You are NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED!...
Ha, ha. Just kidding. I just did that to see if I could freak my Mom out. Sorry Mom :) Don't worry, there are no tigers here anymore... well maybe there is still one left, we aren't sure...and by "we" I mean the park staff along with myself :) These are pictures of the stuffed toy tiger we have at our place that was once used in a predator alarm call study on the gibbons. And seeing as it made me nearly jump out of my skin pretty much on every one of my nightly trips to the bathroom, I thought I'd give it a try on YOU... ha ha ha :)
So my "business" trip to Thailand is coming to an end. I'm heading out this morning for the airport at 3:30am and my flight leaves at 6:50am. Not so much looking forward to the 27 hour trip home, or having to make another 24-27 hour trip back here in another 4 months or so, but as for THIS trip. I have had a BLAST!
Being back in Thailand at Khao Yai and in the forest has been absolutely amazing, and I got to see SO MUCH fun stuff in the so few days that I was actually there, including: MANY GIBBONS 
(though I missed out on seeing group C, group H, and group W. And totally did NOT get to spend enough time with group M)[this is a picture of Cassius], many monkeys, many barking deer and sambar, an Asian black bear, a scorpion, a banded krait, an elephant, giant porcupines on three nights (one even came right up onto the porch as I was taking pictures of it and wiggled it's little nose at me sniffing the air, so cute), only one giant squirrel, several variable squirrels, several hornbills (though they continue to evade my camera lens - boo) and I got some really excellent video footage of a woodpecker in the forest just off the veranda of our place. Oh, and I saw the back half of a wild boar running away from me.
In addition to my daily trips to the forest, I was able to reconnect with many people in and around the park who all remember me from before. Many of them exclaimed "Canada, Canada!" when I walked in to their shops and stalls. So that was pretty cool :) I found some good places to run both in Khao Yai and in Bangkok, so I was able to keep to my running schedule and basically just dragged myself along on my runs up and down the valleys of the mountain in KY and through the sweltering heat of downtown Bangkok. Ya, those runs are all entitled "at least it got done" in the training log.. ha ha... hopefully over the next year here that will change to "in yo'face I just ran up the mountain!" ... we'll have to see about that though.
Met some fun people, some of who will be here when I get back and some of whom will be back home doing their own thing. It's actually kind of ironic to think about it, but I feel like I got more done on this short 3 week trip then I did in my whole 6 months last time...
Can't wait to get home... but I also can't wait to come back... and I have more better quality pictures to come once I get back to Canada.
Overall I think it's been a pretty successful trip.
I guess that's Thailand for you.
Ha, ha. Just kidding. I just did that to see if I could freak my Mom out. Sorry Mom :) Don't worry, there are no tigers here anymore... well maybe there is still one left, we aren't sure...and by "we" I mean the park staff along with myself :) These are pictures of the stuffed toy tiger we have at our place that was once used in a predator alarm call study on the gibbons. And seeing as it made me nearly jump out of my skin pretty much on every one of my nightly trips to the bathroom, I thought I'd give it a try on YOU... ha ha ha :)
So my "business" trip to Thailand is coming to an end. I'm heading out this morning for the airport at 3:30am and my flight leaves at 6:50am. Not so much looking forward to the 27 hour trip home, or having to make another 24-27 hour trip back here in another 4 months or so, but as for THIS trip. I have had a BLAST!
Being back in Thailand at Khao Yai and in the forest has been absolutely amazing, and I got to see SO MUCH fun stuff in the so few days that I was actually there, including: MANY GIBBONS 
(though I missed out on seeing group C, group H, and group W. And totally did NOT get to spend enough time with group M)[this is a picture of Cassius], many monkeys, many barking deer and sambar, an Asian black bear, a scorpion, a banded krait, an elephant, giant porcupines on three nights (one even came right up onto the porch as I was taking pictures of it and wiggled it's little nose at me sniffing the air, so cute), only one giant squirrel, several variable squirrels, several hornbills (though they continue to evade my camera lens - boo) and I got some really excellent video footage of a woodpecker in the forest just off the veranda of our place. Oh, and I saw the back half of a wild boar running away from me.
In addition to my daily trips to the forest, I was able to reconnect with many people in and around the park who all remember me from before. Many of them exclaimed "Canada, Canada!" when I walked in to their shops and stalls. So that was pretty cool :) I found some good places to run both in Khao Yai and in Bangkok, so I was able to keep to my running schedule and basically just dragged myself along on my runs up and down the valleys of the mountain in KY and through the sweltering heat of downtown Bangkok. Ya, those runs are all entitled "at least it got done" in the training log.. ha ha... hopefully over the next year here that will change to "in yo'face I just ran up the mountain!" ... we'll have to see about that though.
Met some fun people, some of who will be here when I get back and some of whom will be back home doing their own thing. It's actually kind of ironic to think about it, but I feel like I got more done on this short 3 week trip then I did in my whole 6 months last time...
Can't wait to get home... but I also can't wait to come back... and I have more better quality pictures to come once I get back to Canada.
Overall I think it's been a pretty successful trip.
I guess that's Thailand for you.
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