Ever since arriving in Thailand, a jungle hike with wildlife encounters has been high on our to do list - leading to the addition of Khao Yai National Park to our itinerary! Khao Yai National Park is located in Eastern Central Thailand, and was just a 2.5 hour bus ride from Bangkok. It is the second largest national park in Thailand, and is home to gibbons, tigers, black bears, monkeys, elephants, and more. We booked two tours with Bobby's Guesthouse, and also stayed at this guesthouse during our three nights at the park. The man who ran the guesthouse was actually named Mike, and was a German man who moved to Thailand several years ago. He was extremely friendly and helpful, and both picked us up from the bus station and dropped us off at the train station. His Thai wife did the cooking at the guesthouse, and we ate very well during our stay as she prepared delicious Thai food (yummy cashew chicken) and western food (amazing banana pancakes). This was particularly fortunate, as the area where we were staying, a small town called Pak Chong right outside of the park, did not have any other eatery options that were close by.
We arrived in Khao Yai around 2 PM, and had already started our half-day tour by 3 PM. With our guide, a British couple that were teaching in Bangkok, and a man that looked like Jesus, we headed out to the park - our first stop at a local watering hole that is the Thai equivalent of a water park. Although we had planned on swimming, the area was crowded with Thais, and we felt a little uncomfortable getting into the water - especially as some of us were wearing bikinis and Thai women always swim in shorts and a t-shirt. However, we did enjoy taking pictures and walking around the surrounding area, and we did dip our feet into the water.
After spending some time at the watering hole, we headed out to explore some of the nearby caves. After a forty minute drive on dirt roads, through fields of tapioca and who knows what else, we arrived at an isolated temple built right next to a cave. Caves in this part of Thailand are revered as sacred, and temples with Buddha images are commonly built inside of the cave. This cave was no exception, and was also filled with bats - as we walked around the cave, squeezing through different rock formations, we had to be extremely careful to ensure that we did not disturb them from their sleep!
 |
| View from the temple |
 |
| Inside the cave. The temple is lit up. |
After exploring the cave, we had one more stop on our tour and we had to reach it before sunset. At this time, we really had no idea what to expect - we knew that there would be bats leaving a cave, but this didn't really sound all that amazing... little did we know! We arrived at a location where we could clearly see the cave, and took up our position on a dirt road with binoculars in our hands to help us see.
All of a sudden, the bats started to leave the cave to spend the night hunting - at first just one or two, then an unending stream of bats flew from the cave. The sight really was impressive, I couldn't believe how many bats were in the cave.
The stream of bats disappearing into the distance looked like a waving ribbon or a giant spiral - at times disrupted by the wind or a bat that flew out of formation.
These bats must have came from another cave, and flew right over our heads as we were watching the other bats exit the cave.
After this amazing wildlife experience, we were even more excited for the next day - a full day tour that would include hiking through the park!
No comments:
Post a Comment