After Laos, our english teachers and us didn't give it long before we planned to bring the masses together again. Felix and I planned a trip to Khao Yai National Park, an area that was a good middle point for all of us to meet. The park is Thailand's first national park, bigger than the country of Singapore and supposed to be full of wild animals.
We set off after school on Friday to the park to meet with everyone at BOBBY'S apartments, a guesthouse we had arranged the entire weekend trip with to include tours of the park, camping, night safari, trekking, and even meals. Felix and I arrived around 6pm to find all of our Chiyapoom friends already settled in at a giant table in front of the guesthouse. We sat down and ordered our food and 6 more teachers rolled in soon after to complete the group of 17! We were scheduled to wake up at 6am the next morning..but of course when the teachers amass all sense is thrown out the window in the excitement. We sat at that table at bobby's well into the night, only to find when 6 am rolled around, not too many hours later, that we were in for an exhausting day. We all piled into two song-thaew trucks that were ours for the weekend. Boys and girls divided up into the trucks as each group of sexes was longing for some rare personal time with only their own gender. 
We entered the park and started a long winding ride through the moutains. Right after enterering we saw a large monkey sitting on the road not even phased at our boisterous group of trucks rolling by.
With our eager guide JIP (or chip or chimp?)we headed around the park to see some sites. Jip took us to the park lookout point where we realized that we were really in the jungle here. Lush green trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, with giant ferns cascading around them. It was still early so the morning mist lingered above the trees. We all were adored with the LEECH SOCKS Jip provided and were ready to explore this new environment.
We headed towards the camp ground after this and began to set up our camp, a task that for some reason took 2 hours (but gave us some time to nurse our headaches). We immediatly saw thai deer emerge from the woods and wander around our campsite. The deer were totally used to humans being around and would almost walk right up to us. Around the deer monkey's ran around, sometimes right between their legs which was also a strange but awesome site for us to see.
After setting up we headed to the visitors center to hang out for a bit and read about the animals in the park. The particularly interesting display they had was 2 tigers that were captured, after they killed a few people including a woman, a little girl, and a park ranger. The tigers were now stuffed and on display. You could see the bullet holes in them and they were huge but not like the image of a tiger that I had established in my mind from national geographic or tv shows. They were a duller color and VERY long. People from the national park have seen 10 tigers in their time there and from the stories of these tigers, they seem to be ruthless killers. The people who died had shot at the tigers and tried to scare them away but the tigers were set on killing them, and even in the case of the woman broke down her door just to get to her! From the visistors center, we had lunch and then headed out on a short trek to see some waterfalls. This tour was majorly operating on Thai time however, MUCH time had passed since we started the tour and not much was seen. Every place we went had a huge lapse of time which involved all of us just sitting around. But when living in Thailand, this is something we have had to take with a grain of salt. Often we were asking, why didn't we just go here first since it is closer, or why didn't they just drop us off before doing this, but we have learned, the answer to all of these questions was that it didn't happen that way "Because that would make too much sense". Oh well. We adjusted to the waiting around and operating on the very slow THAI TIME and most of the girls took it easy in these lapses of waiting, while the boys despite being hungover from the night before, of course, passed around the whiskey bottle. We first saw the waterfall from the movie "The Beach". It was not the rainy season so the waterfall was much smaller, but still beautiful. This waterfall was the one from the scene where he is running from the druglords and jumps off the waterfall. We countined the trek with the boys noisily singing (and the animals obviously steering clear of us for this reason) and to what our tour guide Jip deemed as a "private" waterfall. We had to hand it to Jip though, the trek through the slipery mountain trail was worth it. We were the only people here and it seemed like we were very deep into the jungle. The water was freezing but we of course all headed in to play. We hiked back a different way after spending time at the falls, and Jip lead us to our suprise THROUGH the river jumping from rock to rock. Ah jip.. I think you underestimated the whiskey that some of us had in our system and the difficulty this would prove for a group of 17. Now wet from the swimming, adding to the danger of the slippery rocks, we had a few mishaps and some of it didn't quite make it across without a fall in the water.
Finally emerging from the jungle we headed back to the trucks. Jip decided to take us to the Khao Yai "black market" (i thought black markets didn't have actual locations?) to buy snacks and of course, alcohol. From here we were rushed back into the trucks to set out on our next destination. We thought this location would be close but as we bouced our way OUT of the park and through incresingly deserted roads we started to get very confused. After an hour of driving on pot-hole ridden dirt roads we started to come up with ideas of where we were going. Were they taking us to get our organs harvested? Were we going to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere? It was all a mystery to us. FINALLY, the trucks stopped and we arrived, low and behold, in a corn field! Other farangs were here however so we knew we were safe.
