Khao Yai National Park is located about 2.5 hours north of Bangkok and is one of Thailand’s best national parks. Established in 1962, it was Thailand’s first national park, and it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
I’d always heard great things about the park, but despite living in Thailand for several years, had never managed to get there. When I played tour guide a few weeks ago to a friend from Boston, I used that as my excuse to finally make it there.
I can’t believe it took me so long.
The park is truly amazing—beautiful, empty of tourists, and filled with lush flora, fauna, and even a few wild elephants.
Arriving at the guesthouse in the afternoon, we were just in time to make a half-day tour. This tour brought you to a few caves and a natural spring. The first cave was home to over 2,000 bats and used to be a Buddhist monastery before the local community helped to build the monks a proper temple. However, the monks still come down here at night to meditate. I suspect the darkness and tranquility is good for meditation.
Our guide seemed to be an expert in everything, showing us all the insects, talking about the life cycle of bats, and even giving us a soil lesson on the composition of the dirt and how bat guano can be used to make explosives. It was all fascinating. He knew quite a bit and spoke excellent English, something very rare on tours in Thailand. Usually, tour guides in Thailand are just ushers, walking you from place to place, discussing very little, letting you take your photos, and then moving on. But this guide knew it all and was able to explain the history and zoology of not only this cave but the whole region.
The second cave featured over two million bats, and we arrived just in time to see them head out for their nightly feed. Watching it was like watching something on the Discovery Channel—a seemingly endless stream of bats flying out in pursuit of their evening meal as the sun set below the horizon. Our guide, who seemed to know our cameras better than any of us, was able to catch some of it on tape for us through the telescope: