„What should we do if we see a bear?“ – „Take a photo“

Soo sorry this is coming so late, but here it is:

Last week on Friday we visited the Monkey Palace where little monkeys stay in a semi enclosed area (they can easily jump over the fence and walk freely on the street if they so wished). I hadn’t even set foot in the actual monkey area and two of them had already jumped on me from behind and reached for the tiny banana I had had in my hand. Once they were off of me, I could appreciate their cuteness and watched them from afar. Some of my friends had a constant presence of monkeys on them and we got some great pictures.

Yet that hadn’t been a big enough adventure for eleven of us, so we separated from the rest of the group and made our way to Pak Chong, a town near the National Park Khao Yai. We had a day trip through the park planned. After observing an amazing view over the park a tour guide led us through the depths of the jungle while we searched and hushed for any kind of wildlife (birds, elephants, tigers etc.). On our three-hour trek we found three gigantic squirrels and a long horn spider. 

Sadly, we didn’t find any wild elephants, even though we rushed after the cracking of the trees caused by them. At one point we were about 30 meters away from them. Nevertheless, the jungle plant life had more than enough to offer and it was a great outing.

We also got to see a beautiful waterfall which some of you might know from the movie “The Beach”. As we drove home we kept our ears open for even the faintest elephant sound. Thanks to another tour group we saw one from the street, but only a little peek of it’s dark back. So we made our way towards the gentle giant through some spicky plants. “If he runs, we all die” is what our guide had said. Yieks, good to know! We were all quite scared and just listened while it ate its vegetarian dinner. Yet we still only got to hear it, the plants were too thick to be able to see it. After this nearest to death experince I’ve ever had, we stopped one two more times, the last one seeing a group of about 10 t0 15 elephants, small and big, walking along a hill on the other side of a lake. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take any pictures.

That was the best day yet!