A Weekend Trip to Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

During my time in Thailand, I lived in the region of Nakhon Ratchasima, which is approximately a five-hour van journey from the capital city of Bangkok. I was based there to study the largest venomous snake on the planet, the king cobra. The Khao Yai National Park is in the center of Thailand. The southern entrance is about a two-hour trip from Bangkok. My location was near the northern gate, which was a two-hour trip for our group. 

We set out early in the morning with a van from the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve. We arrived at the small city of Talat Noina, about an hour from the park entrance and rented mopeds for the next twenty-four hours. I rode with Alex, a member of our king cobra team, and we had Tyler and George, who were the krait team and Moira, Oliver, and Eva were the macaque team and their separate mopeds. After an hour, we reached the park entrance and went through a Jurassic park style gate that welcomed us to the national park.  We purchased tickets for about forty dollars each. As we drove into the park, the scenery became much more mountainous, and the jungle began to grow. The park has many camping sections, but we decided to base ourselves near Camp Two, located near Trail Two. Trail Two is known for the Siamese crocodile, one of our target species. Our other targets were Asian elephants, gibbons, and horned bills. There are a lot of other animals, though much rarer, but the ones listed are much more likely to be spotted. We went to the ranger’s office at the campsite and got gear to camp for the night. That costed us around five dollars each. 

Our group hit Trail Two first to find the crocodile. The origin of the crocodiles there are unknown but from what I’ve heard is the crocodiles were most likely placed there by rangers as they are no longer prevalent in that area, and there is no current waterway where a croc could make its way into the park.  It is a very rare croc, so it would be very cool to see it in its native range. The trail wound along a river system, and we hiked down steep rocks with views of beautiful jungles and wilderness.

As we entered the croc area, we saw a big sign that said, “Danger Crocodiles NO Swimming”.  Four months prior, a tourist tried to take a selfie with the croc and was bitten.  The croc had reacted in self-defense and the woman ended up being alright, but I am sure she has some gnarly scars.

There were some guides and people standing around in front of us and sure enough, a scaly log basking in the center of this river was the Siamese crocodile we were after. As reptile fans, we were ecstatic to see this stunning animal. Reptiles don’t move much, so we got our photos and headed to the end of the trail, which would pop us out at the Haew Suwat waterfall. 

We hiked back to our campsite to take a little rest, and Moira and I headed to Trail Five since it has an observation tower. The rest of the crew went out of the park to grab some brews we would enjoy later after night hiking. We drove to the start of Trail Five, which hugs an open grassland area and is not thick with trees. About this time, the sun is starting to spray gold bands across the sky and jungle. As we hiked the wide path to the observation tower, we could see birds fluttering about and doing their evening routines.

.  Moira stayed on the ground while I climbed up the watchtower and perched up there with my DSLR equipped with an 80-400mm lens (my bird and mammal lens). The lookout had four sides where one could view what was going on outside and observe, camera ready. One side of the tower looked over a large lake, and to the right of the lake, the park rangers would leave roadkill for the carnivores and scavengers. Unfortunately, we did not see anything there though it is known as one of the best place to catch a glimpse of the elusive Dhole, a red canine native to Asia, similar looking to a dingo, just leaner.

While looking over the lake, a beautiful flock of oriental pied hornbills flew across and into a stand of large trees on the other side of the lake. Its cousin, the great hornbill, is my second favorite bird species and is native here, so I thought it would be epic to see one. I noticed some water movement in the lake's center and zoomed in with my camera to inspect it. There was a large water monitor lizard swimming across. They are a black lizard and have stunning yellow bands and blotches on them.

Enjoying the sounds and looking out over the lake, trying to spot wildlife, I hear behind me this deep low rumble. Now, I have only ever heard this sound in documentaries about this specific animal, so I quickly rushed to the other side of the lookout. There in the tall grass landscape was a massive bull Asian elephant going for his evening snack. I wish I had a photo of my smile at this first encounter with an elephant. I did not know where Moira was, so I just focused on photographing this amazing animal.

The elephant continued grazing in the grass and giving himself a dust bath, most likely to help get rid of pesky bugs. Down on the ground, I watched some people come out of a jungle trail and head closer to the elephant to take photos with their iPhones. I motioned them not to do that and give the elephant space. Typically, it is not the carnivores you need to watch out for in nature.

The sunlight dissipated behind the dense jungle, and the night was coming. The low light started to affect my camera, so I headed down from the watchtower and met up with the rest of the crew, who were back from getting beers and were equally excited to see the elephant.

After they got their photos, we headed to the mopeds, then back to our camp to eat before we set off for night-time animal adventures. I got lucky at dinner because the café served Pad Thai which is one of my all-time favorite meals. While we were eating, George got a call from a couple of friends who had stayed at the park center's lodge. They had found a banded krait which is the very snake Tyler and George were studying. We quickly got our headlamps and gear together to head out and see this highly venomous snake. Jesse, another tracker on our team, let me use a high-powered light of his with an insane number of lumens, and a red-light feature. Alex drove while I sat on the back using the light to scan for megafauna in the grasslands on our way out there. We headed down the main road to the lodge, and as I scanned, to my amazement, there was not one, but four Asian elephants in the meadow! It was two mothers with their calves. They were grazing on the tall grass, so we stopped for a few minutes to observe them.

At the lodge, we met up with George’s friends. They were near a lake and had the banded krait there. We got our photos and were so ecstatic to see this incredible but very elusive snake.  One thing we wanted to do that night was to hike down Trail Two. Nighttime is when snakes are most active, and they were our primary goal. We all wanted to see the elephants again, so we set back off toward the meadow. 

