Khao Yai Natioanl Park.

WOW this place is amazing. It’s an area protected by the Thailand Government and has many rare and endangered species. It was only a small trip from Ayutthaya to Khao Yai National park, and we arrived about lunch time. We were staying at a place called Greenleaf guesthouse. They are recognized for good tours of the national park, but the accommodation itself is pretty basic. Having arrived around midday, we were able to do there afternoon tour. This included a swim at a natural spring, a bit of caving and seeing the best part of 2 million bats leave their cave at dusk. We have a video, and a few pictures from this half day tour.

As you can see josh and Jarryd were brave enough to put some cave insects on their bodies, me on the other hand Miles away, the Bangkok spider still in the memory!!!

The next day was the full day tour in the national park, 8am till 7.30pm. It started off on a rather frightening note with the tour guide giving us leech and tick protectors and showing us a sore on his arm that was created by a tick over a year ago. GOOD TIMES!!!!! but this was all forgotten with a great rare Hornbill bird spotted. These things have over 2 meter wing span, and they look amazing. You can even hear their wings pumping from ages away. Josh being the professional photographer got a good picture of it.

After showing us a few spots around the park, it was time to hit a jungle trek. The first thing we saw was a pit viper, a snake capable of killing us. The snake was apparently part of a litter of vipers that were in the area we were walking. The next encounter was with a scorpion hole. The tour guide spent about 5 minutes poking and probing this small hole before the Scorpion burst out. Turning around my fear of spiders, in what must be said a RASH decision after the tour guide said it was agitated, I put it on myself and near the throat region.

So we kept trekking through the jungle for another couple hours before we had some lunch. Some nice tofu and rice, YUM YUM!!! The rest of the day was spent visiting a magnificent waterfall, which was actually used in the movie ‘The Beach’, starring the man himself Leonardo di Caprio. Unfortunately one person, ONE PERSON decided to jump off at the wrong place, hence no one being able to jump off it any more. Theres always one!!!! The last part of the day was searching for Elephants. Success!!!!! It was a truly rewarding experience seeing an elephant in the wild, DOING ITS THANG, without being tied to a tree like a few places we have seen in South East Asia.

Overall an awesome experience at Khao Yai national park, especially getting a rare glimpse of some wild elephants.