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Day
4
(November 28, 2010) Khao Yai
Before
This is a simple day as we’re going to sleep in
the place where the tour to Khao Yai National Park leaves from. It is a
photographic safari in the rainforest since 8 AM to 7:30 PM. Lunch is
included and we spend the night there too.
0- Greenleaf
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After
At 8 AM we’re taking our breakfast at Greenleaf with the
people are going to be in the tour. My wife’s got a problem with the
contact lens and must come back to our room. In the meantime a sangtaew
with 8 persons leaves to the National Park, which is almost the whole
group, and me, two young French men who came out late from their room
and Puma, the one we spend the nice last evening, keep waiting her.
While waiting we’re delivered the anti-leech socks. They must be put
over our current socks and tied upon our trousers. The idea is nothing
can climb up inside our clothes from the end of our trousers. They’re
thinking for leeches but anything wanting to follow that way is not
welcome. When Eva arrives we leave in another sangtaew to Khao Yai. She
must put her anti-leeches socks on route.
Soon we’re talking with our tourmates and Eva will
try to teach them Spanish. Our first stop has wonderful views and
shameless macaques.
Then, we’re taken in front a big fig tree where
come to eat a lot of animals during the day. On this first visit we
take a picture of a giant squirrel.
When we arrive at the observation spots, Puma sets
the telescope he is always carrying over the tripod very quickly so we
can see better the animals. It allows even taking good photos through
it like the ones here.
On the Visitors Center we find a varano and a
couple of turtles. Then, looking the exhibition they have there we find
a Spanish boy from close where we’re from, who lives in Bangkok and
ends offering me a job in case we want to come to live here or help if
needed during our travel. He is very nice and we won’t be able to stop
thinking about the benefits of living in Thailand he explained.
Once again in the fig tree, we can get incredible
sights of a black gibbon eating hanging on the branches, which is their
typical way considering they never go down to ground.
Then we go for a trekking through the rainforest. We see a
lot of amazing vegetation and Puma, our guide, who has been joking with
Eva all the time, stops in a hole in the ground and try to get a
scorpion out. We know he always uses to put the scorpion over someone
and we know too Eva is the chosen person for this time, so she runs but
the scorpion is not at home today.
During this tour in the jungle we can see spectacular trees,
as the one in the picture below, with lianas and even pass by an
elephant track. Although we don’t manage to see animals, except for
some spider or butterfly, we really enjoy this time inside the
rainforest.
We eat under one of these amazing trees and go out
to the road after a couple of hours of a quiet walking. We come back to
the fig tree as Puma has got the notice there is a tucano (he’s been
after it the whole day). The hornbill is really big and we get
fantastic pictures of it.
We then visit the falls famous because they pay a
role in the Leonardo Di Caprio’s movie “The beach”: Heaw Suwat and
we’re delivered a snack: a pack of rice with something sweet evolved in
a leaf. Delicious!
We go into the vehicles and start a search of wild elephants
but,
after a couple of hours, have not been found. It is dark, but Puma
keeps looking for animals. Finally we all agree on we’re tired and it’s
time to rest. We haven’t been so lucky with the animals – that’s
impossible to control – but we’ve got a great time today. Puma has been
charming and joking with my wife all day long and the people in the
group has been funny and nice so all together makes an unforgettable
day.
We come back to our hotel at 7:30 PM but we don’t take our dinner
there, we do it with our safari mates, Puma and one man from Barcelona
has just arrived to do the same tour tomorrow. We talk for long
exchanging advices.
Once back at hotel we know
tomorrow we’re going to breakfast at Greenleaf too. We must confess, on
despite of the ho0t water, we would change our allocation from this
resort to the basic rooms of Greenleaf’s guesthouse just because the
people.
At least, there is no TV show tonight.
Actually, hotel looks empty. I assume it must work for local people and
yesterday was a weekend, but today it is not, so all the customers are
back at their homes now, except for us. This assumption is supported by
the voucher in our room, completely written in thai. We can only read
the name: Ruenmai Ngam Resort. Today we can sleep well in the quietness
only broken by the sound of the frogs outside.
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