the untamed north: trip report, part iv

Here’s part four of the relentlessly long trip report about the wild north. This one is, basically, a hodge-podge of things that I’ve missed over the last few posts, and a location I can place miscellaneous pictures. Its all kind of muddled, but whatev. Here goes:

Cave Lodge: I mentioned we didn’t go caving, major bust. But, we made the most of it, meeting some Australians and French people there. The Australians convinced us that they were a little “off” when there was a huge bug which flew very near to where I was. It landed on our tea table, and they promptly picked it up and cradled it and so forth. I didn’t. Call me a coward. Here’s the little guy; you can tell me if you would pick him up.

We did walk around a bit. Luckily we survived… and I don’t say that just because we had to walk across this: (a very crappy bridge obviously built over the REMAINS OF A CONCRETE ONE)

I say “luckily we survived” because of our encounters with lots of bugs. Big spiders… like the one here, pictured in front of rice fields in what I like to claim is a very National Geographic-esque photo:

We also saw nasty large red ants on a fence that would actually follow the movements of my hand in front of them with their mandibles. Of course, there were also lovable characters like miniature frogs and this caterpillar (view full size to see just how detailed the pic is!):

We also saw some wildlife when we went to the zoo in Chiang Mai! It cost us a little over a dollar to get in (a pretty good deal!), and they actually have a pretty good selection of animals. We were impressed that the animals all seemed pretty well taken care of—to be honest, we weren’t expecting it from Thailand. The only bad part, it is so spread out and large, it is hard to walk around the whole thing!

Has anyone else noticed that storks’ legs bend the other way? Eep.

Well, this wasn’t much of a post, but oh well. Number five, coming soon.