We trudged through the muddy path and told we were to look up on the mountainside at the BAT CAVE. The mountain was almost no more than a tall hillside but there was a small opening and we could see the tiny outlines of bats flapping around. We were a little skeptical about what we were seeing but then all of a sudden, the bats immerged. 3.1 million bats poured out of this cave. Astonished, and with our faces pointed to the sky, we couldn't believe or look away from what we were witnessing. The bats immerged in a thin line that was so thick with bats it ressembled a dark black rope. The stayed in the line, but swirled and curved into the distant sky. The reminded me of of bees in cartoons circling out from a nest, or a tornado spinning around in the sky. The bats did this every evening, around 6pm, and their exit of the millions of bats from the cave took about an hour. Hawks dove into the swarm of bats and captured prey which was an equally exciting sight. We felt like we were right in an episode of Planet Earth. With the sun setting in the clear blue sky, and surrounded by the green tall grasses of the field, we watched the bats swirl above our heads and to the mountains in the distance, and knew this was the gretest natural event we have ever seen.
By time we got back into the camp it was dark, and we began the "night safari" almost immediately we saw an elephant in the clearing. He was a lone elephant and quite large with tusks which meant he was a male. Apparently the males travel alone so he sat alone in the clearing and was still enough to look like a giant gray slash in the red earth around him. He finally started to walk around and we stood in the dark for a long time to watch him. As we piled back into the trucks a rare bear was sited by the boys truck, and as they shone their flashlights on him he sprinted away through the grasses. Well, two animals sited, so that by default apparently wrapped up the night safari. We were wet,tired, and hungry, so we didn't complain too much about this as we headed back to camp. We sat on blankets and ate our dinner, and delicious grilled corn Jip made as he told us terribly corny jokes and got drunk himself on the bottle of whiskey he TOLD us we had to buy him earlier in the day. We were set to wake up at 5am for sunrise, but since it was cloudy anyways, and we were beyond beat, we all opted that an 8am wakeup would be more reasonable. The day once again largely operated on Thai time, and waiting around, so we didn't have much time before we were all set to disperse back to our homes all around Thailand again. We did head to a field however to make the trek to another waterfall. We bound through the tall grasses that led us into the jungle and then a clearing that opened up to a small waterfall and lagoon. Everything was so moist around us from the rain and with the green ferns stretched around the trees the spot made for a lovely jungle scene. Right as we were about to leave the rain came in. It poured as we ran through the field and back to the truck, and poured even harder on the long trip back to Bobby's apartment to collect our things. We had never actually seen rain in Thailand since those first days in Phuket, and now we were facing monsoon like weather with us soaked and cold in the backs of only half covered trucks. Somehow, we finally made it back to Bobbys, and about 3 or 4 hours later than the time we intended to be there. Oh well, Khao Yai and amassing with the ajarns again made for an interesting, but always fun weekend. We changed into dry clothes and said our goodbyes, never too sad because we will know in our last month of the semester, we will see our good friends again!
We entered the park and started a long winding ride through the moutains. Right after enterering we saw a large monkey sitting on the road not even phased at our boisterous group of trucks rolling by.
With our eager guide JIP (or chip or chimp?)we headed around the park to see some sites. Jip took us to the park lookout point where we realized that we were really in the jungle here. Lush green trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, with giant ferns cascading around them. It was still early so the morning mist lingered above the trees. We all were adored with the LEECH SOCKS Jip provided and were ready to explore this new environment.
We headed towards the camp ground after this and began to set up our camp, a task that for some reason took 2 hours (but gave us some time to nurse our headaches). We immediatly saw thai deer emerge from the woods and wander around our campsite. The deer were totally used to humans being around and would almost walk right up to us. Around the deer monkey's ran around, sometimes right between their legs which was also a strange but awesome site for us to see.
After setting up we headed to the visitors center to hang out for a bit and read about the animals in the park. The particularly interesting display they had was 2 tigers that were captured, after they killed a few people including a woman, a little girl, and a park ranger. The tigers were now stuffed and on display. You could see the bullet holes in them and they were huge but not like the image of a tiger that I had established in my mind from national geographic or tv shows. They were a duller color and VERY long. People from the national park have seen 10 tigers in their time there and from the stories of these tigers, they seem to be ruthless killers. The people who died had shot at the tigers and tried to scare them away but the tigers were set on killing them, and even in the case of the woman broke down her door just to get to her! From the visistors center, we had lunch and then headed out on a short trek to see some waterfalls. This tour was majorly operating on Thai time however, MUCH time had passed since we started the tour and not much was seen. Every place we went had a huge lapse of time which involved all of us just sitting around. But when living in Thailand, this is something we have had to take with a grain of salt. Often we were asking, why didn't we just go here first since it is closer, or why didn't they just drop us off before doing this, but we have learned, the answer to all of these questions was that it didn't happen that way "Because that would make too much sense". Oh well. We adjusted to the waiting around and operating on the very slow THAI TIME and most of the girls took it easy in these lapses of waiting, while the boys despite being hungover from the night before, of course, passed around the whiskey bottle. We first saw the waterfall from the movie "The Beach". It was not the rainy season so the waterfall was much smaller, but still beautiful. This waterfall was the one from the scene where he is running from the druglords and jumps off the waterfall. We countined the trek with the boys noisily singing (and the animals obviously steering clear of us for this reason) and to what our tour guide Jip deemed as a "private" waterfall. We had to hand it to Jip though, the trek through the slipery mountain trail was worth it. We were the only people here and it seemed like we were very deep into the jungle. The water was freezing but we of course all headed in to play. We hiked back a different way after spending time at the falls, and Jip lead us to our suprise THROUGH the river jumping from rock to rock. Ah jip.. I think you underestimated the whiskey that some of us had in our system and the difficulty this would prove for a group of 17. Now wet from the swimming, adding to the danger of the slippery rocks, we had a few mishaps and some of it didn't quite make it across without a fall in the water.
