When traveling Thailand, you will likely not get around visiting a national park at least once. There are just so many of them and they are home to such breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, that they are an important part on everyone's travel itinerary for southeast Asia. Khao Yai is one of those national parks. However, it is one of the less known ones. Is it therefore a hidden gem for all travelers in the area or does it just have less to offer?

About Khao Yai

The Khao Yai National Park is Thailand's oldest national park and with an area of over 2000 km² the country's third largest. It is situated north east of Bangkok and is easily accessible with the train. It is known for its tropical seasonal forests and grassland as well as its huge amount of animal and plant species.

Large areas of the national park are covered by the Sankamphaeng Mountain Range. Therefore the general terrain is mountainous. Standing 1351m tall, the highest mountain in the area is Khao Rom. Most of the areas were also covered by ancient rain forests. Unfortunately however, a large portion of those forests was destroyed and the area was repurposed for agricultural use. Since the national park was established, more and more of those areas where handed back to mother nature and you can see the forests slowly recovering.

The national park is especially known for it's elephants, since it is one of the best places to see elephants in the region. Other animals that can be observed include the Asian black bear, gibbons or the Indian sambar deer. One of the highlights for tourists are the waterfalls like the Heo Suwat waterfall, which was made famous by the film the Beach.

My experiences in Khao Yai

Traveling to Khao Yai

Getting into the proximity of Khao Yai National Park is pretty easy. There are trains from Bangkok to Pak Chong, which is about 25km away from the national park and has some nice accommodations. I stayed in the More than sleep hostel, which I can definitely recommend.

Getting to the national park itself from Pak Chong is pretty easy as well. If you know how to ride a scooter that is. The streets between Pak Chong and the entry to the national park are very good and it's only a 40 minutes drive. The entry fee to the national park with a scooter is 420 Baht. At first that might seem a lot, but once you enter the national park, you are going to profit from the infrastructure, that you are paying for.

If you don't want to rent a scooter, you can also go on one of the tours to the national park. Those are quite expensive though and in my opinion not really worth it as I will explain later.

The surroundings

Not only the national park itself is pretty. Also the surroundings are already worth visiting. The landscape around Pak Chong is quite hilly and forested. Towards the national park the hills become mountains with some impressive and stunning rock formations. Pak Chong itself is also quite nice. There is not too much to do there for tourists, but I had the privilege to experience Songkran here and noticed that the people here are one of the most genuine and relaxed, I have ever met.

Khao Yai

The national park itself is obviously what you come to the area for. The closer you get to it, the more beautiful the landscape gets. Shortly after entering the national park, the roads wind up steep slopes through thick forests and some stunning views. Eventually, you will end up at some kind of plateau. This is where most of the attractions of the national park are located. Generally all of the important things can be reached with a scooter and driving is one of the best ways to explore the national park.

There are tons of different things to do in the national park. You can do some hiking through the jungle, where you will see some tropical plants and animals. You can hike to the wildlife observation tower, where you can see some elephants with a bit of luck or you can go up to the top of some mountain and take in the amazing views from up there.

One of the most popular destinations in the national park, however are the waterfalls. Especailly Haew Su is very popular and I can see why. It is in the middle of the jungle and very beautiful. You can even go behind the waterfall into a little cave. I was there at the end of dry season, so there was not actually a lot of water running, but I think if you go there in rainy season, it might be even more scenic. Unfortunately you can not go into the water, because there are wild alligators.

With all that said, the best thing to do in the national park in my opinion is just driving around. The national park is so huge, that you can just drive all day without reaching it's other side. While driving, you will see all of the beautiful landscapes. Occasionally you will see some trails through the jungle, that look nice. You can also just stop and start walking for a bit. The streets are also very good and the traffic is quite good. I also saw most of the wildlife while driving.

Through my hostel, I also booked a tour around the area. It included swimming in a nearby river, going to a traditional market and exploring a bat cave. As you might know, I'm not really a huge fan of doing tours and it wasn't different with this one. I just signed up, because I thought our guide would perhaps show us some wildlife, that we would otherwise not be able to see. Unfortunately however, that was not the case and I kind of regret taking that tour. Swimming and the market were really boring and doing it with a tour made it even worse. The bat cave was a lot cooler though. It was also the only thing, that I would not have been able to see without the tour, since it is locked and without the key you can not get in.

The best thing about the bat cave however was not the cave itself, but watching the bats fly out at sunset to go hunting. Shortly before sunset, suddenly a huge stream of bats came out of the opening of the caves. After a minute, you could see this huge line of bats through the sky. The most impressive part is, that the bats left the cave in a continuous stream for about 30 minutes. That means that there had to be hundreds of thousands of bats in that cave system. However, this is something you can also experience without taking the tour. Therefore I would say, that the tour is not really worth it and you can see most of the cool things around the area on your own. All you have to do is rent a scooter.

What to do in Khao Yai

Khao Yai is special, because there are just so many different things to do here. My favorites were

• Walking through Pak Chong
• Exploring the surroundings of Khao Yai National Park
• Hiking through the jungle
• Observing wildlife from the wildlife observation tower
• Driving to the top of Khao Khiao mountain
• Exploring the national park by riding a scooter

Conclusion

As I said before, there must be some good reasons to visit a specific national park in Thailand, because there are just so many of them. In my opinion, Khao Yai definitely has those reasons.

While it can't quite keep up concerning landscapes with the Khao Sok national park, some of the best landscapes I have seen in south Thailand still have been in Khao Yai. Where Khao Yai is really good though is at the huge amount of things to do there. When you have a scooter, you can reach everything very easily and there are just so many different things to see.

The bat caves also were a unique experience, that I think you can not get at a lot of other places. So all in all, I would say, that if you are staying in Bangkok and are not on a super tight schedule, you should definitely go to Khao Yai national park. No matter what you like, there will be something for you as long as you like outdoor activities.