Khao Yai National Park

We spent pretty much an entire day getting from Ko Si Chang to Khao Yai. Ferry back to Si Racha, motor-rickshaw back to the main road, local bus to Chonburi, big bus to Nakhon Rat Chasima (Khorat), bus to Pak Chung, then pickup from our hotel. This was aimed at the backpacker market and had the nicest rooms of the trip but (relatively) expensive food.

The following day we did a tour of the national park, which included a short hike. We saw gibbons (in the distance), a wild elephant (strolling along the road with tour vehicles following behind and reversing in front of him), greater and wreathed hornbills, a giant black squirrel, pig-tailed macaques, and deer, among other animals. We also saw the scats or signs of black bear, wild pigs, elephants, etc. and a range of trees.

bats leaving Khao Yai caves to hunt

At dusk we watched some three million bats (chiroptera) pouring forth from a cave in a ribbon which stretched as far as the eye could see, with the thousands of wingbeats collectively audible when it was overhead.

Our companions for this day tour were a nice young German couple from Hamburg (who of course spoke fluent English, so there was no opportunity for me to practice my broken German). When I mischievously asked them "deutschmark, drachma or euro?" they seemed to think both Greece and Germany would stick with the euro... She'd done a PhD comparing representations of Europe in German and British newspaper cartoons in the 1980s, and reckoned not much had changed.

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