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Elephant riding and 12 meter waterfall




bats

I decided to start blogging in English instead. For different reasons. One is that its an English computer and it makes it easier for me to write because it has all the English letters, and also because some of my English friends requested it. I know all my Swedish friends and family knows English anyway so there will be no problem.

So today is Thursday and I am still in Pak Chong. This Monday me, Andrew 3 French guys and a Polish couple went in to Khao Yai national park for a 2 days trekking tour. We had heard thar our guide was supposed to be the best guide in the area but we didn’t know how good he really was until we was in the truck on the way to the park. While he was driving he spotted a scorpion and he stopped the car quickly and opened the back for us. “Ruuun” he said and started running himself back to where we came from, with the car motor still running. We didn’t know what was going on and we all jumped out and started running. He came up to the scorpion all excited and showed it to us. We realized then that he really was a good guide and during the tour he proved it to us all the time. I am really happy we got him as a guide.

On our first day in the park we drove around in the car, did a small trekking on maybe 6 km and we saw a lot of different animals like monkeys and lizards with more. We went to a waterfall and swam were they shot one of the scenes in the movie “the beach”. We also did a night safari. That was really cool. It was all dark outside and we were driving around. We met a car and the guide in the other car told our guide that there was elephants not far away. Our guide went crazy. He was racing around the curvy road just to reach the elephants before they disappeared. We got there and there was around 10 elephants standing next to the road eating. They were a bit scary. They got angry and made loud noises when they saw us, but they still stayed there, eating grass while we were taking pictures. It was great.

The day after we woke up 5.30 in the morning to drive up the mountain and see the sunrise. It was so beautiful. We could here the djungels different noices while we were sitting there in the cold morning breeze watching the sunrise. Amazing. After that we had breakfast and then we went out for a 10km long trekking in the djungle. It was not an easy trekking. We climbed up and down, tripping over big sticks, balanced on rocks and sticks to cross the small water (don’t know English word) things. After 8 km we reached a big waterfall were we could swim if we were brave enough to jump a 12 meter high waterfall to get down to the swimming place. Only two of the guys did it, Andrew and one of the French guys, we other chickend out. After that the day was almost finish and we drove back to the hostel.

On the Wednesday we were up at 6 in the morning to go to an elephant farm. It was so cold when we went there and we were all shaking in the back of the ute. We came to the farm and our guide spoke with the farmers. They had never had tourist there helping them to wash the elephants before and they were clearly not used to tourist at all. This was actually not a part of our tour but the French guys asked our guide the day before if he knew a place were we could go and swim with elephants and he told us that he knew some people who owned elephants and he asked them if it was ok for us to come and help them with the morning wash. It was so much fun. I absolutely loved it. The elephants was so cool and they understood when the farmers told them to walk, stop and dive. Because this was the first time they done it, they didn’t have a price on it so all we had to pay was 150baht each which is round about 5AUD, (30krones).

The same day we were picked up later on the evening for our last half day tour. All together we paid 2500baht (less than 100AUD, 600kronor) for 2 and a half day tour including everything we needed those days. On the half day tour we went to a mineral water “pool” and swam for a while. Then we went to have a look at the caves were the bats sleeps and after that we went to a place to see the bats fly out from the caves. Every day round about the same time 4 million bats leave the caves to go and hunt for food. I cant even describe how cool it was to see all the bats flying out. It never ended. We stayed for about 10 minutes but our guide told us that it takes more then one hour before all the bats are out from the caves because they are so many. Crazy.

And today me and Andrew decided to have a chill day here in Pak Chong. We live in a beautiful hostel called Bobbys apartments and we felt it was worth staying one extra night checking out the town. I bought a pair of shoes which was almost mission impossible at first, because all sizes was so small. Everything is really small here. I am size XL in this country, which is not very nice for my confidence. So tomorrow we leave to travel even more north. We have a 15 hour long train journey in front of us to reach Chang Mai on Saturday morning.

So til then, take care and bye bye !!J