Khao Yai National Park

After 2 hours sitting in the trains from Ayuthaya I can already see the `touts` standing on the platform. The people of my intended hostel are also there (I didn’t book) and bring me with a special deal by car to my hostel which is still quite a drive away from the trainstation. This hostel is situated behind the main building where the owners live with their whole family.

I can see also a number of barracks that function if I’m right as hostel rooms. After I have booked a full day excursion for tomorrow, I meet a Belgian couple and we decide to dine together at the picnic tables that are located between the main road and the hostel. The hostel also functions as a restaurant and we all order the Panang Curry. Later we also meet the rest of the group of tomorrow and we enjoy the Thai beer till we break up. We have to get up early tomorrow.

Exactly at eight o’clock in the morning after breakfast we are picked up by two open jeeps from our hostel. We are on our way towards National Park `Khao Yai`. It is a 45-minute drive to the buffer zone and then another half hour to the actual park entrance. Khao Yai National Park is the oldest and most visited park in the country in Thailand. It is also one of the last largest intact monsoon forests on the mainland of Southeast Asia and therefore an UNESCO site.

There are about 250 wild elephants, sun bears, black bears, tigers, leopards, otters, monkeys besides the largest number of hornbills in Thailand. The park contains five vegetation zones. Very soon the driver stops the car and cleverly picks up the binoculars with the chassis from the jeep and draws attention to several hornbill in the trees. There are at least three of them and they are very clearly visible as they jump from tree to tree.

If one of them flies away we hear well how heavy the horns are because of the fluttering with the wings.

Shortly after this highlight so early in the morning, the "leech socks" are handed out. These very weird high thick socks should go over you’re normal socks and protect you from leeches and other animals getting under you’re pants and/or shoes. I feel like a Japanese soldier just missing my cap with neck protection.

We walk through the jungle for a three-hour `walk 'and only see some hogweed on trees until we meet suddenly an elephant. If we want to get closer, he takes off through the bushy bushes. When we have lunch another elephant pops up to take a look at us before we go to the waterfall with the jeep. This famous waterfall is used as a background in the blockbuster movie `the Beach '. We descend to a cave where a waterfall comes in and also take a dive which is very refreshing. 

On the way to the sunset we see some monkeys on the road, a deer along the road and a number of hornbills fly over. Sunset is beautiful; a bright orange ball that slowly goes down behind the trees and leaves us in the dark. Before we return to our hostel we spot a big snake on the road fleeing for our tyres and then we really have to go back. In the evening we all decide to eat in our own 'front yard' before we retire to our barracks. It’s too bad we didn’t see a tiger or leopard but you shouldn’t count on that either – it was an amazing day in a beautiful place.