Finally emerging from the jungle we headed back to the trucks. Jip decided to take us to the Khao Yai "black market" (i thought black markets didn't have actual locations?) to buy snacks and of course, alcohol. From here we were rushed back into the trucks to set out on our next destination. We thought this location would be close but as we bouced our way OUT of the park and through incresingly deserted roads we started to get very confused. After an hour of driving on pot-hole ridden dirt roads we started to come up with ideas of where we were going. Were they taking us to get our organs harvested? Were we going to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere? It was all a mystery to us. FINALLY, the trucks stopped and we arrived, low and behold, in a corn field! Other farangs were here however so we knew we were safe.
We trudged through the muddy path and told we were to look up on the mountainside at the BAT CAVE. The mountain was almost no more than a tall hillside but there was a small opening and we could see the tiny outlines of bats flapping around. We were a little skeptical about what we were seeing but then all of a sudden, the bats immerged. 3.1 million bats poured out of this cave. Astonished, and with our faces pointed to the sky, we couldn't believe or look away from what we were witnessing. The bats immerged in a thin line that was so thick with bats it ressembled a dark black rope. The stayed in the line, but swirled and curved into the distant sky. The reminded me of of bees in cartoons circling out from a nest, or a tornado spinning around in the sky. The bats did this every evening, around 6pm, and their exit of the millions of bats from the cave took about an hour. Hawks dove into the swarm of bats and captured prey which was an equally exciting sight. We felt like we were right in an episode of Planet Earth. With the sun setting in the clear blue sky, and surrounded by the green tall grasses of the field, we watched the bats swirl above our heads and to the mountains in the distance, and knew this was the gretest natural event we have ever seen.
By time we got back into the camp it was dark, and we began the "night safari" almost immediately we saw an elephant in the clearing. He was a lone elephant and quite large with tusks which meant he was a male. Apparently the males travel alone so he sat alone in the clearing and was still enough to look like a giant gray slash in the red earth around him. He finally started to walk around and we stood in the dark for a long time to watch him. As we piled back into the trucks a rare bear was sited by the boys truck, and as they shone their flashlights on him he sprinted away through the grasses. Well, two animals sited, so that by default apparently wrapped up the night safari. We were wet,tired, and hungry, so we didn't complain too much about this as we headed back to camp. We sat on blankets and ate our dinner, and delicious grilled corn Jip made as he told us terribly corny jokes and got drunk himself on the bottle of whiskey he TOLD us we had to buy him earlier in the day. We were set to wake up at 5am for sunrise, but since it was cloudy anyways, and we were beyond beat, we all opted that an 8am wakeup would be more reasonable. The day once again largely operated on Thai time, and waiting around, so we didn't have much time before we were all set to disperse back to our homes all around Thailand again. We did head to a field however to make the trek to another waterfall. We bound through the tall grasses that led us into the jungle and then a clearing that opened up to a small waterfall and lagoon. Everything was so moist around us from the rain and with the green ferns stretched around the trees the spot made for a lovely jungle scene. Right as we were about to leave the rain came in. It poured as we ran through the field and back to the truck, and poured even harder on the long trip back to Bobby's apartment to collect our things. We had never actually seen rain in Thailand since those first days in Phuket, and now we were facing monsoon like weather with us soaked and cold in the backs of only half covered trucks. Somehow, we finally made it back to Bobbys, and about 3 or 4 hours later than the time we intended to be there. Oh well, Khao Yai and amassing with the ajarns again made for an interesting, but always fun weekend. We changed into dry clothes and said our goodbyes, never too sad because we will know in our last month of the semester, we will see our good friends again!
Wow!
ReplyDeleteTeacher B
:D
I added your facebook : )
Remember me?
I'm your student :P