Kaeng Krachan Forest

For my ‘tick’ of the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex I choose Kui Buri National Park. Kui Buri (sometimes also spelled as ‘Kuri Buri’) was established only in 1999 after tensions between wild elephants and villagers escalated. The elephants’ former habitat had been taken over by pineapple plantations. The park now offers daily 'elephant safaris', where - with a bit of luck - one can observe the wild elephants from a distance. The WWF is still active here to further reduce human-elephant conflict.

The park lies about 1h15 from the pleasant seaside resort of Hua Hin. I used HuaHin Taxi for the return transfer – they are easy to communicate with and know the drill at Kui Buri. The wildlife viewing area is open to entering daily between 2 and 5 p.m. (though you will leave towards 6 p.m.) and requires hiring a 4WD truck and guide at the ticket office.

We arrived at 2.15 and I was driven into the park immediately. The noisy truck drove quite fast on the sandy roads and it was clear that we wouldn’t be seeing much along the way. They will bring you to one of the two main viewpoints, where you disembark and the waiting begins. These viewpoints are major tourist congregation sites, not the lovely camouflaged watchtowers that they use in Huai Kha Khaeng. Eventually, some 15 trucks and 50 tourists showed up at this viewpoint, the furthest. This clearly was an Indian-style safari, not a serene African one.

As the previous two reviews focused on Kaeng Krachan NP, I'm sharing here my experience in visiting Kui Buri NP last March 10, 2022. 

My friend and I stayed in Prachuap Khiri Khan (PKK) for a few days and thought of ticking off Kui Buri from there. Not only is PKK closer to the NP than from Hua Hin, I also felt that PKK offered more both in natural and cultural sceneries. We gathered that the only way to conveniently get to either the park's HQ or the Wildlife Viewing Area was by renting a taxi for 2000 Baht (half day). Unfortunately, the local tourism office-recommended travel agency that used to offer tours no longer exists because of the pandemic. As Kui Buri is only 55 kms away, we thought that we could do it on a rented motorbike, which we eventually did. Not only was it doable, it also made it possible to first visit in the morning the karst landscape of Khao Sam Roi Yot NP --- probably the more impressive one of the two nearby national parks! 

Here is a summary: 

1. Wildlife Watching Area is only open from 2pm to 6pm, with the last visitor admission at 4pm. Entrance is 200Bt, and safari truck is 850Bt -- you cannot enter using your own vehicle. The entrance certainly does not fail in informing visitors that it is a "UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 26, 2021." From the park's HQ, it will still take …

Kaeng Kratchen Forest Compex (KKFC) consists of 5 contiguous parks and reserves (including Kaeng Kratchen NP) situated along Thailand’s border with Myanmar at the very top of the Malay Peninsula which, together, have been badged as a “complex” for this nomination. KKNP itself figures significantly in commercial birding and butterfly tours in Thailand. Such specialist tours, however, allocate several days to the park and the big question for us was whether we could gain value from a much shorter visit as part of a whistle-stop tour by self-drive car of Thailand’s inscribed and tentative list sites.

A further incentive was that a KKFC nomination had been considered at both the 2015 and 2016 WHCs and was still “alive” after consecutive referrals. Even though we had already taken in Thailand’s 2 existing natural WHS (at Kao Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng) the possibility of a future inscription was enough to tip the balance in favour of a visit to a third!

The previous 2 visits had already shown us that Thailand’s natural WHS don’t give out their “value” very easily and KKFC wasn’t particularly different. The iconic mega-fauna is difficult to see in a forest environment within a short visit and the birdlife is best seen at dawn and dusk which means either staying inside the park (if allowed) or at least arriving very early and departing as late as the rules will allow (i.e just after sunset at best), leaving the rest of a very hot day to …

The forest is so beautiful especially Phaneun Thung on the top of the mountain. It's really worth to wake up 3AM and get over there. The scence is wonderful. You can see through Myanmar. Just one point, the tribe people in side the forest could threat to the forest as they kill wildlife animal and cut the trees. The government should find new land for them and move them out the forest.