Part 3: NatureHolic Tour Thailand - the waterfalls around Khao Lak

The first waterfall ... Test of patience for the cab driver

Around Khao Lak there are countless waterfalls. On the first day we took a cab and let it take us close to the waterfalls. We made the cab wait until we had to go back, but that was a bit ineffective because the cab driver didn't always want to take the whole day off and stand around at the waterfalls. Here you can see him practicing patience ... the poor guy was unfortunately not as enthusiastic about the water world as we were. For this reason we borrowed the already mentioned mopeds relatively soon, so that we were mobile and could drive ourselves to the locations that interested us.

The flora around the waterfalls ...

Here we see a fern ... ferns we saw in Thailand at all very many. On the stones at the creeks also deciduous mosses grow everywhere, and especially Fissidens is very strongly represented there.

The landscape around Khao Lak is characterized by the humid climate of the tropical rainforest. Here everything is green and life is raging!

... and the animal world under and above water

This shrimp probably Caridina propinqus we found in the waterfall near Khao Lak. Unfortunately we had forgotten our landing net in the hotel, so I had to catch the animals by hand - which went very well thanks to their great curiosity. We didn't take any animals with us, we limited ourselves exclusively to taking photos.

In the quieter areas around the waterfalls you can also see small fish from time to time - gobies or loaches, sitting well camouflaged between collections of foliage like here. They could also be caught by hand. Probably from the family Nemacheilidae

Here Bernhard once again photographed the diverse vegetation. The abundance of different plants, colors and shapes is just unbelievably overwhelming!

At one of the waterfalls I could discover under two stones a land crab a Demanietta species . It was about 8-10 cm big and with its red claw joints really very pretty.

This spider was bigger than the palm of my hand...you have to be incredibly careful when walking around in the woods that you don't run into a spider web. People with arachnophobia should definitely not go out in nature there!

These little macrobrachians also live in the waterfalls around Khao Lak. We don't know if they really stayed that small (they were only about 3 cm long) or if we had the bad luck to find only juveniles. In any case their orange claws are interesting.

A Moringa tree live

Bernhard was very happy about this tree - it is a Moringa tree. We also include Moringa in our NatureHolic feed. This tree is a very well-known and powerful medicinal plant and is used in traditional herbal medicine not only in Thailand against various diseases and deficiency symptoms. Among other things, high blood pressure or rheumatic complaints, also act the leaves anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and fungicidal. They contain a lot of valuable vitamins and secondary plant substances - Moringa is not called "miracle tree" for nothing.

In search of interesting aquatic creatures

Here you can see me fishing for shrimps. It is very hot and it is very exhausting to stand there in the creeks in front of the waterfalls and look for shrimps, but as an aquarist I was of course in seventh heaven anyway!

And this was the success of my fishing expedition: there were smaller dwarf shrimps here, which still have to be determined.

Even more creepy crawlies ...

Besides spiders, there are also an incredible number of really interesting looking caterpillars in the rainforests of Khao Lak.

A good old acquaintance

Star moss has been very trendy in aquaristics for a while. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up well underwater, and the hype was over as quickly as it came. But in the splash zone this moss is really a feast for the eyes!

And even more water dwellers

Here we see again numerous fishes, which are found below the waterfalls - unfortunately the species is unknown to us.

This pretty spider is probably a water spider. It had well and good a leg span of 6 cm. The creepy crawly was sitting well camouflaged right at the water's edge, lurking for prey, small fish or the like. I saw it quite late, and it scared me quite a bit!