Thung Salaeng Luang NP and Happy New Year!

Took the bus from Sukhothai to Phitsanoluk Monday morning, and then hopped on a bus to Lam Sok destined to get off at kilometer marker 80 where the headquarters for TSL NP is. This was the first time I had ridden in a bus in thailand where my destination wasn't the terminus for the bus, which meant I needed to be extra alert b/c I couldn't really tell the bus driver or attendant since I don't know Thai. It can be a little worrisome, and means you can't fall asleep on the bus. It's also a bit of a struggle b/c at different bus stops the, stops are named in Thai lettering and not in our standard alphabet. This was something I had trouble with in japan too, and a couple of times went past my train stop b/c in japanese symbols I had no way of knowing I had arrived at abiko station for example. With this one, since I knew that the park was at km marker 80 I was going to try and watch for that on the road, and I also told the attendant, in my best pronunciation, Thung Salaeng Luang and hoped she got it...but with so many influctions, risings, and aspirations in their language, it's pretty impossible to ever pronounce anything correctly. Well, I got on the bus, and it was standing room only, so I couldn't see out either window or the front of the bus, which made me a bit nervous. So I tried to time the bus, thinking it would take about an hour and a half, maybe 2 with stops to go the 80 kms. Well about 2 hours in, there was a commotion and they motioned for me, so I got off. When I got off I noticed I was at km 71. Oh, well, 9 km's never hurt anyone. However, across the road I could see a sign for TSL. I went to investigate and found it was an entrance for a waterfall in the park, but not where the HQ's or camping was. So I started to walk up the road and perhapts hitch, and before I could even stick out my thumb (actually you keep your hand horizontal and move your arms up and down), a guy in a pickup truck carrying a cow stopped. I hopped in the back with the cow (a very nice cow indeed!), and got a ride to the entrance, where I rented a tent. At the same time a canadian coming from the other way arrived. He would be the only westerner I would see the whole time. This park is a pretty off the beaten path park and really only thais go here. In fact, I didn't even get charged the normal 400 baht foreigner entrance fee b/c they didn't know what to do with me, so they charged the 20 baht thai fee.



The canadian guy's name was Rob, and he thought I was canadian for a long time, until I told him finally I was from Colorado. He was kind of a holier than thou type person, I was glad he never invited me on his walks. Though I ate dinner and had beers with him twice since there was only one watering hole eatery in the whole place. He had been to Asia 7 times and his dad worked at a university here doing biology research, so he kind of acted like he owned the place. He kind of told me, as I hear over and over (unfortunately) that ecology research doesn't really cut it. He got a masters as a fisheries biologist and used to do research for several years for a university, but every summer he'd come back from a long, hard research season, working entire daylight hours doing grunt work, and actually owe money for the project. So now he's a welder and will just do some field work here and there for his dad so he can come to asia. He said you can make more money if you're in the private sector, but that there you don't actually do research, a company will say, there needs to be 200 trout (pronounced trote in canadian) in that stream, you'll estimate 15, but you still have to write 200 or you don't get paid.

The national park was slightly disappointing, but I still made the most of it. According to LP, this park had large savannah areas with watering holes that you could hike to and had a good chance of spotting wildlife. Well it turns out that from the entrance and camping area where I was at, it was 42km by trail to get there and you could only make it on that trail in one day by bike (but of course they didn't rent bikes), or it was 70km by car around the park, but there was no public transport, so you would have to hire a car for 65 bucks which would be quite expensive for just one person. I decided not to do it b/c of the cost and if I ended up getting there, wildlife is wildlife and the chances of seeing them is always slim. The savannah ecosystem thing is a big draw for this park b/c it's the only one in SE asia, but I've seen plenty (think wyoming and the dakotas) of grassland savannah, so no big need to go to see that. So I ended up the first day taking a short hike to a river, and the 2nd day taking a long hike into the jungle. Started at 5am and just hiked 7 hours in and then 7 hours back. There's no real destination in the jungle, you just go in and look around. Saw a lot of strangler figs, dipterocarps, skinks, squirrels, birds....mosquitoes. Took a sack lunch. A thai sack lunch is not a pb and j or bagel and cream cheese with a snickers and chips. No, it's rice in a bag, the dinner and sauce from last nights dinner in a bag, and some rice crackers. very tasty actually. I also took along some sort of very weird fruit. If you look at it, it looks like a skinny potato, but it has a crunchy shell that you peel off to reveal roots around some sort of fleshy part. you peel away the roots and the fruit tastes an afwul lot like a fruit snack or fruit leather we have back home, and it has 5 seeds to spit out.

