March 18

I took a bus from Khon Kaen to Bangkok, which took about six hours. It was a really nice bus. They gave us food, snacks and water and didn’t stop once the entire way. Although I didn’t have to go, I’m guessing there was a toilet on the bus.

Once in Bangkok I took a taxi to my friend Thip’s place. We went our for dinner with a couple of her students. Thip is an english teacher and her students wanted to practice their english with a foreigner. They proved to be really shy though and their english not too great, so we didn’t get to talk much. Thip still translated a lot. I had my favorite dessert for dessert again. I wanted to have it as much as I could before I left for Canada the next day. I bought an extra dessert to have for breakfast the next day before going to the airport.

March 19

My first flight was from Bangkok to Hong Kong. I had a four hour stopover here before continuing to Vancouver and then finally onto Toronto. I arrived home safe and sound at around 2am. My friend Kevin kindly picked me up at the airport.

It’s that time and another amazing trip has come to an end. This year saw me get a lot of new ‘firsts’. Many to do with cold temperatures and long train/bus rides. I saw some extremely rare and unknown animals and also got to do a lot of hiking and visit some old friends. I just love traveling in Asia and look forward to my next adventure there! Thanks again everyone for following along on the blog. Hope you all enjoyed it. I hope I entertained and informed.

Comments (0) Apr 03 2012

I got up at 6:30 to start hiking before it got too hot as there wasn’t much shade on the trails in the park. The parks is forested but the trees aren’t that big and many have dropped their leaves. I hiked to the three other fossil sites in the park. There are four sites all easily visited on a 3km long circuit. One of the sites really impressed me with numerous large bones in good condition. All the sites had been preserved with a building built over them and a locked door. The park brochure said I needed a guide to visit the sites but I just struck out on my own. I knew I would be able to see the trail but now I know why a guide was needed. They (I’m presuming) could open up the sites for a closer look at the fossils. That’s okay though. I was still happy I got to see the rare dinosaur fossils and one orchid species that was in flower throughout the park. I ate some breakfast around 9 and then packed up my gear.

There wasn’t much in the way of traffic out here but I tried to hitch a ride back to Phu Wiang town anyway. As it turns out, literally, I just stepped out of the park and a vehicle was also leaving. I got in the back of the pickup and they brought me to the town. From the town I took a bus to Khon Kean, gateway to the northeast.

Khon Kaen was not too bad. It wasn’t a touristy city at all and had lots of food and vendors all along the streets. I was here to do my last shopping before going to Bangkok tomorrow. I wanted to buy silk bed sheets and this sounded like the place but I was disappointed when I couldn’t find any. I still managed to find a few cool souvenirs and had my favorite Thai dessert for dinner. That was mangoes with sticky rice covered in coconut milk. It’s so good!! With my last 8 days spent in the forest, there wasn’t too many options for food, so I took advantage of being in the city.

Comments (0) Apr 03 2012

My moto driver took me to the front entrance of the park. I was surprised to learn that there was no more food available that day. It had stopped at 3pm and it was now 3.40. The ranger kept saying that I go back to the town to eat and sleep but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to camp and stay at the park. The ranger also waived the 200 baht ($7) entrance fee which I’ve payed at every park. That was really nice of him. Problem was I needed to change a large denomination bill to pay my moto driver and the ranger had no change and now he didn’t need any because I didn’t owe any money. I got my moto driver to take me 3km down the road to a restaurant, the closest one. I got change here and got some fried rice to go. Now I had my dinner and I could stay at the park.

Phu Wiang is famous for some dinosaur fossils being discovered there. This was the first site they discovered dinosaurs in Thailand they have found that they once roamed all over the northeast. The finds here were very significant in that they were actually two new genera of dinosaurs discovered. Not just new species, new genera! One of them an ancestor to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the other a large herbivore. Now I don’t normally visit parks like this but I thought it would be something cool and different.

Strangely, the park’s official campsite is 5km away from the VC and the food. I didn’t want to camp all the way out there and have to walk back and forth. They let me set up my tent just off the road near the entrance and only 700m away from food.

