Bangkok (again)

We both survived the night safari in the Khao Sok rainforest and managed to see a civit (look it up, it's a cat/lemur/fox/raccon hybrid), small deer (Mouse deer we think) some frogs, bats, fireflies and the largest spider I've ever seen (about the size of my outstretched hand) - which our guide started to torment in order to make it more active and then told us it was poisionous...

Khao Sok is apparently part of the oldest Rainforest ecosystem on the planet, 160 million years old. The trek where we were leeched was amazing, having to cross ravines and push through bamboo trees whilst trying to follow a very disused trail - and then we discovered the leeches. We were later shown the way to not get leeched - by smeering tobacco juice over your shoes, socks and trousers. How someone found that out I will probably never know.

After a night in Surat Thani (tip - don't go, nothing is open after 6 pm other than the 7-11) and another chat with a monk (in the 7-11) we got a 9 hour train up to Bangkok, where we arrived on Friday, 2 months after we first arrived. I can't believe that we've been gone that long. The past 3 weeks in Thailand has flown by to say the least.

I still don't like Bangkok much, but I will say that you can get glasses very cheap (I scratched mine on the beaches somewhere, I think some sand must have got in the cloth I was using) so I got mine re-lensed and some new ones for not very much at all.

So we're nearly half-way (cue quiet sobbing) and the next post will be whilst I am upside down in Australia!

Some stats -

Number of crying babies on the train - 2 (for 9 hours...)

Final number of leech bites - 8 a leg (they're easier to count once they've gone down slightly)

And go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4exo9q4-tw to see some Elephant Video goodness!