Jon Brown

Khao Yai National Park

November 23, 2006 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

I still didn’t feel like I’d had enough of Surin, so a bit of searching and I got the idea to go to Khao Yai National Park. I through ti was time to see some jungle and wildlife. So from Surin I took a train west to Pak Chong. From Pak Chong I took a Songtaew about 30 minutes south to a guest house that also offered tours. All the guest houses around here seem to offered a “complete” stay. Trekking/Tours, food, etc… The rooms are also inexpensive for what you get leading me to believe they really make there money off the fact that once you’re there you are somewhat trapped. There is no where you can walk to to get market food or any easy way to get back to Pak Chong. Anyway, at least at Green Leaf which I was staying the food and treks are reasonably priced so it’s not a big deal, just you’re noticeably trapped.

I got into the Guesthouse mid-day which was perfect. They run their treks as a half-day followed by a full day. I had called earlier that morning to make sure they had room available, upon arrival though there seemed to be some confusion and no record I’d called. Regardless they found me a room and I set about getting settled, showered, and fed. The staff is all very nice here. For the treks it’s all young energetic guys who speak good to very good English and around the guest house the women are all attentive and friendly.

That afternoon we set out on the first part of the tour. First we took a swim in some natural pools. After the swim headed to some limestone caves where we saw what seemed like a lot of bats hanging around in the caves. I saw it seemed like a lot because nothing could compare to what came later. In the caves with what seemed like a lot of bats there were a dozen or more Buddha images which would often be used by mediating monks, although none were presently sitting in the caves. After the caves we headed out by truck across fields to where there was a view of “the bat cave”. The bat cave is a small hole high up on the side of a mountain. Around sunset millions of bats exit this cave. It literally takes a couple hours for all of the bats to stream out of the cave. We watched and photographed in awe for about an hour. On the way back to the guest house we stopped off to see the biggest geckos I’ve ever seen, about 12 inches long not including the tail. These monster geckos click like the little ones, only much much louder. It sounds like a person clapping their hands.

That evening the group that had been on the trek together all gathered for dinners and a few drinks. Most of us would be going again tomorrow on the full day trek. It was a nice group of Belgians, Germans and Danes.

On the second day we had two trucks (really nice Songtaews) worth of trekkers. Each truck had a driver and a wildlife spotter riding in the front seats and 8 trekkers riding on the benches on the back.

Our first stop was to see some birds (I think parrots) which made for a great photo against the dead white tree and the deep blue sky. We continued into the park where to stumbled across a red tipped razor snake crossing the road. The snake was about 2 meters long! After many photos of this gorgeous creature the guides moved the snake out of the dangerous road. We then headed into the jungle we’d just released the snake into because on of the guides spotted a hornbill. Hornbills are the birds with the giant beaks. I did get a couple pictures of them, but none were particularly good because they were so far away. I was carrying a small set of binoculars though that my mother (thank you) had given me several years ago so I got several good views of them. As the day went on I would be constantly amazed at how our guide could spot these birds. He was seeing them with his eyes a hundred meters away through jungle foliage. He’d point and we’d all raise binoculars or the spotting scope the guide brought to share and then I’d still barely be able to see the bird. Often with guided anything I question if I couldn’t have just wandered on my own and found these things, in this case there is no way I would have. I would have been lucky to have spotted one of the dozens of wild creatures we’d see that day. Rather than spend the time recounting the minute by minute wonders of the day I’ll try to be brief. Driving through the park we stopped and saw Macaks and Gibbons. Trekking through the jungle we saw dozens of kinds of birds, but only one more of the magnificent hornbills. I was quite excited as well to see a giant white squirrel, water monitor lizard and more. That afternoon we swam in the pool below the waterfall used in the movie “The Beach”. That evening we drove around the park in search of wild elephants which occasionally walk along the roads in the park and were treated to seeing a huge pack. 18-20 Elephants in total of all ages. The group the day before had been excited they’d seen one elephant. I thought I’d be over elephants after Surin, but it’s something different to see them in the wild and they are truly amazing.

That evening again was a pleasant little dinner party with the groups comparing days and reminding about what a great trip it had been.

It was so comfortable here I thought about staying around for another day or two, maybe even repeat the trek I’d just done, but they were already booked full which surprised them, but not me. So I slept in a little the next day before taking a free (guest house supplied) ride back to the train station and the train towards Auythaya.

