Many people who travel to Thailand will first fly into Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport. From there, you will connect to famous tourist destinations such as Phuket and Chiang Mai. In addition to using airplanes to travel in Thailand, there are other ways to travel by train, bus, and car. Among the many tourist destinations in Thailand, the one closest and easiest to visit from Bangkok is probably Khao Yai National Park. You can encounter wild elephants, deer, monkeys, etc. in the natural environment of mountains, rivers, and jungles. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to get to Khao Yai by car from Bangkok. This also allows for day trips. Therefore, it has become a popular tourist destination not only for tourists from overseas but also for Thai people living in Bangkok. Being a mountainous area, it has a cool climate unlike hot Bangkok.

I also remember visiting Khao Yai National Park when I first visited Thailand over 30 years ago. However, the Khao Yai of that time and the Khao Yai of today are very different. Of course, this is not the case inside the national park, as nature is preserved, but the situation in the town at the foot of the mountain has changed dramatically. The road leading to the national park used to be just two lanes, but it has been expanded and the surrounding trees have been cut down, and above all, the town's rustic appearance has now become a completely modern resort area. Well, as the closest resort to Bangkok, if the number of tourists increases, such changes may be inevitable. However, as someone who knows the old Khao Yai, I feel a little lonely. There is no point in visiting a place to enjoy nature if the nature is being destroyed. This problem is the same not only in Thailand but also in Japan. Similar problems are occurring in places such as Ishigaki Island in Okinawa.

In the past, there were few lights around Khao Yai at night, and many insects would fly to places with bright lights. I was able to observe various insects such as the Atlas beetle and the long-eared scarab beetle, so it was very fun to visit the street lights at night. However, now there are lights in many places, and many of these lights have wavelengths that do not attract insects, so it is no longer possible to observe insects by walking around streetlights like in the past. It's a shame that it was.

This is a long introduction, but there is a town called Pak Chong at the foot of the mountain where Khao Yai National Park is located. It's about a 15 minute drive from Khao Yai National Park, so I used to come down to this town when I needed to do some shopping. It was more than 20 years ago that I was told that there was a small inconspicuous river on the outskirts of Pak Chong town, and that there was a colony of Cryptokoryne crispatula var.balansae. Since then, he has checked the river every time he comes to Khao Yai, and the Balan Sae community is still alive and well. People come from Bangkok for day trips and overnight trips, and I have guided fish and aquatic plant lovers many times. There aren't any notable types of fish, but there are many small shrimp, long-eared shrimp, and freshwater crabs, and you can enjoy collecting them.

In Thailand, Cryptocoryne, which is found not in the Malay Peninsula but in the Indochina Peninsula, is mostly of the narrow-leaved type similar to this Balansae. For some reason, this narrow-leaved type of Cryptocoryne is not very popular among enthusiasts. I don't know much about the classification of Cryptocoryne, so I can't say much about it, but it's interesting that even things that are considered to be the same species, have very different appearances and ecology depending on their habitat... Even within the same species, their appearances differ greatly between the rainy season and the dry season. The same is true for Balansae here in Pak Chong, and the plants that emerge from the water during the dry season from November to May of the following year change into short, sturdy leaves, unlike the long underwater leaves. The morphological change is so great that someone who doesn't know about it would think it's a different species.
Pak Chong's Balansae flowers with long spathes with a unique twisted shape bloom around February every year when the water level is low. As with any species, Cryptocoryne is most attractive when its flowers are in bloom. I used to lose track of time and take pictures of colorful damselflies perched on the tips of long flowers. Two to three months after the flowers bloom, large round fruits will form at the base of the plant. There are several dozen seeds inside this body. When the fruit ripens, the seeds fall out, are washed away by water, and sprout in a new location. However, as far as I have observed in its natural habitat, it seems that runners are more common for propagation than seedlings.

Last year, I visited Pak Chong with a friend who loves aquatic plants during the dry season when the plants were turning into floating leaves, and we returned after collecting a few plants. It seems that the balancer at this time is still alive and well at a friend's place. I brought it back to Japan, planted it in sphagnum moss, and grew it in a plastic cup. It can be easily grown under fluorescent light, and I felt that it would be fun to grow it in a terrarium. Most of the time, Balansae is sold as underwater leaves, and it is easy to grow in an aquarium, making it an entry-level Cryptocoryne species. The underwater leaves, which are reddish and elongated with uneven surfaces, are beautiful, but once you grow them again, the underwater leaves are also attractive, and can be used in a different way than before. Don't be fooled by the fact that it's an inexpensive beginner's breed, and I want you to enjoy the charm of the balance even more.