Backpacking at Khao Yai

So the last weekend was a 4 day weekend for Thailand. It was the end of Buddhist lint, which means we got Monday and Tuesday off. I met up with Mike West, another Peace Corps volunteer who is from the group that came to Thailand a year before ours. We decided to go backpacking at Thailand's largest national park, Khao Yai.

People in Thailand don't really go backpacking, so there are no designated sites. Actually we weren't sure if it was against the rules of the park or not, but considering that most of the trails are not marked well and split off to the point that they are essentially impossible to follow, we figured no one would have any idea what we were doing. Camping in hammocks seems to be the way to go in the jungle so we went with that. There aren't good places to set up tents, and you don't get nearly as hot in a hammock.
The first day we spent trying to follow trails to Manao Falls 8km off of the road in the forest. We hiked way more than that, but perhaps never really even got close to the waterfall. There were lots of large trees down that blocked the trail, and then animal paths cutting off in different directions, not to mention unmarked and confusing directions. We camped along one of these trails that night and headed out to try something else. Perhaps something with less leeches, as the forest we were walking through was filled with them.

The next trail we hiked down similarly died out after a few hundred yards. However we knew it followed one creek down to a confluence with another which was supposed to have lots of waterfalls. So we started bushwhacking through the woods to get down there. Bushwhacking is really hard in rain forests. There are lots of plants with thorns, and vines, and fallen trees everywhere. Eventually we made it to a confluence with a smaller stream, which we were pretty sure we could hike up to get back out to the road. So we set up camp at the confluence so we could hike further down towards the waterfalls without our packs, that way we could swim and walk through the creek without worrying about everything getting wet. Way more fun than bushwhacking through spiky plants and picking up leeches.
Pretty soon we came to a series of two 40-50 foot waterfalls. We went into the woods and hiked down around them, thinking that those waterfalls must have made up a good amount of the gradient of the river and that we would soon get to the confluence with the larger river. This was wrong. The picture to the left is above another series of 5 or more waterfalls all at least 40 feet, some significantly more. It was getting too late to walk around, so we gave up on getting to the confluence. We also figured the larger river might have too much water and would perhaps be dangerous. Some day I want to go back and check that out, because that river hits even more topo lines on the map, and must have some epically huge waterfalls.

So we camped out along the stream that night, ate kanoms (Thai snacks) which make surprisingly awesome hiking food. We also had a huge bag of cashew nuts I picked up from my community before I left, as we have a group that grows cashew trees there.
The next morning we woke up and walked/waded/climbed up the smaller stream we had camped next to. It was a very pretty little stream, lots of small waterfalls, and green vegetation on the sides.

It was now Monday, out last day in the woods as Tuesday was reserved for traveling. We decided to hitch hike around the park and check out the more visited areas of the park.






This is Heo Narok Falls. There were a lot of people there, but for good reason, it was definitely a beauitful spot.

















This is Paa Diao Daai, which means something like a cliff that is easily passed over. Its off the road through the woods perhaps half a kilometer, which is more than the distance an average Thai person would consider walking, so that's probably why it would be easy to miss.

We continued to Huai Sawat Falls which is probably the most popular destination of the park. There were hundreds of people there. We then hiked a kilometer downstream to another very pretty waterfall, and there was no one there at all. I feel like this same thing happens in the States, but I was surprised to find that it is actually worse in Thailand.

Anyway, we hitched a ride out of the park and found a pretty delicious steak restaurant that was only slightly overpriced and was playing bluegrass (awesome!) We caught another ride who said they would take us to Pak Chong where we would get a hotel and a bus ride out the next morning, but they dropped us off 10km away, by which point it was dark out. This of course left us in a worse situation before because no one wants to pick up hitch hikers in the dark, even in Thailand.