Khao Prah Wihan

November 20, 2006 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

I wanted to spend a little more time in the southern part of Isan (Northeastern Thailand) and see more of the area before leaving. I didn’t want my entire knowledge of southern Isan to be Surin and the Elephant Round-up, as great as I think each is. So, I planned a day trip to a ruined temple just across the border in Cambodia. To get there from Surin I’d take a train a couple hours east to Si Saket, then a bus a couple hours south to Kantharalak then a motor bike taxi about 30 minutes to get to the Cambodian border. Then I’d walk across the boarder and enter the temple complex.

It was all planned out and for the most part went according to plan… I did however have a less than pleasant bus ride… About half way through my bowels started not feeling so well… I hadn’t had much stomach trouble since I got here, just a little and it’d never been a problem. Now however I had major gas pains and really would have liked some quality time on a nice western toilet. Unfortunately there isn’t much in between Si Saket and Kathrakalek. The bus stops are simple shade structures next to rice fields and that’s it. I started thinking about just jumping off the bus at the next stop and squatting in a rice field… then just hoping the next bus (in about an hour) would let me on. I had all sorts of crazy thoughts… all were fairly embarrassing. The cold sweets, the dry skin and goose bumps, the stabbing pains would come in waves. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore I’d get a few minutes of relative comfort… then it would start again. Somehow, and I don’t actually know “how” I did it, but made it to the bus station in Kathanralek. I quickly exit the bus and was glad to quickly find a rest room. I ran inside and had I not been in such dire need probably would have taken a moment to be horrified to be confronted with my first non-flushing squat toilet without a sprayer. You see, I don’t mind squat toilets, I don’t mind non-flushing toilets, I don’t mind toilets that have a sprayer (for washing your butt) but don’t have toilet paper… but this was just a nasty squat toilet, a large bucket of water and a small bucket to scoop water out of the big bucket… that’s it. I didn’t really have time to think about it, so I did my business and used the facilities exactly as a local would… and from now I will forever appreciate why in many countries (including Thailand) you don’t use your left hand for anything… anything else that is.

With business taken care of I set about finding a ride to Prah Wihan. It was too late in the day to get a Songtaew, so it was going to be a moto-taxi ride. He wanted 10 Baht per Kilometer, for a 36 km trip, or 360. Not bad for round trip actually. I bargained him down to 330, which seemed fair enough and off we went.

It’s not a cheap trip by Thailand standards, at least not for foreigners who in addition to the transport costs are charged an outrageously inflated fee to enter Thai National Parks. You see the only way to access the temple is by a road running through a Thai National Park. In one of the more atrocious cases of being legally ripped off, the fee to enter the Thai National park is now 400 Baht for foreigners, not outrageous by US standards, but considering Thai’s pay 20 or 40 Baht it’s a bit exploitive. Even more so in this case since 99% of the people entering the park are not doing so to see anything inside the Thai National Park, but rather just to reach Prah Wihan in Cambodia. Cambodia charges you 5 Baht to cross the border for the day (no visas needed). Then at the entry to Prah Wihan you’re charged 200 Baht to enter the complex. So Thailand is now charging double what Cambodia is charging to see Cambodia’s temple. It is bizarre that Cambodia charges 5 baht at the border then another 200 Baht after you’ve walked the 500 meters to the temple entrance.

One of the reasons for all this bizarrness is because of Prah Wihan’s history. The temple complex was long claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia. The world court finally awarded it to Cambodia, I forget exactly when but it was fairly recent. Considering there is literally no way to get a motorized vehicle (not even a off-road motorcycle) to it from the Cambodian side, it seems an odd out come, but what would I know. I do suppose with lots of whacking through jungle you might find a path from the plains below up the cliffs the temple sits on, but it’d be lots of whacking through jungle to get down there…

As one approaches the complex you are reminded by many… many… signs to stay on established paths and not to wander do to land mines. Ahhh… the wonders legacies of war. 40 years later and people and cows and dogs and whatever might wander into the jungle are still getting killed. The temple area has been cleared of land mines but there are many paths leading away from the temple towards the small villages setup around it that do have mine fields surrounding them.

As with most tourist attractions there are plenty of adults and kids hawking tourist stuff: water, beer, cigarettes, post cards, handicrafts, etc… Which is nice just in case you needed a beer and a smoke while you hiked around the temples steep steps.

