Off the Beaten Path…Literally

Khao Yai National Park is huge. 400 km long. It goes all the way to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. You can see all types of wildlife there. Gibbons, Elephants, Deer, Pigtail Macaque, and Rhinoceros Hornbills, as well as many other species of birds and insects. Oh and leeches. But we will get to those later…

Our day started out quite lazy. Slept late, moving slowly. (Drank lots of wine and beer the prior night) We finally made it to the park around 11. Got a quick snack, and headed out on our search for Gibbons and Elephants. Sakai knew which trail we would take. At least he said he did. Almost immediately, we saw elephant tracks. We were on a great start. It was uphill for a while. We heard what he thought was a Bull Elephant. We ventured off the path. One of many times we would do that on this “easy trek”. We could hear Gibbons in the distance as well.

At some point, I think we both finally realized we were lost. I was ok about it though. I have complete trust in Sakai’s knowledge of the Jungle. It was fun. Our own adventure. We would find a trail after a while. We were ok. When we lost it again, I pulled out my phone to bring up our current location. We were far from where we wanted to end up. And now we had a major obstacle. No, it wasn’t the many spider webs we had to break through. Nor was it the prickly vines we were dealing with. Maybe shorts wasn’t such a great idea. After all, Sakai was in pants. At least I had closed shoes. He had Haviannas on. Remember, this was supposed to be an easy 2-3 hour trek. Our current location had a river in front of us. The only way back to the road. We didn’t remember crossing a river. Nope, I’m pretty positive we hadn’t.

On we went. We finally came to a point where we found the river. We were going to follow it to where it intersected with the road. Or so we thought. At one point, Sakai pointed out a fresh water crocodile that went into the river. Then he said we were in a place where the crocodiles laid their eggs. REALLY!!! Not good. Our only option was to cross the river. It was wide. AND there were crocodiles! We saw a fallen tree going all the way across the river. Sakai asked how my balance skills were. OMG. Is he fucking for real? He found a few large sticks and said, ok. We’re going. It’s not deep. Are you FUCKING kidding me? Did we not just see a crocodile go in?? We started across. The water was so refreshing. We got to the log, and Sakai said I had to get on it. Holy Crap! I climbed on and “frogged my way across” I made that log my bitch. When we got to the other side, it was sinking mud. But we made it. We were in the clear. We were going to get to the road. Yeah, no. We had to cross the river three more times!!!! At one point, Sakai’s shoe broke. Then the other one broke. Then he lost one. He had to make it the rest of the way barefoot. I decided I wouldn’t complain if he had to go barefoot. That really wouldn’t be nice. Would it? I looked down and saw I was covered in leeches. Holy Shit. WTF? We had no choice but to carry on. We were going to get out of this. I had to stop though. Everything was starting to go black. I was dizzy. We only had a little water left. It was then I remembered I had Peanut M&Ms!!! And dried mango. Yay me.

We finally made it to where we knew the road would be. But not after we were seriously lost and had to retrace our steps many times. I still wasn’t scared. It felt right it be on this adventure with him. Wasn’t that the whole point of this trip? Well, maybe not lost in a Thai jungle, but you get the point. Our last obstacle was to go through a grassy area. I had heard him mumble something about snakes…REALLY? Remember he was barefoot! He said be as loud as you can. That was the only time I was actually afraid. But the road was up ahead. There were many prickly vines though. And did I mention the leeches that were still sucking all of my blood?

We finally made it to the road and we’re going to hitch a ride back to our car. The first one wouldn’t take us. Then a pickup truck stopped and we climbed in back. We must have looked like. Bloody, muddy, and shoeless. OMG, we couldn’t stop laughing. We made it! Now we just had to survive riding in the back of a pickup truck. We got to the visitors center. Got drinks. Washed off. Pulled leeches off. So much blood. Yet we couldn’t stop laughing. We got in the car and headed to the waterfalls that were seen in the movie The Beach. We opted not to hike down to the bottom. After all, we were lucky once. That was enough for me.

BEST HIKE EVER!!