As always when adventure is concerned I got an impulsive urge to leave the city and just go for it, never minding that it was already late evening, that I was in a megalopolis of 15 million, and could barely speak a few words of the language. Bangkok was steamy as always. It was time to head east towards Cambodia and into the jungle.
Leaving the Victory Monument mini bus station at around 9 pm (where I got a lesson in how to remain calm and organised amidst true chaos), it took approximately 2.5 hours via a decent motorway to get to a small town called Pak Chong. This is the gateway to Khao Yai National Park. Travelling alone and at night I got to observe the Thai people's amazing interdependency and networking skills. This society could not be further from the western one such as Australian one. Word spreads fast here even without gadgets and Internet (yes, they all use it now of course), but I was the only white/European/Farang on the mini bus and the locals on the bus would make sure that I reach my destination without a hassle.
For a price of about 150 ($4) baht I was dropped right in front of my hostel, the Greenleaf Guesthouse, located on the very edge of the jungle. Bangkok seemed very distant now, the only trace of modernity, a lonely 7/11 across the road, with five sweet country girls, bored and obviously cracking jokes at my expense.
Green Leaf guesthouse has very friendly staff and decent accommodation, minimal but clean and comfortable (we are in the jungle after all). The air here is cooler than in Bangkok (a pleasant 25 degrees) which makes it a great change. It's quiet, apart from the sounds of cycadas behind the building, and a small group of Thais singing to an old guitar on the front verandah. This relaxed atmosphere reminded me of Bosnia, and I felt right at home.
There were also 4-5 obligatory European backpackers - they didn't play nor sing. Always the pragmatists, they were immersed in their laptops, organising their subsequent journeys, and so on. Idiots. I drank a large Chang in the bar next door, a soapie was on the TV, and went to bed.
I awoke next morning at 7, had a Farang breakfast made from the things I bought the previous night in 7/11, and boarded the Songthaew that would be our sightseeing vehicle for the day. The group consisted of an Irish couple and three moderately hot Dutch girls. The driver and the guide. Cool.
First stop was a lookout at one of the highest points in the part (1400m?) where we got to see the hilly lush forest we'd be trekking in. It was September and the wet season and very few, all local tourists. We put our anti-leach socks and went on.
Next, we passed by the parks main visitor area. The parks visitor areas were impressively maintained, and were similar to parks we're known for here in Australia. A Sambar deer mother and cub were grazing, inconspicuously, next to the toilet building. I thought it would be a good idea to chat up one of the Dutch girls at this point. We lead our little group towards the museum across the main road. This tiny building contained stuffed specimens of animals found within the park, including tigers and rhinos, which once roamed the park in great numbers and were now all but extinct. Poaching was still a big problem even within this protected and famous park, and the museum made it a kind of primary theme of the exhibit.
The main road through the park is narrow and winding, and riding on the songthaew one gets to get a good feel of the jungle . We stopped on a kind of grassy opening, got out and hiked some 200 metres through the tall grass and into the forest. And sure, after not long there was a small group of gibbons high up in the branches. They produced the kind of sounds that made the blood froze in your veins. Scrambling to get a good view of them, we failed to notice the leaches crawling up our socks, pants, and shirts. It was their time to feast on fresh European blood. This seemed a fitting occasion, with the haunting Gibbon calls echoing in the background.
Back on the songthaew, I noticed I was bleeding from my hands, most of the others were also still fighting off the little suckers. Except the Irish girl. She had seen worse in her 25 or so years.
Pan and his driver pulled the car over on the side of the road where the little sign pointed towards the start of the hike trail. Stepping into the jungle is always a kind of a instant right of passage. You momentarily leave the 'real' world behind and enter an unknown, foreign one, ruled by the weather, leaches, curious looking plants and whatever wild animals remained. It is dark, wet, and muddy. The smells of rotten plant material. Your senses awaken.