It was getting late and I was leaving the park tomorrow to go to Khon Kaen, so I wanted to make the most of my time here. I put on my hiking boots and set out on the road leading to the one of the fossil sites. The park is at a much lower elevation that Nam Nao and was very hot and sunny. That was one reason why I didn’t mind getting out there after 5pm. I hiked briskly to make it back before dark and hiked about 3km back to the VC. The park was also very dry, in stark contrast to Nam Nao which about 100km away.

After diner the park was completely empty, no staff or anyone around. I liked it. Nice and quiet and warm! At 8pm it was still about 28C. I knew I was going to miss these warm nights once I was back in Canada and soaked up and appreciated every degree I could.

Comments (0) Apr 03 2012

March 16

I get up at 7.30. No rain last night and it’s beautifully sunny. I hate to leave the park today but I fly back to Canada from Bangkok on March 19 and there was still one more park I wanted to visit. I had originally planned to visit 4 parks with my 9 remaining days but I skipped the one to stay longer at Nam Nao and I’m so glad I did. Nam Nao seems like one of those parks I could settle down in for a bit and really explore it, day and night. A couple weeks there would be amazing!

Before breakfast I got into my routine of searching for interesting moths and insects around the VC. I found a 5″ giant katydid! It was light green and looks similar to a grasshopper. I’ve seen some giant grasshoppers before but nothing this huge. I coaxed in onto my hand, despite its extremely spiky legs, I was okay with in crawling on my hand. That was until it bit me! It didn’t break the skin but it was enough for me to put it down. I got some great photos of it and then let it be.

My stuff is all totally dry and ready to pack. I get a ride to the main road 2km away from a student working at the VC. They didn’t even charge me for my last two nights camping. I wait for a bus on the main highway but I’ll take anything that is going my way and start to hitch. I don’t wait too long before a middle aged guy picks me up. He doesn’t speak much english but he is going close to where I want to go. It’s kind of surprising, he has some metal music playing. It sounds pretty good actually, I just didn’t picture this guy with this music playing.

We drive through a rainstorm and then into the sun again. We drive for over an hour and then stop at a large department store. He meets his wife, and his son and his girlfriend here. I thought he was dropping me off here because my destination is another 30km away but then he says get back in the car. He drives me the rest of the way to Phu Wiang junction and then drives back to his family. What a super nice guy. I grab a bus from the junction to the town of Phu Wiang. From the town I negotiate a moto for the remaining 18km to Phu Wiang National Park.

Comments (0) Apr 03 2012

It’s only partially sunny when I wake up. I spend a few hours after breakfast looking for and photographing cool moths around the VC.  I find a few that are as big as my hand and some that are totally camouflaged to look like a leaf. I get on the trail at 11. At 11:30 it starts to rain. I have enough food and water to hike the whole day and I don’t want to try and run back to camp. I have a feeling the rain is not going to last long, so I take shelter beside the trunk of a tree underneath a lot of vegetation. I actually stayed really dry, even when the rain got heavy. I took down my tent earlier to let it dry completely under the roof of the washroom. The rest of my gear was also in there, so I had no worries about anything getting wet while I was away on the trail.

The rain stopped after half an hour and I started hiking again. I only hiked for about half an hour before the rain started again. I found some decent shelter and waited out the rain, which lasted about an hour this time. I was lucky to have my Ipod and listened to some podcasts to pass the time. I was staying dry but I couldn’t move around much or sit down, unless I wanted to get soaked.

The rain was starting to bring out the leeches. I had seen a couple around but since I was stationary, I was a sitting target. I felt something on my ankle and had 2 leeches feeding just above where my socks ended and then a few more on my boots. Leeches are very hard to kill without something sharp, insect repellant, a lighter or salt.  I had none of these items on me. All I could do was take them off me and then fling them as far away as I could!

Finally the rain stopped and I was on the trail again. The forest changed into a more open pine forest with tall grass. I could see a lot of blue patches in the sky and the rain looked like it was over for now. I spotted some interesting red centipedes crawling all over a bench on the trail. I sat on the bench and ate my lunch of sticky rice and bananas.  I spotted a flower covered up with pine needles not far away. I uncovered it and later learned it was a Siam Tulip. It was my first time seeing the flower. It was no leaves and just a small stem. I think it was blooming out of season as it was the only one around. I spotted a Dendrobium orchid growing nearby very low on a tree, so it was easy to photograph.

