Welcome to the jungle. Khao Sok is in southern Thailand and is a large national park that was dedicated in 1980. It is home to some really cool animals as well as some rare species of plants including some that are found no where else in the world.
Among the animals that are found in this completely wild, not enclosed, hike at your own risk, wilderness are Asian elephants, tigers, leopard cats, gibbons, dusky monkeys, barking deer, tapir, sun bears, and the most fierce of all, leeches. Of these we heard the gibbons daily making songs to each other but only saw one. We saw the dusky monkey, which was really neat because we had to go slightly off the trail to see him once we heard a commotion by the river. We saw elephant dung and tracks but no elephants. We saw bear tracks and deer tracks but no live sightings. The big cats may have seen us from high up in the trees but they didn't make themselves known. The leeches took a few pints of blood from each of us and we killed a good number in return.
 |
| I don't think this bridge could handle two at a time let alone ten |
These palms are only found here in this area, no where else in the world. They were neat because the bats actually turn down some of the leaves and make a little house to sleep in during the day. We looked under this one but nobody was home.
 |
| Regular everyday monkey, not the rare ones |
The next pictures are not for the faint of heart. In one hike we each pulled about 150 leeches off our feet. They go right through socks. Only four managed to climb higher than our ankles and they were destroyed. These suckers live on the trails in the wet mud. When an animal is nearby they jump to life and start waiving themselves around trying to stick to the animal passing down the trail. They then cut into your skin and secrete an anti-coagulant so that your blood does not clot and they can suck until full. One fat plump leech is good for as long as four months without feeding again. When they let go, or are cut in half by us, the tiny little incision they made to suck our blood just keeps on drizzling because of the clotting issue. They carry no diseases, and are otherwise harmless, after about 30-45 minutes it stops bleeding.
This video is one of the first encounters with the leeches. As more were found, it became much less dramatic and in fact we would wait to pull them off until we knew there were a few so that it would be worth while to stop.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment