Hin Tung and Ayutthaya, Thailand

 

Chapter 2

Hin Tung, Thailand

Waiting for us at Pakchong, was a young man holding up our name on a placard. We were escorted to his jungle tour truck and hopped in. He spoke good English and took us to our hotel/motel about thirty minutes out of town, close to Khao Yai National Park. We unpacked a few items, grabbed our water bottles, and began our tour around the area. He took us to a spring where people swim, and where their drinking water comes from. This was a small area, but the people were enjoying their time in the beautiful clear, crystal  blue water, cooling off from a hot day. I noticed the mosquitos and again reminded myself, that is why I’m taking malaria pills.

Fresh spring for family fun and drinking water

We drove through the countryside looking out onto acres of orchards. Mangos, papayas, figs, coffee… and in the far distance, mountains. He drove us into beautiful rolling hills and onto a large farm. We came to a stop in front of a large hill. As we were getting out of the truck, he explained that every night, bats come out of a cave up in these hills. People are not allowed up to the cave because they would disturb the bats. As we were waiting for something to happen, more and more trucks and vans full of people were arriving. We were standing out in a field when we saw the beginning of the mass exodus of bats from the unseen cave entrance. As we watched the swarm of bats flying, our guide explained that there are two million bats that come out every night to hunt. It was impressive to watch and to hear them. It’s like looking at a continuous stream of a cloud moving along, creating patterns in the sky. It was nearly dark, we’d been watching for over an hour, and still there were bats flying out of the cave and into the night sky. Imagine how many mosquitos there would be without them!

2,000,000 bats exiting the cave dispersing amongst the valley to feed

We were brought back to our bungalow and soon set out to find dinner. Next door, some out-door cooking was happening, so we walked over to this small family-run kitchen/restaurant.  We ordered two tall beers and asked for them to be cold… still not over with the heat of the day… and Tom Yum Goong soup and a green curry. Wow! is all I can say, very hot and spicy.

It took a bit of time for our beers to arrive. Then Stewart noticed a family member coming across the street carrying two beers. He had gone to a little store to get them. We noticed other people there who were drinking Scotch—there was a bottle on their table—and they all were tipsy to say the least. Our food was remarkable; authentic Thai. Well fed, we walked back to our bungalow, showered, and passed out in our air-conditioned room.

Eating locally

When deciding what we wanted to do on our short amount of time in Thailand  I had requested that we spend some time inland since we just spent weeks on islands and the ocean. Even though we new there were some fabulous places to go to experience the ocean, Thai style. This is when Stewart came up with hiring a guide and go into the rainforest.

Our guides

First thing the next morning, our guides picked us up in a truck. We sat in the back so we could see everything possible as into Khao Yai National Park we went. This is a large park; one of the largest in Thailand. Our goal was to see birds, monkeys, and elephants. One of our first stops was high up in the mountains, looking out onto a major vista. There were two types of woods there; many deciduous trees and evergreens. There, we saw our first great hornbill. These birds live in the upper levels of the canopy in the rainforest and range from 5-7 pounds and are 2.5- 3.5 feet in length. We watched as they flew, and it was impressive.

 

Great Hornbill

Blurry but you can get an idea what it looks like.

Our guides took us to a path and gave us leg gators to put on over our pants to prevent bites from bugs and leeches. I asked about snakes, but they said they see very few of them. We followed the leader into the rainforest. It was much dryer than in Indonesia. What was the most noticeable were the sounds coming up through this jungle of green. It was so loud! To give you an idea of it, I’d compare it to the drill the dentist uses. Not so pleasant and really loud at times. With the heat, humidity, and that high-pitched noise, one could get mesmerized easily. As we followed the guide, I was amazed that there were times when we were not on a noticeable path. He knew his way around there very well. Over the noise the cicadas were making, we could hear this swooshing/whooshing sound up over the tree tops. We were told that was the great hornbills flying above. We all scattered to an opening the higher canopy of trees in hopes of seeing one, and we did. There were even a few times when we saw two flying together. But no time for a photo.

