Looking for the Big 5

I went out camping when I got back from Bangkok. It was about a 4 hour drive to the place in South Africa. It was called Pilanesberg Game Reserve. It had the African Big 5 (Elephant, Hippo, Lion, Lepard and Rhino). I saw about 11 unique Rhino's. Ran into 3 of them on the road when I came around a corner. Needless to say none of them charged me. Thank goodness for that.

Saw about 30 elephants in a herd destroying trees, playing and just be elephants I guess. There was also some Giraffe, Zebra, and Warthogs. We hung out at a hide watching a hippo and a 3-6 week old baby hippo go into the water. It was pretty neat actually.

I also watched about 20 wild african dogs try to get a hippo to come out of the water so they could attack it. It was funny to watch and the dogs ended up giving up after a 10 minutes. The funny part was there were 2 waterbuck right there that the dogs ignored. When the dogs left you could hear the waterbuck sigh with relief.

I never did find any lion or lepard. But they mostly come out at evening / night to feed and I was back at the camp site during that time. It was a nice place for a good price (about $45 USD for 2 nights with hot showers, and park fees). I think we will go back to there, but not too soon.

It has gotten cold enough at night that I have to turn on the heater sometimes. One night it was down to 8 degrees Celcius (that's about 38 F for you Americans). The last 2 nights I have not had to use it though.

I don't feel like writing about the devaulation of the Pula but I will say that the Dollar goes alot farther now then it did. When I left it was $1 = 4.5 and now its $1=5.51. Good for me, bad for those that import (like most do in this country).

So long Bangkok

I am not back in Botswana with the dry heat, dust, and drab buildings. I would love to say I missed it, but who am I kidding?

I ended up staying in Bangkok for 10 days. It was great and I could see myself living there for a few years. The food was great, obviously plenty of Thai food, but lots of Chinese, Italian, French and other countries as well. Heck, I even tried scorpion on a stick from a road side vendor. My opinion? Try it once, but it was bland, crunchy and not much to talk about it.

I took about 500 pictures at the Grand Palace. I hired a monk as my tour guide and for 15 minutes we discussed the building principles of the temples and how it was made. I guess I just wanted to talk shop for a while....

I ended up also going past the Monk retreat and giving alms for the poor (ok it was about $20 USD worth of rice bowls). Since monks only live on hand outs I thought it was my place to do so since I used their services at the Palace.

All in all it was a good trip. If you get the chance to go I say go for it. And when I have the chance to go back I will!