Khao Yai National Park is Thailand’s oldest and largest. It is home to an impressive assortment of large and/or exotic and/or scary beasties. For example, leopards, bears, macaques, elephants (of the wild variety … domesticated elephants are everywhere in Thailand), cobras (of the ‘King’ variety – and several others), pythons, and tigers. Seeing any or all of these would be great (note: I said “seeing” only), so off I went.
Rather than blundering about on my own, I signed up for a full-day tour organized by one of the guest houses in the nearby town of Pak Chong (specifically the Khao Yai Garden Lodge). This is absolutely the way to go. Your fee gets you a truck and driver for the day, a guide, and lunch. Most importantly, it gets you your guide’s knowledge of where to go and his uncanny (in Ruong’s case at any rate) ability to spot animals. You may have trouble locating the whip snake in my photo – which was taken from 2’ away. Ruong spotted it 15’ feet off the road as our truck drove by at 20 miles an hour! It is easy to imagine an unescorted visitor failing to find any wildlife at all.
With Ruong’s assistance, however, we saw: barking deer, elephants, gibbons, horn-bills, the whip snake, macaques, guar, turtles, and an interesting species of millipede that rolls up into a perfect hard sphere when touched. Oh, and of course, leeches. Lots of leeches. Your tour fee also covers leech-sock rental. And, I should amend my previous statement. It is easy to imagine an unescorted visitor failing to find any wildlife other than leeches, which would probably be found attached to the leg (I flicked a good 2 dozen off my socks, which I am pleased to say was done effortlessly).
We didn’t find the elusive tiger though. Even Ruong has never seen one in the park. Researchers visiting earlier this year did, identifying at least 3 individuals through their unique stripe patterns—but they apparently spent more than 8 hours looking, and ventured more than a few feet from roads and well-trodden paths. Oh well, maybe next time…
2 comments:
Leech socks! Hilarious. I thought that was another soccer photo (with shin guards) pressed into service for your travels.
I see Waldo... but still no snake. You can do this stuff, sans the leaches, at Animal Kingdom Kirk.
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