Day 33 and 34: Safaris and The Hulk.

Day 33

All of my resolve to get a good night sleep evaporates at 12.30am when I wake up from a dream where I was being suffocated by cats and just can't go back to sleep again, I honestly try everything. Reading, getting out of bed, exercise, counting sheep but nothing works. I'm starting to get desperate at 3.30 when I finally nod off, and luckily get no more visits from my feline friends.

Unsurprisingly I feel pretty dead when the alarm goes off in the morning and I really can't drag myself awake for a good half hour. We need cash for today's safari but to Ben's horror the only way to get some is on the back of the owners bright red Liverpool FC moped and as a West Ham fan, I don't think he will ever be able to live down the shame. At 8.30 on the dot a truck turns up with 2 French couples, and an American/Canadian pair and we hop in behind them. The route to the park is full of what seems like themed restaurants. "Did you just see the hulk?" And we vow to explore tomorrow.

We aren't in the park for 5 minutes and our guide has already pulled over to show us a bright orange tree snake. Next a little further down the road, he gets excited again and says he's spotted a giant squirrel, I have no idea why but this made me giggle a lot and it took me about half hour to not crease up when I thought about it. Carrying on our drive to the visitors centre where we will start our trip, there's a commotion on the road with several tourists looking up at the trees, the guide sets up a telescope and shows us what everyone is so excited about.

It's gibbons!! These little fluffy creatures have the coolest hands and no tails and I fall in love, the guide plays us a video of the gibbon call so we can listen when we are in the forest later, I've attached a video so you can all hear (off YouTube not ours)

After gibbon spotting, we go the centre, have a quick drink and then prepare ourselves for a few hours trekking and crossing all our fingers and toes that we will see a panglian on our travels. We start in an area of forest just up from where we saw the first gibbons and it isn't long before we hear and spot another family swinging through the trees above us, just then we hear a rustle on the floor about 20 metres in front of us and our guide whispers that it's a large family of macaques which circle us for the next 30 minutes, it was amazing. Sadly though, that was the highlight of the trek, after that first 30 minutes we walk for ages, waiting and listening but not really seeing much else, it was also getting really hot and we weren't really enjoying it. Lunch was provided at a view point just outside of the forest we were in and it was nice to rest up. Me and Ben sat at the top listening to the call of the gibbons and all the birds and I was blown away by it all, so what the walk might have been a bit tedious, this second now was worth all the sweaty steps.

After food we drove to a waterfall which we unfortunately couldn't swim in but we stopped and marvelled for a while. The last part of the day was elephant searching but we were as fruitless as this as we were with our pangolin hunt. Also the American couple were starting to get really irritating, constantly name dropping countries and belittling everyone's stories so I wasn't sad that we started to make our way back at this point. We caught another family of macaques on the road home, which was a lovely end to the day.

I keep drifting off as we bump away back to our hotel and once back and fed, I zonk out. And have a cat free night, I want to add.

Day 34

We don't really have anything planned for today other than exploring the weird themed places surrounding our hotel. First though we decide to be really geeky and make a spreadsheet for our travels, sounds lame but with so much spread out before us, sometimes it hard to picture it all and this really puts in into perspective for us.

Though it does get a little boring after a while so we grab a bike from the hotel and go off to find some themed food. My little nephews love the comic book characters and u was determined to get a picture of the hulk for them both so that was our first stop. I managed to get batman and superman too, but who's bragging. Next on our list of the weird and wonderful was a Wild West town that was just outside the park and it was every bit as strange as looked from the outside. It's theme was a old country and western complete with the tunes and I belted them out as we ordered. The food was also themed, or so we thought, so Ben orders Snake Head. You can kinda imagine our surprise when an actually cooked snake comes out and Ben jumped out of his skin, I forgot to say he's a tiny bit afraid of them. The fear doesn't leave him as he eats, though to his credit his does manage half of it.

After the snake showdown we head off to find some more odd restaurants when the sky turns an ominous shade of purple and we duck into what we believe is a mall. Well in true Khao Yai style it isn't just a simple mall but a tiny reconstructed Italian town, complete with themed tunes pumping out of its walls and empty. This place is weird. We walk around, with mouths open till we find a cheesy simulator ride for only 50p each and jump in for a "Jungle" adventure. After this we eat ice cream, wander some more, get a coffee, stare agog at it all and then leave, not quite sure it ever existed. 

The fuel light flickers on and we've not seen anything singing petrol pumps so we head back to do some more adventure planning and try and make sense of it all.