I wanted to hike this trail to the viewpoint. That way I had hiked all the trails in the park and the side trails connecting them. I saw where I missed the trail a few days ago. I guess I didn’t look too hard to for it. It wasn’t hidden!  At the viewpoint I was shocked to see the long and heavy bamboo benches were destroyed. One was flipped over and the other had the bamboo torn off of it. There aren’t many people on the trails in the park. I haven’t really seen anyone around and besides, who would take time to flip over a heavy bench. This was the handy work of one pissed off elephant! I could see bamboo cracked and destroyed too along the trail. The same trail I hiked 2 days ago when the bamboo was unharmed. This was all very recent activity. The elephants were around but had continued to elude me.

About an hour and a half after the last rain stopped, I could hear thunder in the distance and see the rain on the mountains. It was headed my way. I wasn’t in dense forest anymore so I hiked quickly to get into some taller forest for cover. I found a good spot before the rain came and waited about half and hour for the third storm of the day to stop.

Despite all the rain, my gear and I managed to stay really dry. The rain made for a really interesting day and I’m glad I stuck it out on the trail. I got back to camp about 5 hours after I left. I set up my tent more in the open but on slanted ground so no water would collect underneath it.

The forest was still dripping wet after dinner as it had been the last 3 nights. This was my last night in the park though and I really wanted to go for a hike. Instead of my epic 3 hour hike, I settled for the 1km nature trail. I hiked it with the Belgain couple.  We saw about 4 frogs but the real highlight of the night were the fireflies. There were dozens of them around us everywhere. It was almost unreal and totally surreal. I had seen lightshows like this before but not in a while. The Belgians had never even seen fireflies before until they got to Thailand so they were absolutely amazed! Thankfully the sky got clear again and it didn’t rain anymore that night.

I was awoken at about 12.30 in the morning but something making some noises in the vegetation near my tent. My tent was about 5m from the forest edge which had a bit of a grassy area before it turned into dense forest. I unzipped my tent and took a peek. It was an elephant no more than 6m from my tent! A huge elephant at that! I was sitting on the ground, half in my tent and I was looking up at it. I shined my light at him and he looked over at me. Okay, okay, I moved my light away from him. I was just picturing him getting angry and coming over and stomping me in my tent. The Belgians heard him and were up too, though they were further behind me. The elephant didn’t seem too bothered by us so I tried to take a few photos with my camera and the flash but he was too far away and my weak flashlight wasn’t providing me enough light to focus on him. In the end I was so happy to see an Asian elephant on foot but unfortunately I couldn’t get any photos of it. Oh well, that’s just the way spotting wildlife works sometimes. I’ve definitely seen a lot more than I have been able to photograph, but I’m trying to change that! Seeing that elephant so close was an awesome highlight of the trip and something I’ll never forget.

Comments (0) Apr 02 2012

I get up at 7.30 and it’s a beautiful and sunny morning. I really want to camp tonight. I get permission from the VC to check out of the cabin by noon, just to make sure everything dries and it doesn’t start to rain again. I hike a 1km nature trail behind the VC. It takes me about 2 hours because I found a really cool and really large beetle and pill millepede.

My tent is dry and instead of my usual of having my stuff spread out inside, I put most of it into either of my packs. This way I can get all my stuff out quick if it starts to rain.

After lunch I spend a few hours around the campsite photographing orchids and moths. My plan was to get a later afternoon hike in and start at 3 but then it started to rain. I put most of my gear into the washroom again to ensure its dryness. This time I was ready for the rain though. I got a plastic sheet from the restaurant. I put that over the bottom half of my tent on top of the fly. The problem was the water was pooling in a depression that is just a fault with how the tent was designed. I usually just push out the water with my foot once it was starting to collect because the water took a long time to condense and drip, until yesterday. It doesn’t pool for very long at all now, it just comes right through. I set up my tripod inside at the bottom of my tent so there were be no pocket for the water to pool in. This worked but then the water came down the side of the tent and pooled on the floor of the tent. This would be fine as long as it didn’t get too deep. I was safe and dry on top of my thermarest pad. As long as I stayed dry on that, I would be fine. I was actually in a low and flat spot in camp that the water ran to. I dug a trench around my tent but that didn’t stop it. At least half of my tent was sitting in water but I was still dry on the thermarest. After the rain finished, I looked for a different spot to put my tent.

