Kao Yai National park, the last days in Thailand !!

Before leaving Ayutthaya, we went in a tourist office to get the last information for the park and the border crossing. Surprise we got, was when we showed our passport to the girl, she confirmed us we had tree months visa for Thailand , instead of two! So we had more time before we had to cross the border. Cool!
We took a train to PakChong; the last town before the park. The day after we thought to reach the campsite by our self, but a sudden big storm changed the plans… Stock in PakChong with all our stuff and a heavy rain, we meet a guide. He convince us to take a room in his Garden lodge, close by the park, and to do a tour with him the day after. It saved a lot of problems to do it this way… The rain didn’t stop, and a few streets where getting a rivers!!

We arrived in the Garden lodge, and stay in our room to wait the better weather. Finally, 2 hours later, the rain stopped and we walked around to explore a bit.

The day after at 8 am, we jumped in the pick up to start our tour. And nice surprise, our group is just two guides, 2 English girls and us. Perfect condition! We pay 400bt/pers (8eu) to enter the park.

The park covers 2168 sq km, and incorporates one of the biggest intact monsoon forests remaining in mainland Asia . This is why it's named a UNESCO World Heritage site. Around 250 wild elephants are living in the park. Other mammals include deers, 2 kind of bears, tigers, leopards, otters, gibbons/macaques. The park also has one of Thailands biggest populations of Horn bill birds.

We drove 15km in a steep road in the mountains to see our first viewpoint on the way. Here we got leeches (bloodsucker) socks cause it's the beginning of the wet season, and this little creeps are with a lot out there... 
While putting this on, the first Horn bill got spotted. The guides walked around with a telescope and we got  him good in vision. They are really big! Wing wide up to 1.5m! The next stop on the middle of the road was to see gibbons -even a light colored one!- at around 300m away. We saw them jumping from tree to tree for about 5 minutes.
The headquarter/visitors centre/museum was the following stop. Here we walked around for a while, and got the necessary information for the campsite that night.
Next point on the program was a jungle walk where we learnt a little about the area from the guide, and saw the biggest squirrel (eekhoorn) ever, with a tail of a meter long!! We walked more to end in an open field with a watching tower over the water. We got a free lunch in a little restaurant in the middle of the jungle, where we saw a macaque(aap) around the rubbish bin, hehe! From here we walked with a full belly to the waterfall a bit lower.
This is one of the famous waterfalls in Thailand, because it's the one from the movie "the Beach"! We had a great cool down in the basin at the bottom. In the rainy season the water is violent and there was a strong current. It was nice! We finished the day by driving around to try to find elephants. Sadly, we didn't even see a shadow of a tromp, only  big pale of shit on the road...
On the way to the campsite mother nature gave us a little present; a huge beautiful blue/green Scorpio.

From a slowly coming up migraine. Joske trow up her whole lunch , and wasn't able to do anything anymore. Her night started at 18h00. Poor Chris had to built the camp alone , and for him the night started at 19h30.

6h00 the next morning we where waking up, to meet at 7h00 our personal guide. We did a walking track for 6 hours with him. He was really nice (we recommend him!), and took us off road, through the jungle, cross the rivers (jump stones, and use a tree trunk as bridge).... During this trip he stopped several times and show us different birds by telescope. We got 1000 leeches on our shoes and the special socks and saw macaque and deers! We stopped around 14h00, and eat a quick fried rice (where they live on in this country). From the restaurant in the jungle we had arranged a private driver, who didn't speak a word of English. Our guide functioned as a translator in the beginning before he was gone. Later, the whole tour, we didn't speak... Was weird!
The weather was the whole morning perfect; until we left. The guy drop us off in Prachinburi, probably the only town without white people! It was the last night in Thailand, and probably the worst room we ever had in this very dirty hotel (which was probably for sex, we found Thai porn in the draw, hehe...)

The day after we took a train to reach the border city Arahna Prathet, and we thought we could make it before closing time of the border at 8pm. But it's hard to plan something deep in Asia !We arrived at almost 19h00, so a bit late to cross... We had to stay one more night in Thailand!

3 May, D-day!
We managed the visa the night before at the guesthouse, and with them we took a bus at 11am for 4 hours, 500 bath p.p. (=11eu) to Siem Reap, with a bus changement at the border. But, like often here, there was something wrong... We let you know in the following article...! Greets from Asia!!!