In the two days before today, we were exploring Khao Yai National Park and having a crazy time! Yesterday, we arrived in Khao Yai and took a half day tour which included caving and seeing bats! I must say, Thai tours are way differwnt from ither ones, they never quite give you a clue as to where you are going and there seems to be no safety rules or at least they don't tell you any. So, we were brought down into a cave with pretty much no light. Usually everyone is either given a light for this, or the way is lit, but only the guide had a flashlight, and it was tiny. P.S. In case you were thinking this wasn't a normal cave, it was and caves are really dark. As soon as we descended into the cave, we could both smell and hear the bats. Once we were further into the cave, the guide broke out a brighter light. There were literally bats EVERYWHERE!! They flew incredibly close to us, barely avoiding us at all!
We were also shown a bunch of cave bugs! I got to hold a scorpion spider which is super cool, though Im still not sure if it is a scorpion or spider. One of the nearest things about the cave is that the monks have little spots and shrines set up in the cave for meditation!
Our next stop was to see a cave high up on a mountain where 2 million bats fly out each night to go hunting! It was completely amazing! The bats start trickling out and thwn build up in numbers until they are flying out in a steady stream that looks kinda like black smoke. The bats started in a straight line, but then started undulating and
looping and spiraling into the distance. Just wait for the pics, it was totally amazing!
Today, was jungle trekking. It felt like we should be on the discovery channel or something based on how we moved about searching for cool animals to see! We would all be piled in the back of a pickup truck and if our guide would spot an animal, he would shout for us to get out abd follow him at a run! Just like hunting some elusive beast! It was "Same same but different" in the jungle, we didn't even follow a trail half the time. P.S. The saying is one that Thais use a lot, not sure how to use it actually, but you get the gist I hope. We saw macaques and gibbons, 2 kinds of monkeys and the great hornbill and other birds and of course lots of bugs. I got a chance to hold this super huge scorpion...this time definately a scorpion! We also had to wear leech socks while in the jungle because the floor is covered in leeches! They were everywhere... so totally gross! They can just reach up from the ground and gitch a ride, moving like freaky inchworms to slink up your legs and find a nice soft spot to latch on. So, you pretty much had to be sure to flick them off before they got past the leech socks. Strange though, you kinda get used to them after a while. The jungle was so amazing and wonderful and and beautiful.
Our last stop was a waterfall that was goegeous and on the way back to our accomodation, we drove around looking for wild elephants, but we never found them. Oh well!
View of the jungle. It seemed to go on forever!
Mondo Golden web spider, they were everywhere and were literally the size of your hand!
This pic doesn't do the waterfall justice. It was amazing! Also, for anyone who has watched The Beach this is the waterfall in the movie!
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