There was a campsite about 4km from my camping site in the direction of the river that you had to walk by on the way to the river and the trail I took. It was quite interesting seeing all the thais camping. They went big for sure. big tents, fancy dining areas set up, etc. looked like they were planning to stay for a long time rather than just a few days. One guy even had a satellite and a tv set up! One thing about thais (and actually several places I've been), is they don't like to walk and can't quite understand why I or any other person likes to walk. Of course none of them took the trails around. And on the 4km from the river to my campsite I was always asked by every car that passed by if I needed a ride, and they'd just give me a crazy look when I said no. Eventually I'd feel so bad, I'd jump into the back of the truck or onto the back of the scooter.

yesterday I packed up the tent and started th 9km walk along the road towards the orginal waterfall I had been dropped off at. I got about 4km before some guy and his girlfriend picked me up. He couldn't beleive I had walked so far from the other park entrance. He thought it was amazing and kept laughing about it. He quickly turned the AC up full blast, pointed it all at me and gave me an ice coffee. It was like I had just got back from trekking across the sahara or something and not a tiny little 4k jaunt. When he dropped me off at the entrance I walked the 2k to the falls.

waved down a bust back to philo and then to sukhothai. My guesthouse was having a huge new year's bash, so I helped Ex make up fliers for the party to pass out to people on the street, since apparently my english is good... For this he gave me one of the nice bungalows at the place for no charge...complete with AC and hot shower! The new years party was quite crazy. The guesthouse had a thai buffet and also some bbq stuff. had my first french fries in over 3 weeks. Of course there was also some jungle juice. After the jungle juice ran out, they brought this insanely strong thai whisky. As the aussies said, tasted like petrol. It was so strong! I was hanging out with two aussies (sam and pat), two brits (can't remember their names) and a japanese dude (Kim). Sam and Pat ended up being friends with the two aussie guys I worked with at village transportation during the ski season in beaver creek. small world. The poor japanese guy was having quite the time with the thai whiskey! He was completely red, sweating profusely, and just looked dazed. This was at about 9pm. But he made it to the new years! After the food, there was some traditional thai dance and then we released hot air prayer balloons and set off fireworks. Then we had some competitions. I did the eating contest. You had to eat a banana, eat a bowl of noodles, chug a coke, and then find a coing in a bowl full of flour. Anyone who has seen me eat (where I am trying to control my rate of consumption) knows I won easily. Everyone was quite amazed really. I had the coin in my mouth as everyone had just started there cokes, so everyone but myself had a coke mixer to go with the thai whiskey. complete domination for sure =) The british gal ended up winning the Mr/Mrs ban thai and the trip to ko samui. The dance party then commenced. for some reason all the europeans (there was only one other american at the whole shindig), thought the americans should get the party started b/c apparently we know how to dance the best (yea right) and all the dance music is our music. At some point during the night I sang karaoke to I will survive and that was quite fun. After the countdown and some more dancing, the aussies, brits and I grabbed some chang roadies as they'd call them in montana and headed out about town. We had quite a good time. I group was very fun and apparently for some reason the aussies really liked me. They told me over and over they thought I was a cool american..."a straight up american, we really like that. you're ok by us. you can come to melbourne anytime"

I think today I will be heading to Lopburi.


Well, it's now been 2009 for about 12 hours here, but back home you're all preparing for the festivities. It should be a good year, b/c as my dad would always say, the odd years are the best years.
Mom and bro, do you remember dad's infamous quote from 2000 new years with the halbach's in Tucson? "When you think of new years, you first think of being with family, then you think about being in NYC, then you thing about being in some exotic loacation" well, I guess this time I'm in that exotic locale.

Have a Happy New Year!!!