Mid-way through the temple complex while exploring a sunken water reservoir just off the main tourist path, I caught a glimpse of a rainbow in the distance. A little girl who’d been following me as I strolled off the main path was standing nearby. I called her over to point towards the rainbow, but she just kept telling me that what I was looking at was “three countries, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia”. Which she had a postcard of that she wanted to sell me. I tried the Thai word for rainbow, but I’m not sure she ever quite understood. As I wandered further into the ruined temple complex she followed me and point out many of the sights. It was actually nice to have her as a guide since on my own I wouldn’t have noticed a few of a things she pointed out. However, I also felt a bit rushed since I wanted to just sit and enjoy while she was eagerly pointing me to the next thing to see. At the end of the complex is a cliff dropping at least 1500 feet to plains below. On the plains I could see several villages dotting the area, and I was really left wondering how anyone could get from there to where I was now standing. I sat on the edge of cliff meditating for a few minutes, while the young girl sat next to me shielding herself from the sun and probably wondering why I was just sitting in the hot sun… When I got up she lead me through a small opening to a ledge just below the edge of the cliff. Here there were prayer flags and hundreds of sticks stuck into every crack. The sticks are like prayers holding up the slowly crumbling temple and cliffs. At least that’s what I assume. Here she also offered to take a picture of me. I was a bit nervous about putting my big heavy camera in her hands and she was a bit confused why she couldn’t see me on the LCD screen (SLR cameras don’t work that way), but in the end she took a pretty darn good picture of me. She showed me one last thing, a bunker built beside the temple and a large gun aimed back towards Thailand, just another reminder how many battles between all sides had been fought from this lofty perch. I left the temple complex right as it was closing.

When I got back to the boarder I was pleased to find my moto taxi still waiting for me. I’d been there longer than I thought though and it hadn’t occurred to me I’d need to catch the last bus back to Si Saket if I wanted to make it back to Surin. The moto driver pointed out we need to hurry if I was going to catch the last bus. I got lucky… first my moto driver was an excellent driver, he carefully slowled or avoided every bump in the road like he’d driven the route hundreds of times (which he probably had) and second he had a very fast motorbike. I know we got passed by a few cars, but we passed every motorbike and several cars on the road. He was flying. He got me back literally as the last bus was pulling out of it’s stall. He honked for them to wait for me, which they did. I over paid him with 400THB. More than even his original asking price of 360 and well more than the 330 we’d agreed on. I told him it was in appreciation of his speed and good driving and then ran and hoped on the waiting bus. The ride back to Si Saket and the train ride back to Surin was mostly uneventful. Pretty, but uneventful. When I got back to Surin I was happy to see it sleepy and quiet like it was the first time I arrived, all but a few tourists were long gone, and only a few local elephants remained as well.

Surin Elephant Round-up

November 19, 2006 by Jon Brown Leave a Comment

The weekend in Surin was a fantastic real start to my travels. Surin is normally off the tourist track, the well worn tourist track in Thailand anyway. It see lots of tourists for just this one weekend a year.

I’m going to starting trying to be more brief with my blog entries… so we will see how it goes.

On Friday the big event was the Elephant parade and jumbo feast. At Joy’s suggestion several of us mounted elephants an rode in the parade. It was an amazing experience to be riding in a parade on elephant back surrounded by scores of elephants all walking shoulder to shoulder. IMHO, there are two times and places it’s worthwhile to take a ride on an elephant. The first is on a the jungle on a trek, which I haven’t done sounds great from the people I’ve talked to. I personally wouldn’t bother riding one around a stadium or “elephant village”. The only time outside a jungle I’d ride one inside a town/city is for a parade, it really just to amazing to put words to. At the end of the parade route is the jumbo feast where the elephants get to eat the tons (literally tons and tons) of food that had been prepared the following day. Each day an average elephant eats several hundred pounds of food. Two fairly good links on the state of elephants in Thailand today are here and here I’ll refrain from writing pages upon pages here on how I feel about it all.

That afternoon was spent “sitting out the front of the hotel” as Joy would say in Aussie English, just watching the spectacle go by. This is why New Hotel was so ideal. The square fronted on one side by the train station and another by New Hotel is the center point of all the non-stadium based elephant activities. So it was an all day show every day.

On Saturday Inga and I went to the stadium to see the big show. It was loads of fun and there are plenty of photos on the Flickr site from the show. The highlights for me was to see the elephants dressed in battle costume, as well as just seeing the spectacle of 300 elephants all together on the same field. I have mixed feelings about all the “tricks” they perform, whether it be painting, bowing, hula hooping, flag waving, dart throwing or anything else I can’t think of at the moment. If you look over the earlier links they explain the reality of these creature lives. That being that they have to do something to feed these giants, and with logging widely banned they are left with domesticated animals that live over 50 years with nothing “productive” to do, so they resort to being a tourist attraction.

Sunday was just a relaxing day to enjoy Surin. Aside from the elephant round-up I really enjoyed Surin as well. It has a pleasant morning market full of produce and food that I loved wandering through each day trying new foods. Surin being well off the tourist track has very few English speakers, especially in the markets, so this was an added impetus to learn some Thai.