Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tours
Most hotels and resorts around Khao Yai arrange
park tours
and this is really the ideal way
to visit: a good guide will show you creatures you never would have seen on your own.
The typical day-long program (1300B to 1900B per person) includes some easy morning
walks looking for wildlife and a visit to Haew Suwat waterfall. Lunch, snacks, water and,
in the rainy season, 'leech socks' are always included, but sometimes the park entry fee
isn't, so do some comparison shopping. Half-day trips (450B to 600B) typically stay out-
side the park to visit a cave, swim in a spring and watch a million or so rare wrinkle-
lipped bats disgorge from a mountain-top cave. Birdwatching, camping, trekking and oth-
er speciality tours are also available. Greenleaf Guesthouse (
Click here
)
and Khaoyai
Garden Lodge (
Click here
)
have long earned enthusiastic praise for their tours, as has the
relative newcomer
Bobby's Apartments & Jungle Tours
( 08 6262 7006;
www.bobbysjungletourkhaoyai.com
)
based near Tesco-Lotus in Pak Chong.
Khao Yai is one of Thailand's top
birdwatching
sites. Two noted birdwatching guides are
Nang
( 08 9427 1823;
www.thailandyourway.com
)
, who is one of Khao Yai's few female guides.
Both also lead standard park tours.
The park itself offers one-hour
night safaris
( 08 1063 9241; per vehicle 500B; 7pm & 8pm)
,
which use spotlights to look for animals. There are often so many vehicles during the sa-
fari that it ruins the experience. Reservations are a must, and if you're sleeping outside the
park, you can only do the 7pm trip. On all Saturdays and any Sunday that precedes a
public-holiday Monday, you can join with others (50B per person) rather than hiring the
whole vehicle.
Sleeping & Eating
There are dozens of places to stay on and near Th Thanarat (Rte 2090), the road leading to
the park, and plenty more in the not-so-pleasant gateway city of Pak Chong. Budget and
some midrange places offer free transport to/from town, though usually only if you book a
tour with them. All but the cheapies do weekday and off-season (April to October) dis-
counts of up to 40%.
The best setting for sleeping is, of course, in the park itself. There are
campsites
(per person
with own tent 30B, 3-person tent 225B)
and a variety of
lodgings
( 0 2562 0760;
www.dnp.go.th/parkreserve
;
tents 150-400B, r & bungalows 800-3500B, 30% discount Mon-Thu)
available around the park, all pretty
far from the visitor centre.
