Hello Again!

We just got the last bus back to Bangkok from the little town of Pak Chong so got back to the apartment at around midnight. Today has been an adventure!

We did the day tour trip from our guesthouse to Khao Yai national park. It was raining when we set off but we hoped it would clear up later in the day. Our first stop inside the park was to visit a waterfall that was used in the filming of 'The Beach'. Because of the rain the water was muddy but the waterfall was very impressive because of all the rain. In the dry season you can swim at the bottom, but it was too powerful at this time of year. Next we looked in the visitor centre and hoped it would stop raining while we were in there. It didn't. Our guides were a determined bunch and so we still did the normal 3 hour trek they do. The path more closely resembled a river at times! Straight away we saw 2 bright green Pit Vipers. They can be deadly so we didn't spend too long near them. They have bears in the park and you can see there claw marks on lots of the trees. I didn't realised there was scorpions in the jungle, but we found one and Tish even held it! We had to cross through a river that went up to our knees and so we were drenched by lunchtime and glad of the break in a sheltered viewing tower. Through the binoculars we could see maybe 50 hornbills in a tree the other side of the lake. We were fed up with walking in the rain and it wasn't helped by the numerous leeches that attached themselves to us along the way! We were glad to be back at the truck. We drove around the park a bit and saw some more wildlife: A white-handed Gibbon with a baby. Lots of deers and a huge group of pig-tail Macaques (monkeys). We sheltered and had a coffee at the park restaurant before setting off looking for elephants and to another waterfall. We didn't see any elephants (just lots of their poo in the road) and we didn't get to the waterfall as the rain had made it unsafe there! We turned and headed for the exit but we didn't get that far. A section of road about 200m long had become a waist-high river and it was the only way out. There was lots of people stuck with us and we spent a long time deciding what we should do. Eventually we were told we had to walk through the river. So holding our bags as high as we could we waded through the waist-high water. The current was quite strong so it was hard work. We had to wait around for another half an hour on the other side waiting for another truck to pick us up. Back at the hostel we were given a cup of tea to warm us up and we were back on the truck heading to the bus station for our bus...it was a crazy day. It didn't stop raining at all!

The national park also has about 10 tigers but our guide hadn't ever seen any in the 10 years he'd been working there.

The day before we had done the half day tour which took us for a swim in a spring. Our guide liked finding creepy crawlies for us and we all had turns with a huge millipede on our necks or in our hands! We went to a cave which is also a temple. There was lots of bats in the cave and we were also shown a scorpion spider which we both held and I had on my neck! Our guide had a good trick for making a frog stay still if you lie them on their back and rub their tummy they just lie there! It also works on geckos. The main attraction of the tour is going to a viewing site for the nightly exodus of a cave by 2 million bats! We had pineapple while we waited for the show to begin. The bats come out in a line and spriral through the sky, it is an amazing sight when you can see these patches like smoke across all the hills. Our guide showed us how to make the bats spread by making a certain noise, but its not that good as it can make them bump! We watched sunset from the top of hill and our guide found a gecko which ended up behind Tish's ear and on my nose! It was a really fun afternoon!

We will be staying in Bangkok for a few days to go to the markets at the weekend. We are sad to be into our last week away!