World Thailand Khao Yai National Park

Bill Horgan's South East Asian Holiday

Khao Yai National Park May 28, 2005

Well, I didn't wake up early to go to Khao Yai National Park today. My sister Glenda will not be surprised to learn that I simply never went to sleep at all, and left for the bus station at 3.30 am.

I had been to the South Bus Station before to travel to Pattaya. That station had about 10 platforms and 10 sales windows. Everything was marked in both Thai and English, and it was extremely easy to navigate.

I expected to find the same setup at the North Bust Terminal going to Pak Chong. Boy, was I wrong!

The North Bus Terminal is huge! I learned later that it has 83 platforms. I walked in at 4 am to find it largely empty, with dozens of sales windows -- most of which were closed. There was lots and lots of signage, but NONE of it was in English. It was intimidating and bewildering.

Not wanting to give any indication that I was about to panic, I simply walked straight into the bus station with confidence.

Fortunately, Thai people are extremely helpful and polite... especially when they sense someone needs assistance. A man walked straight up to me and asked, "Where do you want to go?". I told him I was going to Pak Chong. He told me to follow him and then walked me about 30 metres through the terminal, directly to the window to purchase the correct ticket.

The woman behind the glass was equally helpful, writing the destination, the time and the platform number on the back of the ticket for my reference, since the ticket was printed in Thai (it was even dated with the year of the Thai calendar, which is 2548). She explained everything to me in English that was as difficult to understand as my Thai, but I thanked her and headed off to the correct platform.

I was early for the bus, so I took a seat and started reading. After ten minutes or so I started pondering the date on the ticket, and wanted to inspect it more carefully, so I took the ticket from my pocket and started studying it. I was trying to see what all the references were (destination, date, platform number, etc). I was just killing time.

Here's where the helpful Thai culture crashed into my innate stupidity.

A young Thai man saw me studying the ticket and drew the obvious conclusion -- I was lost and not sure what to do.

He walked up and spoke to me. It was loud with all those bus engines so I couldn't hear him. I told him so and asked him to repeat himself. He couldn't hear me and said, "what?".

I repeated, and this time he simply couldn't understand me, I think, so he decided to explain.

"I speak English, I can help you."

Well, okay... "Everything is okay, I don't need any help."

His reply to this? "What... I'm sorry. I speak English, but only a little bit. Please speak slowly. I am only a student but I can help you."

I repeated that I didn't need any help, I was fine.

Frustrated by lack of success at our verbal communication the young man reached for my ticket, which I was still holding up in the air in front of my face. Here's where I made the mistake. I held on tight to the ticket.

For the next minute or so, we went through a repeat routine of him pulling on the ticket, telling me that he spoke English and wanted to help me, and me gripping the ticket like death's own hand, and repeating again and again that I was in no need of help. It was absolutely comical.

The kid finally let go of the ticket. Being a good Thai, he wasn't about to leave without assisting me, so he leaned over and read the ticket in my hand.

He looked at me... "Pak Chong. Platform 70" and pointed to the bus 10 feet from where I was sitting. I think it was at that moment that he realised that I knew exactly where I was.

Later, I felt bad. I only needed to let him take the ticket and talk more slowly and we could have had a good experience. Instead, both of us were a little embarrassed by the incident.

Finally it was time to go. The trip to Pak Chong was easy and without incident. We left at 5 am and arrived about 7.45. I stepped off the bus, and almost immediately was asked by a helpful Thai woman, "where do you want to go?".

This time, however, I had a ride arranged... all I had to do was call a phone number, so I thanked her and made my call. There was some confusion about where I was (it seems there are two bus stops in town) and I was wandering around describing the station to the person on the phone, and the lady at the station was in my other ear offering to talk to them and explain where I was. In the end, her intervention was not necessary, and my ride showed up within a minute or two.

I arrived at the guesthouse at 7.55 am, and the tour was scheduled to leave at 8:00. I had to change to long pants and drop my bag, then come back to hop on the pickup truck that would take up to the park. I had been up all night, travelled 3 hours from Bangkok, and hopped directly on the truck for the tour. At that time I had no idea what was ahead of me, but the tour of the park lasted 13 hours and involved about 3 hours of walking and climbing through tropical rain forests, in and out of ravines.

It was a great day.

There were 10 people on the tour including me:

In my truck were:

A Canadian couple who are living full time in Tokyo teaching English, on a 10-day holiday in Thailand.

An English couple on a year long backpacking tour of the world. They will be in Australia and New Zealand in a few months and will be in Sydney for New Year's Eve

A German girl who had two weeks left in her 4 month holiday, that had already taken her to Oz and NZ.

In the other truck were:

Two girls travelling together. I only heard them speak once and they sounded English.

Two guys travelling together. These two were pretty rough & dirty backpackers who both smoked and looked like stereotypical Europeans. I think they were French but they could have been Belgian (or Chek for all I know).

All 9 of my travelling companions were between 18 and 26 years old.