I was walking around camp in my boxer shorts looking for a new spot for the tent when a couple of Belgian backpackers arrived. They were also camping with a tent they rented from the VC. They were really nice and it was nice to have some company again. i had been hanging out with locals in Thailand and Vietnam but I had not really hung out with any other travelers since I left China, over 2 months ago.

The forest was still dripping wet at night and delayed me from another planned nighthike. The sky was full of stars though, so I felt confident that it wouldn’t rain again and I didn’t end of moving my tent that day.

Comments (0) Apr 02 2012

The park is cool year round due to the elevation and frost can occur during December and January. However last night it only dropped to 19C and I was fine with my thin sleeping bag. It was an extremely quiet night. After breakfast I start to hike the longest trail loop here at 5.4km. I see a lot more elephant dung as I get further in the forest. They are definitely around! As I walk quietly on the trail, I here an animal moving briskly though the forest. I stop and spot it trotting along. It has no idea I’m there. The animal makes its way to the trail just down from where I had been walking. I get a clear view of it and it’s a Crab eating Mongoose, just like I saw in Thung Salaeng Luang National Park. Once it gets to the trail it stops and turns around. It sees me and bolts it down the trail before I can even get a crappy photo of it. Oh well, it was very cool to see.

I take a small side trail to stream and I’m glad I did. The place had a sandy bank and was a goldmine for butterflies and other insects. I stayed here for over an hour photographing some amazing butterflies. There were also bees, sweatbees and flies around. Everything was landing on me and my backpack! Thankfully I never got stung but they were just really annoying sometimes. There is a small fly here and in many other parks I’ve been in that likes to fly into my eyes. I don’t know what it is but it always buzzes right in front of my face and tries to land, sometimes successfully, right on my eye. They are really annoying and are usually only found in shady forest.

I reach a viewpoint along the trail. I see rolling hills of forest stretch into the distance. There are 2 large benches made of bamboo with a huge and heavy tree trunk as their base. This is important to know for a story that happens a few days later.

The sky turned dark and I could hear thunder as I left the viewpoint. I hiked the trail at a faster pace than I would normally. I thought I was on the 5.4km trail but then I came back to a junction that I had walked past a few hours ago that was a shortcut to the viewpoint. I somehow missed where the trail continued from the viewpoint, so I had to walk the same trail back.

The forest got very dark when I was going back, almost like night. I got back to camp just as it started to rain really heavily. I put most of my stuff in the main room of the washrooms close by to keep it dry. I get in my tent to see how it’s going to handle the rain. Usually my tent does great in rain. It’s kept me dry through 24 hour torrential rain in Madagascar and heavy showers in Brazil and Guyana. It does have its faults though and can leak through the low part of the roof but this takes many, many hours and thats without me in the tent to keep an eye on it. That’s why I was very surprised when the water started dripping in right away, before the heavy rain even hit it because I was camped beside the trunk of a large tree and had some natural shelter. I think it’s losing it’s waterproofing. Once my sleeping bag got wet and the bottom half of the tent had about an inch of water in it, I had to call it quits. I wouldn’t have a comfortable night in the tent all wet. So I took out all my stuff to dry in the washroom.

I had to take a cabin for the night but planned to get back to my tent the next night. The cabin was surrounded by forest just a few minutes up the road from the VC. It was a nice cabin with hot water, TV and more but at $23 a night, it was a lot more than the $1 I pay to camp at any park in Thailand.

It stopped raining at about 7 but all the rain put a stop to the nightwalk I had planned. That was really disappointing. I wanted to do an epic nighthike here at least one night and go out for 2 or 3 hours or more. See what creatures come out at night here!

