Jungle of Blood Sucking Leaches

Khao Sok is a beautiful National Park. There are monkeys, orchids, flocks of butterflies in every color scheme imaginable. And there are BLOOD SUCKING LEACHES. But that is the end of our story, not the beginning.

Justin and I decided to go hiking in the rain forest. It was very green, hot and humid. We ambled up a trail to a waterfall most of the day taking pictures of orchids and butterflies and frogs. Playing monkey on the liana. Looking at cool trees. The plan was to make a loop hike. Hike up to this waterfall, then over some hills where there were the giant rafflesia flowers, then to the main road and back to town. But that's not how it worked.



We didn't know this until later, but the particular trail we decided to take wasn't really well used. There really wasn't a trail, it hiking up a little stream, scrambling around small waterfalls, and hoping from rock to rock. Pretty fun. Part way up the stream we ran into some guided groups. They had done the loop, but in the opposite direction. They told us the flowers were still a ways off but the waterfall wasn't to far. It was 3 pm at this point. So we went up to the waterfall ... which is where we actually saw the first leach.

We had already had one encounter with a leach - but we didn't know it was a leach. At the beginning of the hike Justin noticed I had blood all over the calf of my pants. Hmmm. Where was this coming from? Well, there was a little tiny hole in my calf that was bleeding. And wouldn't stop bleeding. So I wrapped my towel around it and we kept walking but didn't really question the origin of the bite.

In our next leach encounter Justin actually felt it in his shoe. He pulled his shoe off and there was a very full leach and a bleeding hole on his toe. So we wrapped it up in a tissue and rubber band and decided to turn around and head back the way we came. It was getting late.

Then it started raining. Not drizzling. Rain forest raining, Khao Sok soaking rain. It was a warm rain - good in the way a dry heat is good in Tucson - but it made the rocks slippery. And it brought out more leaches. They would "stand up" from the ground, hook their mouths onto your shoe, and then work their way to skin. And they were stubborn. Justin had the quote of the day - "It was like trying to flick a booger with brains" to get rid of them.

Well, to make a long story short, we made it through the jungle with only a few leach bites each. My leach bites look more like leach hickees - it's apparently very hard to suck my blood. Justin's just look like little holes.