I made it a priority to visit Khao Yai National Park during my trip to Thailand in April 2018. It is the most accessible among the five protected areas that make up the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex. Almost all of the other reviewers have visited Khao Yai in one way or another—as a day trip from Bangkok or as a tour from Pak Chong—so I am just going to share my experience taking a tour of the forest when I stayed in Pak Chong.

I decided to spend 2 nights at the town of Pak Chong, which is typically the jump off point for tours to Khao Yai National Park, as many guidebooks and online sources would say. The plan was to take the half-day tour (3pm to 7pm) on my first night, and the full-day tour (8am to 7pm) the following day. All of these tours were offered through my guesthouse in Pak Chong, and were reasonably priced during the time of my visit—500 baht for half-day tour and 1,300 baht for full-day tour. I also thought that getting to Pak Chong was pretty straightforward—take the bus from Mo Chit bus terminal in Bangkok to Pak Chong, then wait for the guesthouse’s car to pick me up. I was positive that my early morning flight from Manila to Bangkok would allow me to get to the guesthouse right before the half-day tour starts.

But boy was I wrong. I missed the start of my half-day tour by minutes! I was so disappointed I ended up eating and binge-watching Netflix on my first night. The food at the guesthouse was delicious though and the staff was wonderful, so I just decided to just forget about it.

We started the full-day tour the following day quite early. I was accompanied by 3 other guests, and we drove towards and past the checkpoint and stopped at a viewpoint. Here, our tour guide gave a short introduction of the park, and highlighted the rich biodiversity that this park possesses. We then went straight to the visitor center, which was several kilometers from the checkpoint. Here, our tour guide distributed improvised anti-leech socks for our own convenience.

We trekked for the next 3 hours and walking through the lush forest was definitely a treat. Of course, there was a slim chance of seeing most of the endangered fauna listed above, so I was already happy to see macaques, squirrels, deers, crocodiles, pit vipers, geckoes, and LOTS of butterflies. Various bracket fungi happily living off tree barks also caught my attention. In addition, it was a little bit refreshing to hear the diverse sounds, chirps and clicks the resident birds and insects were making.

We walked along a stream with lots of signage bearing the following warning: “No Swimming. Beware of Crocodile”. The warnings were just perfect as you could easily see crocodiles basking and chilling around on the other side of the stream. After a hearty lunch we headed to Haew Suwat waterfall. Unfortunately, there was not much water flowing from the stream above as it was the dry season.

At around 4pm we drove down a paved road to see elephants. We didn’t have to wait long before we saw one march down the road.  The hulking elephant was either oblivious or pretty much used to tourist cars parked along the road, so it just went on as though we weren’t there. The spectacle ended when other elephants came and tourist cars had to move to prevent traffic and agitation to the elephants. We went on and at the end of the tour, we saw a massive eagle perched on a wooden pole.

My group was pretty much satisfied with how the tour went. From what I could remember we got home just before 7pm. A cold beer or two was definitely a great way to end the hot, sweaty day.

The agglomeration of several protected areas in this part of Thailand more than satisfies the lone criterion it is inscribed for. At least for Khao Yai National Park, the biodiversity it holds is undeniably astounding and as attested by UNESCO, it has a high level of integrity as a significant percentage of the national park remains to be “good quality primary forest”. The park also has proper, well-maintained tourist infrastructure and facilities, making it accessible and convenient for families to visit. But as in any other site in Thailand, the effects of relatively high volume of visitors must always be checked and mitigated.