Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

Khao Yai is a huge area of tropical rainforest to the North East of Bangkok. The forest is pretty much untouched because it covers a high plateau (Khao Yai means big mountain). There are lots of different species living there so we planned to go on a guided trek to see what we could see! (Faye recommended this - thanks Faye).

View across the forest

Getting there was pretty intense - 6 hours on 3 buses with truly torrential rain just in time for us to get completely soaked (definitely the rainy season) waiting for the final pick up to Greenleaf guesthouse.

The trek day was amazing. We were in a super-friendly group with 4 French and 2 Chinese people, the weather was mostly great and our guide was a veritable Thai Steve Irwin who could snatch an invisible chameleon from amongst leaf litter and send a scorpion to sleep with his bare hands. Thanks to him we saw snakes, gibbons(!), lizards and insects which we would have otherwise blithley walked straight past. There were also whole families of macaques, deer and large monitor lizards which we saw from the sorngtaaou (pick-up truck with 2 benches in the back). We were out for 11 hours and it was marvelous.

In the jungle

The accommodation was simple and it was the first try of the mosquito net to keep out the forest nasties. There was also no hot water which meant dancing furiously in the cold shower. However we toughed it out and Greenleaf's cafe made up for it by providing good food and space for impromptu card games with our fellow trekkers.

Hornbill (top left), steep stairs, deer and a snake in the sorngtaaou

The day after our trek we didn't much feel like heading straight back to Bangkok, so instead we stopped in the nearby town Pak Chong which, to be honest, is a bit like Doncaster during the day. However, we found a market down a back alley which was quite exciting. It was closely packed with fruit, clothing, flowers and sweet stalls but still used for 2 way scooter traffic.  There were no other foreigners about and we had a couple of awkward transactions to get bananas and noodles so decided we will need to read up on our Thai!

Spider with a Mexican Day of the Dead style skull pattern

In the evening Pak Chong was transformed into a full on bustling festive market which was much easier to navigate. There were still no other tourists but we got some tasty street food and some fresh waffles within the friendly evening glow by using a combination of very basic Thai and hand gestures. As we never expected this we never brought the camera which was a shame as it looked lovely.

The following day we got a minibus back to Bangkok which is definitely the best way to travel quickly and in comfort.

- Kath

Baby macaque descent technique

Scorpion!!

Baby macaque dodges truck