Comments (0) Apr 02 2012

From the park entrance where the bus dropped me off, it was another 2km walk to the Headquarters, Visitors centre and campsite. Along the way I saw more signs warning of elephants and other animals, like deer, crossing the road. The park covers 1000 sq km and has an average elevation of 800m. This remote area was also territory for the People’s Liberation Army of Thailand until the early 1908′s.

Almost instantly I liked this park a lot. The campsite was on the edge of the forest and right beside the start of the trail system. It was also close  enough to the VC and food yet still a bit private. The entire campsite area was 2km from the park entrance along the highway, which was at least 30km away from any human habitation. It truly was in the middle of the park in the middle of nowhere. I was spotting orchids and butterflies in the camp before I had even begun to set up my tent. Also the park had over 12km of maintained and signposted trails that I could hike unguided. The showers, although cold, had extremely strong pressure and were spacious with plenty of shelves. Though rarely seen, the park is also home to such large mammals as tiger  and guar. I knew I would enjoy my time here immensely.

There were loads of moths and spiders attracted to the lights of the restaurant. Always something to look at while I waited for my dinner. After dinner I went for a short nightwalk. I was only about 10 minutes down the trail when I saw elephant dung. I knew they were in the park but I didn’t know they were this close to the camp. It would be pretty spooky and potentially dangerous to see them at night, especially if I startle them, so I walked with caution. I didn’t see much on my walk except a few cool bugs and some ground flowers that I could photograph tomorrow. My plan was to hike longer at night the next night, after I had been on the trails during the day. It’s always strange to walk a trail for the first time at night!

Comments (0) Apr 01 2012

Mar. 9

I get a bus from Chiang Mai to Phitsanulok. From there I take another bus to Nakkon Thai. I arrive there just about 5pm. There is no real public transport to the park but there is a sort of park van. I take that for the last 30km to the park. Once we enter the park, the last 10km are all uphill as most of the park sits above 1000m in elevation. I checked in at reception and then set up my tent under a bunch of pine trees. The campsite was very similar to Thung Salaeng Luang, with many pine trees and little else.

The mountain known as Phu Hin Rong Kla served as the strategic headquarters of the Communist Party of Thailand between 1967 and 1982. The area was declared a national park in 1984. I don’t often visit parks for their history but when that history takes place in a remote, forested area with trails and wildflowers, I’m definitely interested!

The park was a battlefield for 20 years between Thai troops and the communists. The Thai troops just could not defeat them, despite numerous efforts. The Communist party had grown significantly after a massacre of students in Bangkok in 1976 during a student-worker uprising. The Thai government announced that it would give amnesty for all the students who joined after 1976. The departure of the students was bascially the end of the movement. The CPT surrendered after a final military push in late 1982.

I ate dinner at a restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the campsite. It was fairly and I was one of the only diners. Despite the elevation the park didn’t get as cold as I expected during the night. I was okay in my thin sleeping bag.

Day 2

The next morning after breakfast I started to explore the park. Most of the main sites are off the main road through the park, most within walking distance (for me anyway!). I was checking out an area of overhanging rocks that the insurgent army took shelter under when it started to rain. It was light at first but became very heavy. I was glad I had under the shelter of the rocks. The rain lasted over an hour. I start to walk on the road again and only get about 2km before it starts to rain again. I take shelter under a sign. Once that rain stops, I follow a sideroad to the attractions in the park. It’s still very overcast and misty.

The park is very rocky and has some unique landscapes not found anywhere else in Thailand. They are certainly unlike anything I have ever seen. The park has many orchids growing all over the rocks but most aren’t in flower. I visit the rock formations, an air raid shelter and the ruins of the old administration buildings. Basically empty wooden huts, they never had electricity or running water. I had walked about 4km to reach the area. As I walked back a truck pulled over and offered me a ride back to HQ, so I took it. I was curious to see how my tent fared in the rain. This was the first significant rainfall I had seen since about Jan. 26. It is the dry season and I wasn’t expecting any rain.