This is kind of a cultural thing that Thai people like to do called Greng-Jai. Basically it means they don't want to help you out, or perhaps can't, but they try to anyway because it gives them good karma. So like, if you ask a Thai person directions, they will absolutely give you an answer, even if they have no idea where you want to go, because they want to be helpful. It doesn't really make sense, but it happens, and its frustrating. Fortunately after hiking a few km someone picked us up and gave us a ride into town.

I guess I'll leave you with this: one of the little guys that was plaguing us throughout our trip, though mostly on the first day. They inject anticoagulants when they bite you so that you bleed a lot after you take them off.

The Thai word is taak. They can actually bite through your socks too it turns out.

Hey blog, what's up?

So I haven't been posting on here, probably for a variety of reasons. First of all a lack of motivation to do really anything. I'm not really sure where it comes from, or I would stop it. Like when I was like, I'm going tide my bike a lot every day and get things done at my site and learn how to do things like cook Thai food. Okay, so I learned how to make sticky rice, but now that I'm eating fruit and sticky rice on a regular basis, I feel like I just did that because you can eat it with your hands and so I have thus eliminated the need to do dishes.

Also, mainly the reason I write this is to show pictures right? I can't imagine what I write being that terribly interesting or useful, but pictures of things I'm doing in Thailand are cool right? And the people following are all my friends and stuff anyway, so you can just talk to me, which is way better anyway. The whole Peace Corps rule about my blog being protected does make it seem kind of useless. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I lost my camera.

So a few weeks ago I woke up at 7am in the morning, cause damn it I was going to go hiking. Somewhere new as well. The trail up Khao Chamao, the big mountain next to my site has a trail going off of the back side. During a conversation with someone who lives at the base of that trail, he suggested that it may go to the National Park on the other side. So I was going to hike to that National Park. And, since I don't have a car or friends to go with or anyway to set up a one way hike, I was going to then hike back over the mountain. Which is why I woke up at 7am in the morning.

Its about a 12 or 13 km bike ride from my house to the trail. I probably got 3 or 4km before it started pouring rain. This however was the weekend before a 2 week long meeting where I went to central thailand to listen to people talk at me from 8am to 5pm 6 days a week. So I wasn't going to let a little bet of torrential downpour (pa-yu in Thai) stop me. Fortunately by the time I got to the trail it had stopped raining. In fact, it hadn't rained there at all. I locked my bike to a tree, geared up, and started hiking.

It probably took about half an hour of hiking before I could hear rain up above. This lasted for an incredibly long amount of time before I felt any rain. Lots of large leaves up above hang onto the rain for a while apparently. Eventually it did start raining, but I've hiked in the rain lots before. Its kind of refreshing when its 95 degrees outside. So on I went, probably 2/3rds up the km high peak of Khao Chamao.

Which is when my knee felt kind of pinchy or itchy or something. I scratched through my pants, but felt something weird. So I pulled my pants down in the middle of the trail (no worries, Thai people don't hike.) Interestingly enough there were two leeches sucking on my knee. While back home we think of leeches as aquatic, Thailand has terrestrial leeches. I knew this, but hadn't really given it much thought until I saw two of them on me. I shrugged, and put my hand down pulling the first one off. It immediately turned its head around latching itself to my thumb. I flicked my hand around but it was already on there really well, and the only way I managed to get it off was flicking it with my other hand really hard. For the next one I grabbed a leaf off of a nearby tree and jerked it off after 3 or 4 tries. They do not let go easily. These things varied in size, but were mostly probably about as thick around as an average worm,a nd maybe half as long.

Having removed these two, I checked around for more, and seemed to be clear of them. No big deal, they didn't really hurt, even if it was a little gross. I tucked my pants into my socks to keep more from getting up in my pants, and started hiking again. About 30 minutes later I stopped to find 3 of the things crawling up my pants. Slightly annoyed, I grabbed a leaf and proceeded to jerk them off of me. In another 30 minutes, I looked down to check my pants again. I was somewhat horrified. There were 10 to 15 on them for each leg. All of the crawling upwards, looking a lot like inch worms. I looked on the ground and could see 5 or 6 more crawling across wet leaves coming for me. I climbed up on a small rock grabbing leaves to begin jerking the things off of me. Considering how hard they hang on, by the time some were off more had found there way to my rock. Eventually, after probably fifteen minutes or more of pulling leaches on me. But, it would probably be good to give one more check. This is when I discovered that one had gotten up under my shirt and was sucking away just below my belly button. Also, there was another one on the back of my leg inside of my pants. I have no idea how it got there. I quickly realized that leg hair makes leeches way harder to get off.

