Wildlife

When we left Ayutthaya, we took a boat across the river to the train station for 4 baht and purchased tickets to Pak Chong for 23 baht each.  Then we got on the wrong train.  The conductors laughed at us and guided us off the train and took care of us and led us onto the right train.  Looking back, this train ride was one of the truest experiences we had in Asia.  We were quite literally the only foreigners on the train, and the people made this clear by pointing at us and saying “farang, farang.”  Across the aisle from us was an adorable baby who kept us entertained for most of the ride, and her family was very kind.  An older man sitting with the family was especially kind to us.  He even gave Malone a shot of whiskey as we passed by rice paddies and sky.  Up and down the aisles of the train walked people selling food and drink.  This sounds very nice, but it was very chaotic and meant that the aisles had to be completely cleared of feet and bags.  Many of the vendors had baskets slung across their shoulders and inside the baskets were large pots of noodle soup or other concoctions, and they would serve it up with a ladle to whoever wanted some.  There was also a man selling toys, and I almost died laughing when he squeezed a fish toy in Malone’s face, making the fish’s tongue stick out, then told her how much it was, as if she would actually want something like that.  These are the experiences that I don’t have pictures of—the experiences that were truly colorful and tell a story of the place.  Vendors on a train ride through rural Thailand, young boys selling durian from huge piles of the fruit on the side of the road, young Muslim children saying “Hello Mister!” then running away, screaming and giggling…But I have these pictures, at least, in memory.

When we arrived in Pak Chong, we took a tuktuk to the Greenleaf Guesthouse, ate dinner, and relaxed for the evening.  In the morning, we woke up for our day-long excursion at Khao Yai National Park.  The owner of the guest house packed us lunches, and we piled into the back of pick-up trucks, where benches lined the sides, with other tourists.  (Strangely, I can’t picture any of the other faces from the day we spent.)

When we entered the park, the first wildlife that we saw were pig-tailed macaques, small monkeys lining the sides of the road.  We saw them repeatedly throughout the day, but they were nevertheless exciting each time we saw them.  I’d never really seen primates in the wild before, with the exception of a quick glimpse of a white-faced capuchin in Costa Rica.  To our tour guide, the macaques were probably as exciting as seeing squirrels is for us.  Nevertheless, I liked watching them, especially when we spotted babies swinging on vines and falling out of trees and getting spooked and running and hopping around.

 

We stopped at an overlook, where we spotted a green leaf bird (for which our guest house was named), very bright against the misty morning sky.  We stopped by a fig tree to look for a hornbill flying over the road, but quickly moved on.  In the distance, I saw one fly across the road as we departed.  We stopped again to watch three gibbons—one black, two white, though they are of the same species—swinging from branches.  We stopped at a rest area and saw a mother and baby deer laying in the grass.  As many deer as I’ve seen at home, it was still exciting to see this Asian ungulate!

We then entered the forest.  We walked slowly, often pausing as our guide listened for birds.  But the first thing we saw was a scorpion—about three times the size of the ones I had seen in Costa Rica!—which our guide pulled out of its hole in the dirt with a long blade of grass.  We had done the same thing to get the tarantulas to emerge from their holes in Costa Rica.  Our guide decided that it would be a great idea for each of us to hold the scorpion.  He kept telling us that it wouldn’t sting as if it didn’t have the capability of doing so.  As he put the scorpion back in its hole, I asked him why the scorpion couldn’t sting.  “Oh, it can sting,” he told me.  Well, why didn’t it?  I asked.  “He’s my pet,” he said, and pretended to pet it before lowering it back into its home.

Elsewhere in the forest, we saw a red trogon, a snake skin, a cicada shell from a species that lives seven years below the ground and 30 days above, blooming ginger flowers, bear claw marks on a tree, evidence of wild pigs in the mud, strangler figs, ferns, palms, vines, fallen flowers, sunlight, leaf litter, epiphytes, and a brilliant green pit viper—venomous, but beautiful.  We saw a hornbill nest.  They use old woodpecker holes in trees for their nests.  The female goes inside and begins concealing the nest by using mud and feces to close the opening, sealing herself in the hole.  This helps protect her eggs from snakes and lizards.  She leaves just enough space in the opening to stick out her beak so that the male will feed her and her hatchlings.  As the babies get larger, the male breaks open the hole and the female comes out, and both continue feeding the babies.  The only problem is that if the male dies outside the nest, the female and the hatchlings will be stuck and left there to die.  Other than that, it seems like some great family cooperation and collaboration.

We took a break for lunch after spotting three more gibbons in the forest.  We ate rice and veggies with tofu and a coconut rice dessert wrapped in a banana leaf.  Then we drove to Haew Suwat Waterfall.  It wasn’t the most impressive waterfall we’d seen on our trip, but it was relaxing to sit at the foot of the water, though swimming wasn’t allowed.  We spent the rest of the afternoon “elephant hunting”—driving around the park, looking for wild elephants.  As we drove around at about 20 miles per hour, we saw a male hornbill feeding a female inside her nest, macaques and elephant dung lining the roads, and then we saw them!  I was almost thrown out the back of the pickup truck when it increased speed to about 60 miles per hour, racing down a hill because the guide saw the elephants exiting the forest to cross the street.  We were so lucky to see them.  It was split seconds from the time they exited the forest on one side of the street and entered again on the other.  Our guide kept telling us how lucky we were and how happy he was, and he kept giving the other guides shit for the rest of the day because they had missed it.

Driving back as the sun set, we saw an eagle, a hornbill picking fruit off a tree, another hornbill fly across the road and hop from branch to branch in a bare tree, and more deer.  We stopped to eat watermelon that the guide had brought for us as the sun dipped below the hills—a perfect end to a perfect day.  I didn’t feel like there was anything I had missed!