Back at the campsite I check my tent and the bottom half got wet. It seems they fly of my tent is loosing it’s waterproofing abilities due to age. If it was sunny, I would have been fine and could have dried everything but it wasn’t. It actually started to rain more again around 4.30. With my tent and sleeping bag half wet, I had no choice but to move into one of the cabins at the park. I took a very basic room in a cabin about 5 minutes walk past the campsite for 300 baht ($10). I hung up everything to dry outside on the vast veranda.

Day 3

The rain stopped earlier last night and I was hoping that was it for the time being. I decided to stay in the cabin for one more night because I wanted to leave the park the next morning and didn’t want to have to deal with a wet tent if it rained again. I walk in the opposite direction to another rock formation today, Lan Hin Taek. Today the sky is clear and I get great views from the edge of the formation which is on a high cliff. I walk back to the main road and go past the area I explored yesterday. My plan is to walk the road the whole 6km to the attractions and then hitch back. The road goes through forest and can be good for spotting flowers and butterflies. I stop at an area with a small bridge over a small stream. I go to check out the stream when I hear something slip into the water. My first thought is a frog but when I turn to look, it’s actually a snake! The snake was swimming in the water when it stopped briefly to take a look back at me, then it was gone. It totally disappeared even though the water wasn’t that deep or the vegetation around very dense, I just couldn’t see where it went.

I carried on walking and arrived at the Political Military School HQ. It’s another collection of wood huts. There are a lot of butterflies around and a few lizards. I start walking back to camp and before I can hitch a ride, it starts to rain again, though only lightly. It continues as a sunshower for at least 15 minutes. After it’s done, I hitch back to camp. Most of my stuff is dry and it will be ready to pack so I can leave tomorrow morning.

The next I’m ready to leave the park and wait for a ride into Nakkon Thai, 30km away. A older guy in a pickup gives me a ride right to the bus station. From there I take a bus going to Phitsanulok but get off at the main #12 highway, as I’m going in the opposite direction. I just took any transport going to the highway. From there I waited a bit and then got a bus to Lom Sak. I waited in Lom Sak for another bus going to Khon Kaen. I was going to Nam Nao National Park, on the way the Khon Kaen. The bus was super packed, even in the aisles. I had to stand the whole hour drive to the park entrance. The bus dropped me off at the park entrance which was in the middle of nowhere. The park is one of the last remaining places for Asian elephant in Thailand and there were signs all over the highway warning drivers to be careful. Apparently the elephants like to cross the highway at night which runs through the middle of the park.

Comments (0) Mar 31 2012

I also slept in here until the mornings chill disappeared. After breakfast I hitched a ride up to the nature trail where I finished hiking yesterday. I started walking slowly downhill scanning the forest for anything. I found 4 more species of wild orchid which I was really happy about. I saw many more orchids but it doesn’t seem to be the flowering season for most of them.

As I walked along I heard a big crash in the trees. My first thought was monkeys, yay! But as I looked, it turned out it was a pair of giant squirrels. These really are giants at 1m in length from head to tail. I was able to get a few photos before they disappeared back into the forest. I hiked 8km downhill by 5pm. I was walking slow and I stopped to photograph anything cool, taking the time to set up my tripod and everything. I was only a few kilometres from the HQ but hitched a ride anyway. There wasn’t much to see along this stretch as I was getting more into civilization in the form of farms growing strawberries which are all over this part of the mountain. Out of the 16km from the HQ to the summit, I had walked all of it except 2km!

Though I was disappointed in the park for not having enough access to its forest, I still enjoyed it very much and got to see some really cool animals and plants.  The next day I was ready to leave and get to the next park. After breakfast I packed up my things and returned the blanket I had rented. I was more than ready to pay for renting the blanket and pay for my camping but the guy at the counter just took the blanket and that was it. He waved me on! So in the end I camped for free with their warm blanket.  I only waited about one minute too before I got a ride in the back of a pickup back to Chom Thong. I got a bus back to Chiang Mai and that’s where I am now.

I had to sort out my visa, which expired 5 days before I was to leave Thailand. I didn’t want any problems when I had to leave so I spent the day getting a one week visa extension and I am good to go now. I will leave Chiang Mai tomorrow for more national parks in the northeast.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012