Thirteen hours together meant that I actually got to know these people a little bit, and I can say that most backpackers are fascinating when they start to tell you where they have been and what they have seen. It is more of a European and Austrlian thing. More American kids should get into the habit of travelling around the world for a few months with two changes of clothes and no money, seeing the people of different culture and language. We probably would fight fewer wars.

Part 1 of the tour consisted of driving the two trucks slowly along paved roads, with guides looking into the bush for wildlife. When they spotted something they would sing out and the trucks would stop, and we would all pile out for a look. Many people had binoculars, and the guides had two tripod-mounted telescopes.

We saw three different groups of monkeys & gibbons in the trees. There were squirrels and hawks, along with barking deer and other wildlife.

I tended to wander away from the telescopes a bit, and meandered through the jungle a little on my own. The typical stop took 15 or 20 minutes and that's exceeds my tolerance for staring at monkeys. Walking through the rainforest, you could see dozens, sometimes hundreds of butterflies. You could walk 5 steps in one direction and smell a sweet aroma in the air... five steps in the other direction and the dank smell of rotting leaves. Look to your right and see a cacoon dangling on the end of a silky thread from the branch of a tree. Look to your left and see the leaves of a fern vibrating rapidly in the sunlight from the slight breeze, and creating a riot of light and shadow with the delicate green leaves.

And always the noises. Crickets, frogs, birds, whatever... there was a cacaphony of sound that would rise and fall. You could always make an area go quiet by walking towards it, but it made no real change in the overall sound of the jungle. For once I understood where the phrase came from, "It's quiet... too quiet". It was never quiet for a moment in the rain forest.

We had two drivers, two adult guides and on young boy about 10 years old who was (I think) the son of one of the guides. These guys had the job of spotting the wildlife. The oldest guide had incredibly sharp eyes... I think it was his son along, and if so, the boy had his old man's genes. Both of them could spot a small animal on a tree branch from the back of a moving vehicle at 300 metres.

I'm talking about seeing a squirrel or a bird three football fields away, in a tree that is among thousands of others in a National Park. These guys were amazing.

It was really fun when the boy spotted something. When his dad saw wildlife, he basically just yelled "stop" to the driver, and we stopped. But the kid would shout to stop, then leap of the back of the truck, shouting excitedly to the driver to back up, pointing to the trees to identify where and what he had seen. He would run beside the truck until we got to the right location then he would wave his hands at us and call in English, "get out, get out. Come, come."

And this kid's English, while limited, was easy to understand.

He was identifying animals, trees, and other things for us. He did it in Thai, he did it in English, he did it in German for the German girl and in French for the French guys. This was a smart kid.

After a couple hours of this, we stopped at a nature center for a little walk around, and a potty break. We had thirty minutes so I wandered off on my own. I spotted some interesting sculptures constructed of tree branches -- elephants, deer, oxen. Later I realised someone had constructed many of these throughout the park. I don't know if they are common in Thailand. This was the only place I have seen them. I took some photos.

Near the sculptures, I discovered a group of monkeys/gibbon on the ground... perhaps a dozen or so. I got within 15 meters or so before they scurried off. Pretty cool.

A short ride on the trucks, and it was time for our nature walk. We split into two groups of 5, each with a guide, and agreed to meet together for lunch at 2.30. We started walking at 11:15, and except for a short rest break, we walked for a solid 3 hours.

I won't give any details of the walk, but it was up and down ravines following game trails. It was good to do this sort of nature walk in a small group. The guide spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable.

The walk ended at the top of a hill which had been cleared of trees for 200 metres around, and a 2 storey nature observation structure built at the peak. We climbed up to the building which was an open room, with long horizontal windows in every wall looking out over much of the park. Here we observed a number of birds, ate lunch and I fell asleep.

And I was really asleep! I was awakened by a dozen voices, in accents from at least 4 different countries calling "Bill!"

They were all going down the steps to resume the tour, and laughig at me.

I got my stuff together and hurried to catch up.

It's worth noting here that this is not some sort of Disneyland with neat attractions all packaged up. It is a National Park, and you see what the guides can find. The trails are game trails, and the walks may meander to different areas depending on conditions. There is no guarantee you will see anything; even if the guides go looking for it.

The next activity was "crocodile hunting".

We drove to a particular spot and parked on the side of the road. We climbed down a very steep hill (maybe 45degree slope). It was all loose dirt, and difficult going. As the oldest in the group, I'm happy to report that I actually had less trouble than most moving down the hill -- maybe years of experience and all that good boy scout training -- but I have to admit that following the earlier excursion, my knees were screaming in pain going down.

At the bottm was some sluggish water that would be a river during the monsoon season, but right now was a stagnant pond, dry at both ends.

We saw the crocodile.

THere were two moments in this crocodile hunt that I found amusing.

When we saw the crocodile, one of the girls looked at the guide and whispered, "Will the crocodile eat people?" to which the guide replied, "The crocodile will eat anything."

