Khao Yai National Park Part 2: Waterfalls and Hitchhikes

By the time I awoke some people were just comming back from haveing seen the first waterfall. I was kind of disappointed that i missed it, but with a group of 20 of us they werent going to bother rousing everyone to see if they wanted to come with. A nearby shop was sold breakfast, and i walked with a group over there and got Fried Rice with chicken and a Fried Egg on top(and i ordered it in thai).

As I finished breakfast people were talking about starting to hitch down to the visitors center and see the 5 tiered waterfall, but at this point neither me nor Jennifer had seen Steve or Johnny. We found them still asleep in thier tent and roused them and told them to go eat breakfast. By the time they were ready to start the day most people had gone down to the visitors center (#5 keeping track of everyone). We decided to splinter off from the large group and check out the nearby waterfall that people had seen earlier in the morning.
We thought it might be fun to hire a guide to show us the way and maybe point out things that we wouldnt notice. Our guides name was Yai. He looked about 12. and spoke no english. It was a bit of a waste of 300 baht.

Anyhow, off we set on the clearly marked trail to the waterfall. After a bit of a hike, we reached the first waterfall, which wasnt exceptionally awesome, but had rocks that were quite fun for us to climb on. Midway up I pulled out some of my oranges that I didnt share the night before and shared them.

Before we made it to the top, however, Yai beckoned us to continue on a trail. We grudgingly descended and continued onwards. Eventually we emerged near a different campsite, he took us accross the site to another bigger waterfall that was nice to look at.

We walked back to the campsite and sat down at a pavilion. After a while Johnny asked me what happened to my foot. I glanced down and saw a bit of blood on the top. No worries. I shrugged it off. Johnny then asked again "no, dude, the other side". Taking off my sandal and looking at the outside of my foot i saw it was covered with blood and still bleeding. It was at this point steve had taken off his shoes and noticed he two was bleeding from the top of his foot. We hobbled over to the souvenir shop and purchased water, soap and bandaids, and patched up our leech wounds. We also thought i had wounded the bottom of my foot, but that was the leach. I smashed him. Serves him right for drinking my blood.

We were offered a ride arranged to take us back to the campground for 200 baht. It was only 3km so we walked back to the campsite (Steve and Johnny were able to hitch a ride, which seemed to upset our guide who was hoping that we would buy the ride so he wouldnt have to walk) When we got there and regrouped we decided we should head down to the visitors center and figure out how to get to the cave to see the bats at dusk. We walked along, and no one seemed interested in helping us out. Then when we were close to giving up hope a badass pickup truck with an engine snorkel and lift kit pulled up. We asked if he was going to the visitors center. He said he was goign to a big waterfall. We hopped in.

This dude liked to drive. He flew accross the national park, and the hills kept getting bigger, and the speed greater. At one point we had to slow to a near stop because there was a troop of monkeys in the road, but after that it was back to adrenalin inducing cruising. We pulled into a parking lot, hopped out and headed down the path. The path was a nice walk through the woods, crossing a bridge that had seen many repairs, causeing its surface to be uneven with the boards tacked ontop of the originals that rotted away. As we walked we saw many people returning from the waterfall quite out of breath, and we werent quite sure why. Then we came to the stairs. Many many steep stairs going down to the viewing platform. But the sight was totally worth it. It was the biggest waterfall in the park. The sight was awesome.

Going back up the stairs took a bit of effort, but didnt seem as hard as the people we had passed made it seem. We saw the guys from the white pickup get ready to leave, and asked them where they were headed now. They said the visitors center and we hopped aboard. Another joyful ride later we were at the visitors center with our stomachs rumbling and grumbling. Luckily they had a variety of vendors, and we went to order some noodles and meat (possibly because we can order it in Thai). After chowing down we went to ask a ranger about the batcave. He told us that the bats will emerge in a half hour, and taht the cave was an hour away. Although this was a major bummer we decided to instead sign up for a Nighttime spotlight safari. (the greater bummer was that the ranger was wrong and teh bats dont show up till 630. hes not on my good list anymore)
We had a few hours till night fell and the safari began, so we thought we would take a quick hike to the small waterfall only 100 meters away. Well, as it turns out their are two trails, and we ended up taking the more scenic of the two, that was over 1000 meters. After enjoying that for a little bit, we sat for about two hours in a gazebo waiting for the night tour. Steve succeed in calling a deer over to say hi to us, he stuck his head right into the gazebo.

The night safari was...disappointing. We saw 67 deer. and a porcupine.

After the safari a lady who had safaried with us offered us a ride back to our campground, where at we studied Thai for a bit, and then passed out.