January 11 was another early morning. We ate a big breakfast at the hotel, then coated ourselves in bug spray and jumped into the Party Van for the ride into the park. At the Khao Yai visitor center we were introduced to a veteran park ranger who was going to lead us on a five-kilometer hike through the jungle. I must beg the reader’s indulgence but I didn’t have the chance to note down his name, but he looked to be about my age and had apparently been working at the park since the 1980s.

But before setting out on the trail we had to put on some protective gear: sort of drawstring-topped gaiters covering our legs below the knees. Why? Ground leeches! Apparently they can crawl surprisingly fast, and can get up under the legs of your trousers before latching on. I didn’t see any, and thanks to the leech stockings, none of them got me. (I think they are more common in the rainy season.)

The hike looped upward, taking us up one of the ridges of the Khao Yai range. The ranger set an easy pace, and we stopped frequently so that Dr. Kelly could look for birds. I confess I spent most of my time looking at the path, watching my step — especially as we climbed and descended. A couple of times we crossed streams on fallen-log bridges. The first was no problem, but the second made me worry about keeping my balance, and I had to lean on our ranger’s walking stick to stay steady.

So what’s the jungle like? It’s dense. In places I couldn’t see more than a couple of yards in any direction due to the foliage. But as we climbed higher the undergrowth thinned out and we got some nice views. I don’t know the names of any of the birds we saw, nor most of the plants. We never saw any elephants, but Dr. Kelly was very excited to come across a pile of elephant droppings.

Our route brought us back to the visitor center, where we got some lunch on a covered terrace along with a bunch of other visitors. That also led to our best wildlife sighting of the trip: a monkey stole some melon slices right off the plate of a woman dining at a nearby table. We also got to see a lovely waterfall in the park, which apparently once co-starred with Leonardi DiCaprio in a movie.

Tired, sweaty, and dusty, we bounced back down the mountain and back to the Intercontinental Resort. We rested and cleaned up in our room, and at sunset we strolled over to the hotel’s fancy restaurant: “Poirot,” located in a vintage railroad dining car. It had a good, but fairly standard French bistro menu. We both got onion soup, blanquette de veau en croute, and orange creme brulee for dessert. 

The following day was a bit more relaxed. After the long mountain hike and a big dinner we both slept very soundly and then had a leisurely breakfast before boarding the Van for a short ride to visit a mango farm. When I saw that listed on the tour itinerary I sort of shrugged, but the farm was actually quite lovely — a raised walkway winding among mango trees in a little dell, with a steep forested mountain rising right at the edge of the grove. We spent about an hour there, just walking around and sampling some of the mango treats for sale. The freeze-dried mango chips were absolutely amazing: the drying hyper-concentrated the flavor but didn’t make the flesh leathery.

From the mango farm we drove to one of the most unexpectedly great stops on the whole trip: the Granmonte winery. Like the mango farm it’s in a stunningly beautiful location — and, more to the point, they make some very impressive wine! We watched a little video about the history of the operation, tasted some of the wines, and even got a farm wagon ride through the vineyards. Granmonte was one of the wines served with our meal at Nahm, back in Bangkok, and apparently they’ve done a good job of marketing their products throughout southeast Asia. 

It might seem odd to have a vineyard in the heart of Thailand, but the reason is simple: limestone. Turns out the Khao Yai mountains are pretty similar, geologically, to places like southern France, northern Italy, and California. Plus in Thailand there’s no frost to worry about. Apparently they deliberately prune back the vines in order to get only one crop of grapes per year — the rainy-season grapes aren’t really good for wine.

The owners of Granmonte have very shrewdly opened up an excellent restaurant at the winery, and I believe there’s even a bed & breakfast for wine lovers who want to spend the night surrounded by grape vines. Our lunch there was excellent, served on a lovely terrace overlooking a lotus pond.

That evening we returned to the national park for a night safari. The two of us, plus our guide and young ranger equipped with a powerful handheld spotlight rode in the back of a Toyota pickup and spent an hour cruising the roads in the park, looking for wildlife. Still no elephants, but we did see a lot of sambar deer, some barking deer, a possible civet cat in a tree, and a trio of porcupines.

I had brought a waterproof jacket all the way from home, but once we were on the airplane to Asia and it was far too late to switch, I discovered that the waterproof coating had started to disintegrate, so that I left a trail of latex flakes behind me like the world’s worst case of dandruff. After arriving in Phnom Penh I hadn’t needed it, so it stayed rolled up in my bag. But after our visit to the bat cave I decided the hell with it, and stuffed the jacket into the wastebasket in our room.

That was a tactical error, as it turned out. I thought a long-sleeved cotton shirt and my heaviest wool sweater would be enough for an evening ride in Thailand, but I have to admit, riding in the back of a pickup truck gets pretty chilly, even if the temperature is still no worse than 60° F. It’s not the air temperature, it’s the wind chill created by the motion of the truck. I’ve lived two decades in New England, and another ten years combined in Chicago and upstate New York, so I can handle cold weather, but I was still very glad to get back to the relative warmth of the Party Van when our safari was done.

The next morning (January 13) we left the Intercontinental and got all our stuff back into the Party Van for the drive back to Bangkok. Traffic was considerably less congested this time, even though we were retracing much of the same route. We did stop at an outlet mall to pick up a new jacket for me — given how much of my wardrobe is made in southeast Asia anyway, it seemed appropriate to get one at the source.

I have no idea why there was a Supercow at the outlet mall.

Back in Bangkok (after lunch at a no-kidding truck stop along the way) we made a detour to a fairly obscure neighborhood in the Thonburi district, in search of bronze workers. Apparently, back when King Taksin established his capital at the mouth of the river, he invited all the people displaced by the sack of Ayutthaya to move to the new city and take up the same trades they had done in the old capital. One group (clan? caste?) of bronze workers established themselves in Thonburi. Sadly, over the years the demand for hand-hammered bronzes has declined, so that there’s only one workshop still operating.

The visit strained Sita’s translation abilities to the limit, because both Dr. Kelly and I went into full nerd mode and started asking questions like “do you smelt your own bronze?” or “where does the copper come from?” We came away with one lovely little bowl, and if I had known Dr. Kelly was going to buy one I’d have ordered a set.

Then we returned to the U Sathorn for our final night in Bangkok. There was no big fancy dinner or pub-crawling because I was starting to feel a little scratchy-throated and achy. My suspicion is that the chilly night spent riding around Khao Yai National Park had stressed me enough for some lurking virus to take hold.  

Next Time: Tokyo and Home!