Leeches and tigers and bears, oh my!

We are now in the deepest jungle. Wild tigers, elephants and barking deer roam free. Pythons and pit vipers slither about too.

Actually, we’re in a little coffee shop sipping iced latte, but the bloke at the next table just leapt up shrieking and slapped a fat leech from his leg, as blood poured down. Big sook.

There are things out there that wouldn’t mind a bite of us. Annette-eating bears and panthers are within 10km of us, here in Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park.

This fierce concrete fella guards the entrance to where we’ve just booked four nights, Tree Tops River Huts, on the edge of the park which covers more than 738 sq km.

Yet in the nearby village one can buy a Magnum ice cream.

We’ve seen monkeys, flying lizards, many bats and two live red-headed snakes – the pickled king cobra in a jar was scary.

Some of the tropical fish David kept as a lad are in the nearby stream – spanner barbs and giant danios – now we can swim with them.

When we’re not slapping fat horrible leeches off our legs, that is. I’ve been host to two blood suckers now, David nil. Each time I’ve patiently explained why this relationship won’t work. Once I stopped yelping and slapping and leaping.

Gordonton has leeches. No, really, it does. We found some in a drain on the farm some years back. But those guys were well behaved and ate teeny snails, not kiwis.

I told David about the second leech I found stuck to my ankle after a jungle walk. Did I get a photo, he asked. Ha ha ha.

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