Monsoon Morning

Well, after a relatively uneventful journey we find ourselves waking up to our first morning in Bangkok.
Was surprised to hear a heavy heavy rain calling to us from outside our bedroom window.
I must have brought the weather with me because i haven't seen such a fierce downpour in a while.
The rain is not cold but will likely put a damper on my first morning alas.

Got into contact with one of the bird photographers i plan to shoot with down here.
His name is Alex Vargas and goes by the name DonGa on various forums. he is a Costa Rican living in Thailand for most of the year and is excited about our birding opportunities.
He emailed me to tell me of some good birds coming to a blind setup at Khao Yai NP and we are making plans to get out that way. The hope is to nail Blue Pitta along with Coral-billed Ground-cuckoo plus some of the other birds i got last trip like Orange-headed Thrush, White-throated Thrush and another one i have yet to see in Hainan Blue-flycatcher.
We will need to get to the setup before 6am though and since the gate to the park doesn't open till 6am we will try to gain some accomodation in the park the night before.

Some more on our journey - We flew EVA air and connected through Taipei (12 hour flight from Vancouver), a nice modern airport with a 3 hour waylay (4 hour flight to bangkok) so not too bad all in all.
However, every time my carry-on bag with camera gear goes through the xray i always have some explaining to do. This time was no exception as the scanner pulled my bag aside and a look-see was in order. I never knew a tiny jewelers screwdriver along with some allan keys could potentially be a weapon and they wanted me to check the screwdriver into my baggage.
This would have meant pulling our luggage from the cue and running the risk of said baggage missing the connection. I said in no uncertain terms that there was no way i was going to do that and i would rather they just took it and disposed of it themselves if they had such concerns.
Eventually they realized that i was going to be difficult and placed screwdriver back into my pack and waved me through.
I will place that offending "weapons" into luggage on the way back, though, less hassles the better right.

Will update later if i am able to do some shooting today.