet cat, it's the cat that eats the berries or seeds from the coffee plants and poops them out which fertilises the coffee to be able to process it and drink it; it's okay we aren't drinking cats poo at home, the type of coffee they eat is really rare!

Then we spotted some scratch marks on a tree from where a bear had been either stretching or trying to look for hives for honey. It was like being in the jungle book! (Scott was Mogli)

The scratch marks were fresh aswell and Nok said they were from a black bear. Awesome!
Then we stopped for a snack and we were able to climb a 300 year old tree, it's roots were growing up out of the ground and there where vines around it so it looked okay but scott had to come back down part of it like he was sliding down the banister at home!

This jungle trek is potentially really dangerous because what do we do if something comes out on us? All we have is Nok and her knife. That won't do much because she doesn't harm animals!
Went to their watering hole, it was as though we were in Kenya now! The sun was so hot but in the shade it was quite nippy. We had pad thai for lunch at the visitor centre and food hall, it was actually really nice and it didn't have nuts so Scott walloped it down him! It didn't touch the sides...
Had a nose around the museum there, they haven't seen a tiger in the park since 2005! They have crocodile there too - somewhere!
It mentioned that the reason why these animals are endangered here is because of the highways separating the two national parks so there aren't enough different families of species to mate with each other without inbreed and as time as gone on it's obviously reacting badly to this and the animals aren't living as long or dying at birth so they're trying To merge the two jungles somehow, god knows how but your in Asia now, anything is possible with these guys! 'No problem!'

The waterfalls we visited were really pretty, the one was off the beach where Leonardo DiCaprio is in; haven't seen it so doesn't mean anything to me! Scott really did think he was out of the jungle book, he fancied an adventurous challenge - rock climbing/jumping. To get a better photograph of the waterfalls he started jumping around all the big rocks in the pool, he was so funny! He's trying to be a stunt double for someone I think!
There were lots of hornbill birds flapping about there.

Towards the end of the day, around 5pm. The army have officers on duty in the park at checkpoints on the roads and the paths leading to the waterfalls, one came running down to us spoke his gibberish to Nok and she said 'aww be quiet big elephant coming, quick!' So we were like a bunch of school kids jumping up and down, hop skip and jumping towards this elephant. We could hear her blowing his trumpet and seen all the small trees falling over, well then the officer says she has a baby so she's dangerous because it's mating season so they're even more protective of their babies, and of course they're wild so they're not as quiet and tame as working elephants because their spirits have been broken so they stop thinking and doing like a wild elephant.
We waited on the bridge where if she charged at us out of the forest we would safe because she wouldn't fit through the bollards. She was about 300-400 yards from us just not in sight. We couldn't wait there forever so we had to go, disappointed that we didn't get to actually see her but it was still pretty cool how close we were to them.
It's right when they say the jungle comes alive at night, the noises of all the animals are incredible and things start moving and rustling, nerve racking to think what's going jump out or on me.

On the way back in the truck, we were driving down the highway. We heard the same rustling noise so we banged the side of the truck for the driver to stop and reverse back a little. Only to see a humongous male elephant come out of the trees and walk casually down the road with his big massive willy hanging out! My goodness, how rude of him! Park doesn't close until 9pm mister - put it away!
We were 300-400 yards away from him again. He was AWESOME! Definitely ended the day on a high! It was like being Jurassic park, haha!

We went for food down the road with the guys that were in our truck, we had a good laugh at dinner. Reminiscing on old British comedies. Some of them I totally forgot about like are you being served and some mothers do have them! Alex, the American girl was writing them down to check them out! She won't be able to take her eyes from the television for a month!