For my birthday I wanted to do something different this year, so a few of us took a short trip to Khao Yai, Thailand's first national park.
We arrived at the park Friday afternoon. There was a large sign displaying entrance free rate:
Thai Nationals- 40 Baht
Foreigners - 400 Baht
Price discrimination sucks! Luckily we're Thammasat Students, so used our student ID to pay Thai price!
We were meeting up with two of our friends who were already there at a camp site, which was 30km from the entrance. While the lady was collecting our fees she told us to hitchhike there. She said it was safe. So, there we were standing on the side of the street waving down cars to take us to the camp. A nice local stopped for us in a truck. Two of my friends jumped in the back and I was sitting in the front. The guy didn't speak any English and I felt awful since I couldn't speak much Thai either. I was sitting next to him trying to not create any awkward silence. I tried using few Thai words to tell him the view was beautiful and the camp site we were trying to get to. He was also very friendly. He stopped on the side of the road so we could look at a barking deer and bunch of monkeys. I saw a crocodile too as we were passing by some creek!
When he dropped us off at the camp site our friend's were staying at it was already getting dark. We decided to rent a tent and set it up immediately. Then we waited for other exchange students who took a later bus to arrive to the camp site. We were suppose to go to a night safari but since all of them got there so late we decided to ditch the idea and play cards.
Five of us woke up really early the next morning because we wanted to see elephants. We decided to take a walk and unfortunately, there were no elephants in sight! What we did find were an teal-green colored scorpion and a waterfall.
We hitchhiked back to our campsite, ate breakfast and when the others were ready we headed to the main waterfall.
Afterwards, we ate lunch and had the chance to relax for a bit before our next adventure: BAT CAVES! We had to hitchhike back to the main entrance and walk about 5km. We asked people along the journey about how to get to the bat caves. One guy gave us a tip on a shortcut he heard about. We had to walk to a temple, Behind the temple, there was a small village. We ran into some kids who told us they will show us to the bat caves, but of course in exchange for money. So, for 50 baht per person these two random kids took us on this crazy journey where we walked about a kilometer into the woods and literally climbed a mountain 1km high. Believe me when I say this was no easy task. When our exhausted souls made it to the top, we had more than an hour to spare before the sunset. Meanwhile we explored the smelly bat cave, sat around and took pictures. Right after sunset, one bat came out to check out the scene and went back in to inform the others. Immediately after, swarms of bats that came out of the cave in an uniform line following the leader. It was most amazing and definitely worth the trip!
Waterfall
Resting after a long hike to the bat caves
Route 66!
