Dong Phayayen
In the mountains of northeast Thailand, the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex is home to more than 800 species of fauna, including 392 species of birds.
Khao Yai, established in 1962, was Thailand's first national park. It now sees some 700.000 visitors a year.
Visit January 2007
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Khao Yai is one of the two WHS that can be reached from Bangkok within a day trip (the other one is Ayutthaya). I hired a car with a driver for the day. From central Bangkok to the visitors center in the park it takes about 3 hours (largely spent in Bangkok's traffic jams). When you start seeing mountains and forests instead of cars and shops, you're nearly there. We entered the park from the North (Pak Chong). Here are many restaurants, hotels and resorts catering to the visitors staying overnight.
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After paying a 400 Baht entry fee, we could drive into the park. We were met by a group of macaques, ostentatively trying to look inside the car to see if we had something to eat.
The visitor center is in the middle of the park. It has a small display about the park's history and nature. And two stuffed tigers.
Outside the building a short trail starts that leads you through the forest to the small Kong Kaew Falls. It's a nice and easy walk of about 45 minutes.
For more serious walking my driver left me at Pha Kluai Mai Campsite, promising to pick me up again some kilometers down the road at Haew Suwat Falls. The walking trail leading there is said to be 3 kilometers long. Although the path is quite clear, I found it rather though going because you have to climb under or over fallen trees a lot.
After about two-third of the way I took a wrong turn, that directed me along/into a small creek. The birds are brilliant here; they scream ('a big white foreigner is coming') and flee to the higher tree tops. I see bright green cockatoos and ones with long blue feathers.
As I cannot find any trace of a path anymore, I decide to retrace my steps. A good move, because suddenly I see where I've missed a turn. Instead of following the creek I had to cross it via two huge fallen trees (they're laid down like a bridge). The trail from there is easy again. It follows the main river. A large white (crane like) bird speeds past just above the water surface.
After two hours I reach the end of the walking trail, where my driver is waiting for me.
We leave Khao Yai at the south exit, passing an area with many elephants. They sometimes cross the road (warning signs tell us), but we only see their droppings.
More photos can be found in the Picture Gallery
Reviews
Rowan (Laos):
We visited in July 2008 on a staff retreat with all the Lao WCS protected area staff. We were in meetings all day so just did walks 7-9am and two spotlighting trips (one in the rain). We saw lots of gibbons and hornbills and sambar deer, muntjac, civet (small indian and common palm), slow loris, otters, blue-bearded bee-eater, flying lizards, pig-tailed macaque, black giant squirrel, ground and arborial squirrel. We also walked in fresh elephant tracks and saw a large cat scratch on a sambar (probably tiger - no definite record of leopard as far as I know).
So it was great to see, but a pity about the insensitive nature of development in the park. Huge cleared areas around infrastructure. Great for breeding up deer, but in a national park? And also the river was very polluted with sewage, plastic bags, etc.. And the tiger die-off from introduced domestic pig disease...
If you're stopping over in Thailand it's well worth a visit. Much nicer than Bangkok! |
| Date posted: August 2008 |
Frederik Dawson (Netherlands):
 Dong Phayayen – Khao Yai is a collection of many national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in eastern Thailand not far from Bangkok. From all national parks, Khao Yai is the most famous as the first national park in Thailand and many experts consider Khao Yai as one of the best national park in the world. I was quite lucky to have opportunity to see 3 national parks in this complex before Unesco declared them as a WHS. (Entrance fee is about 4 euro for each national park)
Khao Yai has many amazing species of fauna and flora, during I visited Khao Yai, I had opportunity to see famous hornbills, wild elephants, millions of bats and deer. Khao Yai also famous for its many waterfalls, the most famous is the one that was appeared in Leonardo’s film “The beach”. Khao Yai draws a lot of tourists, so this park has a lot of information for natural study as well as tourist related stuffs. In my opinion Khao Yai is a perfect example for tropical forest in Southeast Asia mainland.
I also visited Thap Lan National Park which is the largest national park in this WHS; Thap Lan has a very beautiful bamboo forest and unique palm trees that Thais used these special palm leaves as paper for Buddhist texts. My guide explained how to use these palm leaves so the trip to Thap Lan is not just a natural tour but also a cultural trip.
Ta Phraya National Park, the last one I visited is famous for its wild butterflies and many insects; although its quite lack of natural beauties compared to Khao Yai and Thap Lan, but it is a nice place with lots of wide flowers that attracted many beautiful butterflies.
Khao Yai is very easy to visit compared to other national parks. From Bangkok, there has many buses go to Pak-Chong; a nearest town to Khao Yai, then in Pak-Chong takes a local bus to the national park entrance. As my local friends took me to Thap Lan and Ta Phraya by their car, I really don’t know how to go to these two national parks by local transportation. |
| Date posted: September 2006 |
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