The second amusing moment was after we had had our fill of observing the croc. It was time to go back to the truck, and the guide told us to go back the way we came. One of the girls nearly cried as she asked, "You mean we have to climb back up that hill!!??" I guess she thought there was an easier access, or maybe someone had built some stairs. I don't know if it had dawned on her yet that this was a natural rainforest and not Disneyland.

After our greuling climb to the top, which seemed to exhaust the young people as much as me, we were taken to have a cold drink. From there we were able to walk 50 metres to see a waterfall. The fall was one of the main reasons I had chosen to come to Khao Yai, but it was pretty ordinary.

We had thirty minutes allotted to explore the area, but I decided to give that a miss and to talk to the guides instead. I learned that one of them was 28 years old and the other 40. They took tours out every day, and each guide worked 4 to 6 days per week. The older fellow said he didn't do the nature walks because his knees couldn't take it anymore (this was the guy with the eagle eyes for spotting wildlife).

I asked if people could swim in the pool of the waterfall during the rainy season when it was deeper. The younger guide told me that it was actually dangerous due to the force of the fall, and that two or three people had drowned in the pool.

He said people often forgot that nature was not under the control of humans, and that sometimes it controlled you. He said that in October 2004 they had a particularly fierce storm while he was out with a group of tourists. On the return ride, they found the road blocked by a very large tree that had fallen during the storm. With nothing but his long knife, the guide was powerless to do anything, and the storm had knocked out mobile phone service as well.

They ended up waiting 5 hours until the rangers found them and removed the tree from their path. The tourists got back to the guest house after midnight, cold, wet and upset. He said they all complained to him about what happened. He said to me that he apologised to them, but felt that he was not to blame... it was just nature, and the tourists had forgotten that.

All too soon our pleasant conversation was over, and the trucks were moving again.

We went to the highest mountain in the park. On the way, it started raining, but cleared by the time we reached the top. The pattern of rain & clearing lasted the rest of the night, with each burst of rain heavier than the one before. But while we were at the top of the mountain, the rain had cleared, and we had beautiful views over a valley, towards mountains in the distance. Even with the heavy cloud cover, we could probably see for 100 miles or more. It was a beautiful piece of scenery.

The guides cut up some fresh watermelon, and we watched the sun go down.

Then it was time for the day's final activity... we were going elephant hunting.

There are between 200 and 300 wild elephants in Khao Yai National Park. This was the second reason I wanted to go... I was hoping to see a wild elephant.

For such a big animal, they are surprisingly hard to find. The guides said the easiest way to find them is to wait until dark when they often walked on the paved roads, since it was easier for the elephants to move in the dark with no obstructions. They said that during the rainy season, when the ground was soft and difficult for the elephants, it was much easier to find them on the roads, but that even now in the dry season we had a fair chance.

It was, as I said, raining intermittently, and the showers had gotten quite heavy. The back of the truck was covered against sun and rain, but it was still pretty airy, and a lot of water was coming in, so we were getting a bit wet.

This is Thailand, so getting wet isn't entirely unpleasant, even at night in a moving truck. But for the elephant hunt we were driving up and down the same road, from the mouth of the park to the top of the mountain and back. Every time we would go up the mountain, it would get cold, and we would shiver. On the way back down, you could feel it when we entered the layer of hot air, and suddenly everyone was comfortable again.

When we went into the mountain air the second time, and the shivering started again we were all surprised. WHen it happened the third time, the rain was bucketing down and we were about to mutiny. Fortunately, the driver decided he'd tortured us enough, and we decended for good.

By now it was about 8 pm -- 90 minutes after sunset -- and finally the truck came to a halt.

Lights off. Side of the road. Quiet.

30 metres off the road you could hear it. Snap! Crunch! It was an elephant moving in the trees.

I stepped off the back of the truck onto the pavement. WE all strained our ears and eyes, hoping to see the elephant. With the cloud cover it was a black night. We could HEAR him close by, but wouldn't be able to see him unless he stepped out of the trees and onto the road right beside us.

It was like a hollywood suspense movie, when the music is playing and your waiting for Jason or the giant Anaconda to leap out and murder the victime. We were excited to see the elephant, but also a little scared. After all, we're talking a wild animal... a very very big wild animal that was making a lot of noise on a dark night.

We never saw him. Eventually the animal moved on.

But I can tell you that it was exciting just listening to him moving around in the trees. Maybe it was more exciting than it would have been if we'd actually seen him, I don't know.

But I'll always remember the ten of us there is the dark, listening to the giant animal so nearby, straining our eyes and ears, hoping that the elephant would step into view, and terrified that it might happen.

That was it. We went back to the guest house.

Everyone opted for dinner right away rather than taking a shower first, so we all ate together at one big table.

The day was spent making plans for travel -- we were all leaving Pak Chong the next day. We drank several large bottles of beer, ate noodles, rice, chicken and talked about Asia. It was a good way to end a long day.

At 11 pm I was in bed and unconcious.