George with his first Banded Krait

As we passed the same savanna area, sure enough, the mothers were still there with their calves. A couple of us stopped while George and Alex went back to the camp because they were eager to start hiking Trail Two. I tried to get a photo of the elephants, but it was too dark, and I did not want to spook them. We had watched them for around ten minutes, when a group of rangers came up to us in their truck and mentioned there was an elephant! And we were like, “of course, they are right there,” pointing at the mothers. They were like, “oh there are more”, and motioned behind them. To our surprise, a giant bull elephant was moving our way, most likely to investigate the mothers. The rangers told us that if any of the elephants were to charge, turn on the ignition and move away from the moped. The elephant will most likely attack the motorcycle instead of you.

.  In the meantime, I get a call from Alex asking where the hell we were, so we told him we were still near the elephants and to come check them out.  At this point, the bull was way off the side of the road, so it should have been safe for them to drive around them.  Then the bull elephant decided to head into the road, and we kept trying to warn George and Alex, but they were not picking up their phones. The bull elephant was hidden by a bend in the road, and we could see the moped lights coming this way. We started flashing our lights at them, hoping they would slow down, but Alex was gunning it to get there. He came within around fifteen feet of the elephant, and I have never seen a moped jackknife so fast and whip around.

You could tell exactly when it clicked in their heads that the stumps, they were looking at on the road belonged to a giant elephant. After they had backed off and parked, I got a call from Alex saying, “What the hell? I almost shat myself!”  The bull finally headed back into the forest and we got onto our bikes to leave.  I scanned the area again with my light and spooked a couple of gaurs tucked right next to the tree line. This animal is the largest member of the bull family. We could not get any photos, so continued back to camp to finally start our night hike. 

I love hiking at night because the sounds, smells, and sites are completely different than during day. We were decently familiar with this trail since we had walked it earlier in the day. We reached a section on the side of a river surrounded with huge trees. While scanning with the powerful light for arboreal snakes, we heard a loud thudding sound and something moving in the trees. I shine my light up, and we caught glimpses of something moving through the foliage with flashes of black, white, and yellow. Suddenly, whatever it was exploded out of the branches and we could see that they were grey hornbills.  An animal I have always wanted to see, and here they were, right in front of us. Unfortunately, again, I could not get any photos, but we have those spectacular images committed to memory. 

Our group continued down to the river area, and we spread out, increasing our chances of spotting something.  About thirty minutes later, Tyler calls out, “snake!”, so I quickly rushed over, and to my surprise, it was a snake I had not seen yet. It was a Vogel’s pit viper and a beautiful male as well, which is identified by the white and red stripe on its sides. He was perched right above the water, waiting in an ambush position for a frog or gecko. We photographed the snake, and as it was getting late, headed back to camp to have some beers and get to bed because we needed to leave early to see another fantastic animal that is an early riser. 

Tyler admiring the stunning Vogels pit viper

We guys had four in the tent, and it was as tight as sardines in a can. But come 5:30 am, we all woke up to an orchestra of calls emitting from the forest. This specific call was our other target species of the trip, the endangered Lar gibbon, which is a lesser ape species. They begin their morning by calling as a pair to ward off other pairs and mark their territory. It is a gorgeous duet of calls between the female and male. The gibbons stop calling as the sun begins to rise, so we got about another 30 minutes of sleep. The sun rays peeked over the treetops and struck our tent, starting to heat it, so we got up and went to the little café shop to grab some food before we headed to Trail 6 near the lodge, which is the best spot for find the gibbons.

We had our rental tents until noon, so we left our gear and grabbed what we need to hike the trail and spot the gibbons. Not five minutes into hiking the trail, a tiger keelback slithered right in front of us. This snake is one of the few snakes that is both poisonous and venomous. So, if you lick it, you will die, and if it bites you, you can die. It was way too fast for us to get a photo but a cool find for sure. We started on the trail, and heard the gibbons call occasionally. We headed to where we thought we last heard some. Unfortunately, I stepped over a log, and a stick caught my pant, ripping a massive tear in my crotch area. The trail sloped up a hill and then went onto the crest of a cliff face. We found a decent lookout spot between the giant trees. We saw movement in one tree, and I quickly got my camera up to look through the viewfinder to see what it was. That animal was a giant black squirrel. The largest squirrel I have ever seen.

We continued up the trail and eventually saw movement ahead on a huge tree. We found a pair of gibbons foraging, and it was such a stunning sight because tucked in with the mom was an infant male. 

Gibbons are sexually dimorphic; this means you can tell what sex they are by just their appearance.Males have a black fur coat while the female’s coats are tan. It was amazing to watch these animals move through the canopy. Gibbons have an extraordinary physiology due to having ball socket joints in their wrists as well as their shoulders. This makes them extremely agile in the treetops.

Mother and Baby

It was getting close to noon, so we headed back to the lodge to get some lunch, pack up and return the tents and sleeping mats. Heading out of the park, I was still scanning for wildlife, and sure enough, on the side of a hill, I spotted another elephant. We circled back around and checked it out before leaving.

We arrived at home base later than planned and I had one of our king cobras that I needed to track, so I got my radio telemetry gear and zipped down the hill to grab a couple of plates of Pad Thai for me and Jesse.  After we ate, we started tracking the king cobra and while it was resting in a shelter, I sat on a rock reminiscing about that last twenty-four hours and our epic adventure.