Thursday March 11 - Exploring Kaeng Krachen National Park

 

We met at the vans at 5:30 and took off in the dark for Kaeng Krachan National Park. This is the largest park in Thailand, 1814 square miles and its elevation is from ~1200 - 3000’. The park stretches to the Burma border and beyond providing a large area of pristine primary forest. There is only one road into the park which further limits human impact on the animals and plants.  In northern Thailand we didn't see any mammals as they have been mostly hunted out, so we're hoping to see some here.



We arrived at the Park entrance and transferred into pick-up trucks with benches installed along the sides. We drove up the Park road, gripping tightly onto the railing and arrived at a campground about seven. Our faithful cooks were there already with eggs sizzling, bacon, coffee, etc.

 As we ate, we could see several exciting species of birds and when we went to investigate, saw a group of about ten Dusky Langurs (Dusky Leaf Monkeys) leaping about the lawn, wrestling and playing like a bunch of kids! They are really cute monkeys with large white eye rings  muzzlesand long gray tails. They are called leaf monkeys because they subsist solely on leaves and berries and have several stomachs to process the vegetable matter. Because hunting has been banned in the Park for so long, the animals have little fear of humans and we were able to watch them for quite a while. When they were tired of playing they all climbed up into a tree and began eating leaves.

We divided into two groups and Bob and I went with David and walked down the road seeing great views of Scaly-breasted Partridge, Black Giant Squirrel, (head to tail, about three feet long), butterflies and lots of great birds. The sky was overcast and cool, which according to David always increases bird and mammal activity.

We met with the rest of the group for a terrific lunch of noodles, shrimp curry and soup, and watched clouds of butterflies swirling around a patch of mud on a stream bank. We got back on the trucks for a very steep ride up to the high point of the park. We drove up into rain forest and reached the top where we had a great view of primary forest as far a we see. We saw some more Dusky Langurs, this time mothers with their bright orange babies, and David showed me a Banded Langur with no face markings and fur rising into a point on top of his head. And we saw a pair of very cute Dusky Broadbills.

The other group heard elephant noise but all we’ve seen is large piles of fresh elephant dung on the roadside…so we know they are there, but hard to see.

At five we started back, but with stops and sightings we didn’t get back to the hotel until seven and didn’t bother to change but set off right away on the drive to the hotel restaurant….List, dinner, bag of clean laundry, and bed!