a sweaty affair
The national park was neat, "monsoon rainforest." But it wasn't as tropical as I had expected. It reminded me more of the Japanese forest here in Kagoshima in terms of appearance, but with crazy spiked vines galore and exotic animals. The vines with the largest thorns are used to make Thai liquor. Our guide pointed and said, "whiskey, whiskey." The first day the five of us went on a half-day tour with our guest house. It was so-so, as I'd pretty much been expecting. The guide spoke really good English, but she still couldn't answer all my questions (what's that tree?). We saw termite mounds in trees and lots of anthills in trees, but not really any other wildlife except chickens and bats. Yes, they have wild fowl! You've surely seen photos of those show chickens with amazing feathers... As for bats, we went to a meditation cave, which was kinda neat, but the guano made my nose itch. After we watched a huge bat colony exit their hillside cave. The guide would blow and make a noise and screw up their sonar, making them leave formation temporarily. Wonder if it hurts them.
The next day the boys, Katie and I took a sôngthaew (a red pickup truck with benches in the back, kind of a mix between taxi and bus service, depending on the area) to the park so we could hitch a ride in and get a guide. The guesthouse got super grumpy with us not doing their tour and wouldn't help us at all with any information about getting to the park, so we just went out to the road to hitch a ride and a nice man helped us out with hand signals (and rode with us all the way to the park to make sure we got there!). An elephant researcher gave us a ride in from the park gate and we watched videos of elephants at night and elephants mating (with pink hearts to censor appropriately/humorously) with some foreign students. They're all high school seniors who finished up their school work early so they could go on the 12-week program (and sometimes return in time for prom). One girl had on one of those biker caps that you see on guys in buttless leather pants and bondage gear.
The next day the boys, Katie and I took a sôngthaew (a red pickup truck with benches in the back, kind of a mix between taxi and bus service, depending on the area) to the park so we could hitch a ride in and get a guide. The guesthouse got super grumpy with us not doing their tour and wouldn't help us at all with any information about getting to the park, so we just went out to the road to hitch a ride and a nice man helped us out with hand signals (and rode with us all the way to the park to make sure we got there!). An elephant researcher gave us a ride in from the park gate and we watched videos of elephants at night and elephants mating (with pink hearts to censor appropriately/humorously) with some foreign students. They're all high school seniors who finished up their school work early so they could go on the 12-week program (and sometimes return in time for prom). One girl had on one of those biker caps that you see on guys in buttless leather pants and bondage gear.
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