At this point I had had enough. I took off down the trail (running) despite it being very steep (4-5 km, 1000m) and covered in wet leaves mud, and lots of leeches which I can't imagine help very much with traction. Soon I realized that in my haste to get off the mountain and away from leeches, I had lost the trail. I was pretty sure I knew how to get back to it, but to my left I saw a rocky drainage that began heading off of the ridge. The leaches like hanging out on wet leaves, apparently rocks not so much. I made a (probably poor) decision to head down this way to avoid more leaches.

Getting to where there were lots of rocks, I began removing leeches again. This time they had figured out how to get in between my pant legs and my socks and there were a cluster of 6 of them on my right ankle, and other 2 that had gotten up onto my leg. There were also 3 on my back and another crawling around on my backpack, not to mention countless ones of them on my pants. I hastily began jerking them off with leaves again, until finally I felt I was leech free. Oh, also there was one way up on my left hip. Whatever events in my life led up to me wearing boxer briefs instead of boxers, I am thankful for them.

So I began making my way down the rocky drainage, thankful for not seeing leaches. It sometimes got overgrown with lots of thorns and branches, where I would try and find my way through. Eventually it turned into a little bed rock stream, and I could just lay down flat and slide underneath them. There were some fairly large waterfalls, 20 to 30 feet in succession, though not much water, that I climbed down with the help of some fortunately very strong routes and vines. After what seemed like forever of descending this drainage, it flattened out. The stream eventually disappeared. Apparently it is intermittent, and I had passed the run off from the rain event which had died down a little.

The stream turned into a sandy bed that curved back and forth. Apparently wasps of some sort like to live in these stream beds. I don't know if they were pissed off, because they realized they built their home in a stupid place that was about to get flooded, or if I stepped on their nests or what, but I got attacked. I wasn't sure what happened at first, and kind of just stood there like, "What the hell is wrong with my chest and why does it hurt so bad?" Then I got stung two more times and it became apparent why my chest hurt, because there was a small angry wasp stinging me.

I ran down the stream away getting them off of me. Then finally made it out of the woods after walking along the stream banks through more thorns rather than risk finding another wasp nest.

I eventually came out to a road, fairly certain I knew which direction the trailhead was, I started walking down the road. It started pouring rain again, and I had 3 bee stings, was soaking wet, had lost plenty of blood from leeches, falling on rocks, and thorns, and I was not happy. After walking for I think around 5 km a person I know from my village drove by and asked me if I needed a ride somewhere. I happily jumped in the back of his truck and he drove me to my bicycle. Funny, that guy never asked me what I was doing walking down the road in a rainstorm covered in mud, branches, and bleeding in spots. I'm kind of glad, I definitely didn't feel like trying to explain it in Thai.

Oh yeah, and in the course of that my camera came out of my pack. I don't even know how to find where I was hiking again, so its pretty lost. I bought another one in bangkok last weekend, so hopefully more pictures soon. Maybe of some leeches sucking on me?

Anyway, people are yelling at me to "Gin Kao" or eat rice. They have to yell it at me at least 15 times a day, even if I'm obviously going there already. At least we eat outside and I don't have to listen to the same playlist of Thai songs in the office. There's seriously only 20 songs on it, and they just play it over and over again. It motivates me to get out and try to do things in the afternoons though. But doing things in Thailand is hard for community development, because Thailand is already pretty developed, and people don't think I know how to do things like cook food, or wash my clothes, so I can't imagine they actually believe I know what I'm talking about with the environment.