At one point our guide met a friend (another guide) who reported that there were gibbons up in the trees in a specific area. Off we went. That was a pleasant surprise. Gibbons live in the trees and do not come down to the ground. We watched for a few hours until my neck was quite painful, but I did not stop looking up. We saw both white and black ones. They live in families of six and give birth every two years. We were told they eat many fruits and insects. The trees were tall, and way up in the tops of them, I could see the fruit and the gibbons swinging from branches to other trees and grabbing onto the fruit; sometimes upside down. I tried for some time to get a good photo, but my lens was too weak, and gibbons move very fast. We could hear other gibbons nearby and were told that there are many gibbon families in the area, but that they are territorial.

Gibbons (blonde and black)

We watched the gibbons for an hour or so, then took off further into the rainforest. We did not see any elephants, but we did see many monkeys all over the park. I was told to keep my distance because they will attach. Yikes.

No problem photographing this macaque, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry

For lunch, we were treated to another authentic Thai meal, then a hike to a waterfall. Then they took us to the train station. I was very hot by the time we got there; very anxious to drink some cold water. We had a little wait at the station, so we sat on a bench watching the vendors get their goods together. Then a happy monk came up to us. I hadn’t seen many monks who wouldn’t smile or acknowledge me, so this person had my attention. He asked where we were going and when we said “Ayutthaya”, he wondered if we were going to take a meditation class. “No”, I said reluctantly, wishing I was. He explained that he teaches walking meditation and that he walks miles and miles every day. This was the end of the day and he was getting on the train to return to where he had walked from that day. He was so, so happy. Huge smile. We chatted for a short time. 

We knew we had to pay attention to when we needed to get off the train. Ayutthaya is well-known for its ancient temples which attract many tourists. After an hour’s train ride, we got off and found the station packed full of people, luggage, large containers and boxes. Many of the people looked like hippies! We hurried out of there and found ourselves a tut tut to take us to our hotel; a very peaceful place with nice bungalows and landscaping. The owner was a soft-spoken Buddhist man.

We hurried to a very local street-type restaurant and had more authentic Thai food. When we ordered, they asked how hot, and we said, “Hot”. They laughed at us and made fun of us in Thai. When the food came out, everyone was watching us as we took our first bites. Neither Stewart nor I felt it was overly hot because we had just come from Indonesia where food is really hot. Well, I guess our lack of freaking out over the spiciness showed them that we were all set, and pretty much shut them up because it was no longer fun to laugh at us. I thought that if an American server did that, they would be reprimanded for laughing at a customer. Not very polite. We got over it.

In the morning, our host at the hotel contacted a tut tut driver who picked us up and stayed with us all day. This way, our backpacks stayed with us so we could catch the train back to Bangkok without having to go back and retrieve them. The driver took us to all the different areas in the city. We saw some temples which were perfectly intact and others which were deteriorating. I did find one temple where I allowed myself to kneel and give thanks. The building’s architecture was so detailed. All the angles and lines that connect one way or another; is a piece of art. Everywhere I looked I saw it. I also saw elephants giving people rides. It was another extraordinarily hot day, and after visiting four sites and seeing many, many temples, we were ready for lunch. I asked our tut tut driver to take us to a local restaurant without tourists but with air-conditioning. I knew I needed a break from the heat before our train trip back to Bangkok.  We had a great lunch and got cooled down.

Ayutthaya 

Just as we arrived at the station, we were told that a train was about to leave. We asked for first-class with air-conditioning. They said, “No seats available.” Disappointed, I walked out to the train and mentioned something to train attendant who told me there were two seats left in first class! Stewart ran back into the station, got the right tickets, and we were escorted to our seats. Yeah! We settled into comfortable, cushy seats; much cooler than our first ride. But the trip wasn’t as exciting as our third-class ride had been two days before because the vendors don’t work the first-class car… which made me appreciate the third-class ride even more because I’d planned on purchasing some fruit from them.