Recently I took a trip to Khao Yai National Park in northeastern Thailand: Thailand’s first national park. The park boasts one of the largest intact monsoon forests remaining in mainland Asia, which explains its large variety of mammals, including 2-300 wild elephants, sambar deer, barking deer, wild pigs, Malayan sun bears, Asiatic black bears, gibbons, macaques, leopards, and tigers. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any big mammals (although we did see quite a lot of elephant poo!), but while trekking through the jungle we still saw a lot of wildlife. In addition to the large variety of plant life, we saw quite a few birds, monkeys, snakes, leaches, and a lot of large insects, which our guide thoroughly enjoyed putting on people’s arms and faces to creep them out.
Probably the coolest thing I've seen so far in Thailand. The black dots are all bats! At dusk, about 2 million bats fly out of a single cave to begin their nighttime hunt, as hawks hover above, waiting to feed. The stream continued for over an hour (it was still going when we left), and was pretty amazing to watch. The bats were almost like a column of smoke, forming spirals and funnels as the wind changed directions.
Trekking through the jungle reminded me of my ecology research on the Dartmouth Biology FSP in Costa Rica—and certainly made me nostalgic!
Most of what we saw can be summed up in pictures, so here they are:
Scorpion spider
Scenery near the entrance to the park
Huge spider!
This waterfall, Nam Tok Haew Suwat, was featured in the movie The Beach. But my favorite part of the picture is the Thai girls' pose. By far.
My favorite part of this picture? The dude swimming in the background. (But I guess he's not "swiming"...details, details)
I love English misspellings.
Pig-tailed macaques sprawled in the road
Pig-tailed macaque
Sam, looking unusually happy to have a large scorpion on his shirt
Trekking through the jungle
Holding a whip snake...
White-handed gibbon
Khao Yai boasts Thailand's largest population of Great Hornbills. These guys are pretty massive-- up to 1 meter tall and a 2 meter wingspan.
On the way in and out of Bangkok, I also got to hang out with Allison Kay ’09 and Julie Plevin ’09—a little southeast Asian Dartmouth reunion! Pictures below.
Tawandang German Brewery in Bangkok—which funnily enough turned out to be a huge bar with a Thai cover band and dancing waiters. Not too shabby. Note the hot pink pants.
Mini Dartmouth '09 reunion in Bangkok! Allison, me, and Julie
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