Last Week I went to the Khao Yai Nationalpark and Ayutthaya with Lena & Anka.

Just three hours away from Bangkok you can find the Khao Yai Nationalpark. It is one of Thailands biggest Nationalparks and just awesome for a few days off or a Weekendtrip.

We took the train from Bangkok in the late morning and arrived in Pak Chong (nearest City to the Park) in the afternoon. Little buses take you from Pak Chong to the Entrance of the Park for just 40 Baht. There we rented some motorbikes and drove into the park.

If you bring your own Tent you can sleep for amazing 10 Baht (20 Euro Cents) a night at the camping place. Just a handful people are at the park and most of them are Thai – so good for me because I hate tourists…
The Camping place is located near a river and surrounded by awesome trees! You have a little restaurant and an old lady who sells chips & canned dinner.

The nature is just stunning, you see rivers, lakes,  hundred year old trees and in between a lot of wildlife. Just 10 Minutes after we passed the entrance with our bikes the whole road was blocked by monkeys and deers. The funny thing is that they are not really shy. There was a huge deer (1,80m hight, 2m long) right in front of our tent and it didnt want to move. You can even pet or feed them…

A brilliant view can be catched on the top of the mountain which is located in the south. The cliff area is called Pha Daew Dai…

The second day we had a long hiking to one of the waterfalls. The climate was perfect and quite cool – In summer you can easily expect 45 degrees but we started walking at 27 degrees at noon. There are maps in the park and most of the paths have signs. At some of these paths through the jungle you have to watch out for crocodiles and there are also other warning signs in some other areas (huge cobras, tigers, bears and spiders). Anyway its a great atmosphere and perfect for little adventures…

All over the place are waterfalls were you can swim, climb or just lay around and read a good book. One of the “famous” waterfalls is the Haeo Suwat which was shown in the movie “The Beach”. I wouldn’t jump off the cliff there if its not rainy season…

Very tired and dehydrated we went for some food and ice cream. We heard that there are Bat Caves somewhere around the Park Headquarter but we didn’t find them and just drove around instead. On our way we saw some awesome amazingly huge porcupines… never seen that in my life before, they are freaking one meter high! Luckily they were scared of us and we passed to watch the sundown at one of the lakes…

The next day we woke up quite late around noon and packed our stuff to move to Ayutthaya, which was the former capital of Thailand/Siam.

Ayutthaya is more or less an island because it is surrounded by rivers (one of them is the Chao Phraya which moves south to Bangkok) and it has one of the oldest temples in Thailand. I’m living in Thailand for over two years now but I always missed out to visit Ayutthaya until now.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the old city and the temple sites. Most of the Stuff is quite touristy and most of the Tuk Tuk Drivers charge 100 Baht to drive around, but it was worth it anyway.
The Girls stayed another night there while I moved back to Bangkok in a Minivan (damn he was fast, 40minutes, 60 Baht) to be back in time for University and Work…

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Photos of Khao Yai and Ayutthaya