Evey few hundred metres, Pan would freeze, and gesture us to shush. The sound of a bear, a certain bird species only he had seen or heard, a monkey. Jungle trekking is suspenseful. You don't see a lot of animals, but they are there, probably watching you, and thinking 'Look at these dumb idiots, what do they want here, do they know how stupid they look?'. We made our way carefully down the track that could barely be made out in places. Always remaining a gentleman (which was not related to me wanting to get into their pants) I helped the girls, including the Irish girl. Her boyfriend was unreliable.
We must have been on the trek for good two hours during which Pan did his best to catch a number of chameleons, to explain how strangler fig trees grow or how the seasons affect gibbons mating. One of the Dutch girls and I listened. The other two did not give a damn about Thailand's ecosystem. Leaches had kept them busy.
We made our way across a small creek in Tarzan-style, using a conveniently located liane. Some made it on the other side happy, some ended up in mud and water.
Then it started to rain. The clothes soon became soaked and heavy.
Back in the songthew, we had a quick bite that the guesthouse prepared, a treat made of sticky rice rolled in some cabbage, bamboo (or whatever) and a bunch of vegetables, all too healthy for my Balkan-Australian taste.
We drove up a mountain road by which time the rain had become a proper monsoonal torrent. The road soon turned into a river, and I could not bother trying to shelter from the elements. We reached a visitor area where I quickly changed my clothes and went to take a piss in the bush. Ah, is there anything better than taking a piss in the open while it's raining? Sure enough rain stopped and we hiked down to the Haew Suwat waterfall, which was mighty and in full flow. I got to know the Dutch girls better, they were in fact Belgians, in their early twentys and on their first big Asia trip. One of them, Margot, was particularly cute (and blond) and I decided she would be my Jane there, if not a Belgian princess. She talked about the complexity of Belgian politics and their politicians' inability to form a government months after the elections took place, or something along those lines. She would not be Jane nor a princess after all. Pan, and his driver never wiped the smiles off their faces, and were still promising us elephants and more. They didn't talk about politics.
All were pretty worn by the time we climbed the 1000 steps back to the car park. It was late afternoon already, and most were ready to go home. Jungle and rain do that to people. Not our guides though. They drove and drove for what seemed like hours, back and forth through the parks main ring road. We were searching for any signs of elephants. Girls were very tired and stopped chatting. But it was wet and cold and we were in the back of the songthao. Pan apparently saw elephant tracks on the road earlier and was adamant to keep on driving.
We entered a narrow road that was barely 3 metres wide, dark and very misty from the rains. The guides drove for another 15-20 km km, and still nothing. It was definitely time to go home, to the girls relief. But we had barely thought about taking a warm shower, when the car suddenly broke to a halt. A lone elephant right in the middle of this road. Somehow, and I mean somehow, we drove past it and were bit more than relieved, and barely had we driven past the first curve, when another, larger (and angrier) elephant appeared smack in the middle of the road. We were trapped! I kept thinking of Pan telling us earlier that an angry elephant can make a pancake out of the car. And I thought about my French ex-girlfriend making crepes. How stupid.
Back in reality, the mood changed from sombre to almost total panic in an instant. The angry elephant stomped towards as, its ears flipping, tusk raised up, while producing that trumpeting screech that let the whole jungle know who the boss was. We were reversing fast, but where? Some girls were screaming, one was crying. Some were trying to film the whole thing. I was hugging Margot. Admittedly I was scared too. What the heck, at least we would die together. For some unknown reason, I put on my small day pack and was ready to jump out out the car. To climb a tree? Hide in the jungle? Whatever.
I don't recall exactly how we managed to escape (I had by that time made my peace with death and was safe and firm in Margot's embrace) , but we must have driven past the bigger elephant while it momentarily took its attention off us. Some thought it was a moment straight out of Jurrasic Park. I thought it was closer to Steven Spielberg's 'Duel' when the protagonist tries to overtake the gigantic semi-trailer driven by the maniacal truckie.
Our ordeal was over, and we stopped at a a grassy opening to let it all sink in, indifferent to a herd of Sambar deer that was grazing in the setting sun. The jungle was just jungle. We were, as always, the maniacs.
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