November 16th- Khao Yai National Park

After our rest stop, we pushed on to our next destination- Khao Yai National Park. We were really excited because we were told that there are real monkeys living there... running around wild like we have squirrels here!

(Ok, I must confess... we don't have squirrels here in AZ, we have these tiny little chipmunk looking things that people call gophers. That just doesn't sound the same.)

One of the hazards of purchasing a new camera right before you go on vacation is not being able to figure out how to use it to it's fullest potential. If you look behind the girls, you'll see MONKEYS! We stopped on our way into the park to visit with these guys that are smart enough to hang out near a beautiful overlook.

They were having a grand old time playing on the cars. The one on this windshield was running up to the roof, then sliding down the slanted glass over and over. Such smart little monkeys!

(Click on the picture and it will enlarge)

His antics quickly went to the devious though as he tried to use his little monkey fingers to pry open the door of the car!

The million dollar view that everyone was stopping to see.

Look! It's a picture of both of us! Laura was kind enough to take a few pictures of Jeremy and I. It's been so many years, but I gotta say, I still love that guy!

One of the great things about these monkeys is that they would "eyeball" you as you drove by. They certainly were not going to move for you and whole little families of them would stop and give you a menacing stare as you motored by. Too funny!

Abby, Katie and Amelia in a typical Thai photo pose

**We also saw a lot of people that would fashion their hand like a gun and point it at their head for a picture and for group shots, they will take a hundred pictures trying to get just one with everyone jumping off the ground at the same time.**

A sign at the visitors center. I wonder if signs in the US have such misguided translators.

This tiger was shot and killed after it began stalking and eating people, going as far as to sneak in and drag them out of their huts. He also killed some park officials who were trying to catch him. Khao Yai has wild tigers and elephants. Neither of which we saw the day we were there.

Another man eating tiger and my funny, brave Amelia

(click on this picture and if you can get past the super scary teeth, you'll see the bullet hole between it's eyes. So much for restorative taxidermy!)

Abby and a baby elephant.

Not very scary. Mostly sad. :(

Monitor Lizards seem to be quite common throughout Thailand.

These two pictures are for my sweet nephew Caleb. He was very concerned about us going to Thailand because it is home to the Green Bamboo Pit Viper, one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Thankfully, Caleb, this is the only one we saw! ;)

Even dead, this thing looks mean.

How'd you like to take a ride on this guys back? That's some vertebrae he's got! Ouch!

After checking out the visitors center, we decided to take a little walk through the jungle on a path Ryan had taken before. He teasingly mentioned that when he walked this last time, he left with a few leech-y friends attached to his feet.

To get across to the path, we had to walk across this rickety Indiana Jones style bridge. Marshall, in true Marshall fashion took his time, walking very carefully across the wiggly bridge.

Whew! Safely across!

Not long after this picture was taken, a tree had fallen on the regular path and we had to navigate our way through the detour area, stepping carefully and ducking to avoid branches. Laura and I were a little bit behind and around a corner when we heard the mass hysteria of small children "GO BACK! GO BACK! GO BACK! LEEEEEEEECHIES!!!!" Next thing we knew, they all went running past us, pale faced and with their little feet barely touching the ground. As the story was told, Amelia alerted Jeremy to what she thought was a leech. He assured her it was just a stick. It started moving again at which point she screamed REALLY loud and jumped right up on Jeremy's back, igniting everyone else's panic mode. She started kicking him like any good cowgirl would when she wants her ride to move it and as Laura and I stood there, hysterically laughing and trying to pull ourselves together, 2 grown men and 6 children shoved past us in their effort to flee danger. (Jeremy and Ryan weren't scared. They were just being good dads that they are and helping their offspring escape what sounded like a certain death.)

If I live to be 100 years old, I will never stop laughing about GO BACK.... LEEEEECHIES!"

When we got across that rickety bridge that Marshall took so much care crossing the first time, but the second time flew right across without a second thought, we all took our shoes off and this is what the unluckiest found... Those little black spots are leeches (on Marshall). And if you've never seen one creep along in real life, you really should. They came out of the woodwork when they smelled the fresh meat walking through that jungle. They crawl like inch worms do and are so tiny, you almost don't see them... but they seem to have some sort of heat seeking mechanism as they were all on the offensive heading right for the people that they smelled. We found that those wearing flip flops were fine... it was those wearing crocks (Marshall and Abby) and sandals (Jeremy) that found leeches on their feet.

(Click this picture to get a closer look if you dare!)

The leeches administer an anticoagulant in their bite which causes them to bleed long after they are removed.

Hero Daddy giving a ride to victimized Marshall who seemed to be quite traumatized by the whole "Leechy" situation. I wasn't sure he would ever put his feet back on the ground after that.

(Look at this picture up close so you can see what I mean on Marshall's face. Poor boy!)

Laura is such a sweet, caring host. She packed us this fabulous picnic lunch of hot dogs, apples, potato salad and such. She even bought juice for us when the fruit lychee was in season so we could at least try what the fruit tasted like. Unfortunately, Marshall heard Lychee (phonetically Leechy) juice, looked at the juice with disgust and wouldn't even try it regardless of how much I reassured him that it was made by squeezing fruit, not blood sucking worms.

This deer was willing to try the juice.. and my lunch. He poked his head right through the fence and tried to steal it!

When we finished our lunch, we were walking back to the car to put back the coolers and saw a monkey climbing over a pick up truck. Before we saw it coming, he darted right in an open window! Everyone around was laughing pretty hard. Not 15 seconds later the monkey emerged, victorious (funny enough, just as the owner of the truck ran up to the door) with a candy bar which he darted up into a tree to eat.

The park actually has several "layers" of waterfalls. We stopped at this look out point for a few more photos.

We had to walk just a little bit and go down a little over 100 stairs to get to the bottom of the waterfall. It was so beautiful and peaceful!

The kids had a grand time climbing over the rocks and playing.

I climbed over some big boulders to get this shot. I also dropped the lens cap to my brand new birthday present camera in this water. So long, lens cap!

Of course, you don't take a trip like this without someone falling in, right? Not long after this picture was taken, Abby toppled herself waist deep into the water, pulling poor Lia in with her. That'll teach Lia to be so near to someone who inherited her mothers sense of balance and coordination!

The Dads were willing to climb over all the rocks to take the kids over to the cave that you can see next to the waterfall in the picture above where Marshall has both hands raised in the air and Amelia is giving a 2 thumbs up sign. Now this is the part of the story where I feel the need to remind you of something. We've talked about my balance issues, right? I dropped my lens cap... I'm wearing flip flops...Ryan shouldn't have to do for me what he's doing for Abby... It just wasn't worth fighting to get all the way over there. ;) Thankfully, Laura wasn't interested either (or did a good job of pretending) so we found a relaxing spot and enjoyed some lovely conversation while we waited.

Oh, and we watched these people get married. :D

They made it!

My sweet Mia Bear with her curly humidity hair. LOVE IT!

107 steps down, 107 steps back up...

Jeremy and Abby snuck in one quick trip to the top of the waterfall. Laura got a great picture of the two of them looking like miniatures next to it.

We were on our way back to the car and Jeremy found this... another leech!

He thought he got it out and later that night, he was still feeling something between his toes and there was one... all bloated from all day eating binge. GROSS!