Safari in Khao Yai national park

We were picked up by the Tonton travel tour guide Beer and driver at 8am. Our day started with a quick stop at the visitor's center where there was a museum of the park and animals there. I learned about the Asian elephant and how it was different from the African one.
Before starting out, I told Beer that I wanted to see wild elephant, preferable with a baby elephant. He said he couldn't promise and that he hasn't seen an elephant in a week.
Before boarding our safari truck, or guide showed us a couple Oriental Pied Hornbill birds. As we were walking back to the truck, one guide started to run towards the road and then everyone was running.
What was on the road? A large wild elephant just taking a stroll.
Amazing!!
After this fantastic start, we head off on our safari. We drove up into the heart of the park. We stopped at a viewpoint where we saw a pigtail monkey walk by our truck. After the ride, we took a jungle walk, after we put on our leech socks. This wasn't like the leisurely walk along paths like we did in the Amazon. Instead, we were walking between trees and vines which made it so much cooler. We found a whole family of gibbons including a black haired mother with a white haired baby. Adorable!! We stuck around to watch them for a long while and got a bunch of pictures of them playing in the trees.
Next was lunch of yummy coconut milk and some stir fried veggies with chicken. After lunch we visited a waterfall (featured in the movie Beaches) and then a scenic viewpoint from the top of the mountain. As we were heading to a second waterfall, we noticed another elephant in the road. We drove up to it but it had ventured into the trees along the road. We watched him for a while and then came along another larger elephant. The two play-fought for our amusement. It was so cool!!
After that fantastic second elephant sighting, we headed to dinner. Around the restaurant, we saw a family of pigtailed monkeys and stayed to take a bunch of pictures of them, including when two mated.
Finally we drove around for our night safari where we saw a monkey relative in the trees, many deer, and 2 porcupines.
What an amazing day!!
My trip to Thailand has been worth it already.

First day in Thailand still but now in paradise

I took a cab and then a minivan to Pak Chong where I got picked up to my resort which is called Lilawalai but should be called paradise. In fact, I feel royal here. I'm the only guest. I saw about 8 staff but not another guest. I walked the grounds for a while and then went for a swim. It was my personal pool in my personal resort. All I could here was the sound of the water and about 3 different types of birds. (There was also a cat that has been following me around.)

This place is amazing.

View from the room of my personal pool

Drive by Buddha sighting

First day in Thailand - Wat Phrakaew

I couldn't sleep late this morning so I got up at 6:30 (which isn't bad considering my body thinks it's 6:30pm). I went to Chamchuri square - a local mall - to try to buy a sim card but the phone store doesn't open until 10am. So I got some breakfast (previous post) and hailed a taxi to Wat Phrakaew - home of the emerald Buddha. I actually tried to take a bus but first I didn't know how to buy a ticket or how much it would be buy second I watched a number of buses that weren't the one I was looking for go by and I was worried about time. The taxi ride was good - <$3 for 30min ride.

I got to the site at 9am which was a fantastic time as I later found out because there was no line at the time while later the lines were massive. I walked around the royal palace and monasteries and took a ton of pictures. I especially liked the kinaree and yaksha statues. I was a bit underwhelmed by the emerald Buddha which is supposed to be the highlight. It's only 66cm tall the guidebook states and is so far you can hardly see it. Plus it's wearing some golden outfit (changed for each season) which covers up most of the green. Of course it's not actually made of emerald but is instead a type of jade. It does have a cool story though having been uncovered in Chiang Mai and believed to be made of plaster until the top layer started to crack. It was transported to Laos and later recaptured and brought to Bangkok. My favorite buildings were those with ornate flower-like decorations.

I was only outside for 2 hours but man was it hot! So humid and so sunny.

I ended the morning by returning to the shopping center to buy a sim card. I paid about $13 for more data than I usually get in the US. Nice!

First day in Thailand - breakfast

$1.81 from 7-eleven - yup, the same one.