Morning in Bang Pra and Evening in Khao Yai

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The next morning I had managed to persuade my dad to drive me around sunrise to Bang Pra Non-hunting area again that I had visited two days previously but I was keen to spend some more time there. I won’t go into too much detail because I have already described the place two posts ago but it was very nice to see the same place with the early morning bird activity. There was no one at the entrance to pay the entry fee to, but the gate was left open so I could just go in. They’re probably missing the majority of visitors by not having anyone there in the early morning because that’s when most birders would visit and I doubt many other people would visit the place.



There were lots of birds around and I saw a large number of species including the main one and probably the main reason I revisited which was Rufous Treepie which is supposed to be easy to see here. There was also a very showy White-crested Laughingthrush singing on an exposed post which was very cool though unfortunately I couldn’t photograph it because my camera lens had become covered in condensation from being in the cold air conditioning to the extreme humidity in the forest. I also saw a tree shrew which was nice.



After a few hours of birding I was picked up and I decided to have a try at getting into the private waterbird breeding centre that I saw the Greater Adjutant in on my previous visit to Bang Pra since the entrance is just up the road anyway. I didn’t really expect to get in because I doubt a guard at the entrance gate would have the authority to let people in, but it would only take a couple of minutes so it was worth a try. My mum spoke in Thai to the person at the gate to try and get access to have a look around, but as expected I wasn’t able to get in. The guard was surprisingly nice about it though considering that we had just showed up unannounced to a private breeding centre, and he said something about a new bird that had recently arrived that would be disturbed by people so there couldn’t be anyone visiting anymore.



We then drove to Khao Yai National Park which was to be the final stop of the trip, having lunch and stopping to buy some food on the way because we would be staying within the national park itself for two nights. My main reason for wanting to visit Khao Yai was to get the only opportunity of the trip to look for nocturnal animals inside the national park and also to get a few more birds to add to the list. We got to the national park in the early afternoon and went to the Headquarters to check in to the bungalow that we had booked. Most national parks only have camping facilities, however Khao Yai has quite a number of options for accommodation and although they are fairly basic without luxuries like air conditioning, they are perfectly good.



I will start here by addressing my experience in Khao Yai in general compared to what most people who visit say. I had previously heard how Khao Yai is not such an enjoyable place to visit because of rude/apathetic staff, crowded facilities, noise from visitors, unreliable and low-quality options for food, etc. I should also mention that all three days that I was in Khao Yai were during Songkran which is a major Thai holiday where I was also warned that all the national parks and everything would be horrible and crowded. As a result of all of this, I was reluctant to visit Khao Yai at first and when planning for this trip, I looked for alternative places that wouldn’t be as bad as Khao Yai but give all of the circumstances, there weren’t really any other options so Khao Yai it was. As it turned out, I had absolutely none of the negative experiences that I had been warned about and been bracing myself for. There were no rude or apathetic staff, the food was better than Kaeng Krachan, the campsites and accommodation areas weren’t much busier and I would not call them crowded and aside from a couple of particularly popular locations like one of the waterfalls, there wasn’t an excessive amount of noise or disturbance or any excessively large groups of people. Everyone must have gone somewhere else for Songkran or something because it seems that my experience with the national park seems drastically different from everyone else’s.



I started the afternoon with a bit of birding, though even before going anywhere I had seen three species of mammals which are very common around Khao Yai – Northern Pig-tailed Macaque, Sambar Deer, and Red Muntjac – as well as a Hill Myna from the car. There are also loads of Ashy Woodswallows that can be seen perched on electricity wires in Khao Yai as well as an occasional bee-eater. That afternoon, I birded around what is called The Wildlife Watchtower which overlooks a pond and a salt lick and the trail to it goes through open grasslands so I saw quite a few open-country birds as well as three species of hornbills (Oriental Pied, Great, and Wreathed) flying into fruit trees around the watchtower.



As mentioned, one of the primary reasons for my visit to Khao Yai was to look for nocturnal animals so that was of course my plan for that night. There are night safaris run by the national park that seem to be the obvious way to look for nocturnal animals but I had been warned that they were very busy and crowded and should be avoided. I therefore wasn’t planning to do a night safari, but since everything else in the national park seemed to be unlike what I had been told, I decided to try a night tour and I could always do other things afterwards. It is 500 baht (£11) for an hour for a car (a pickup with railings and seats in the back to stand/sit) with a driver and a guide/spotlighter picking you up and dropping you off from accommodation within the national park which doesn’t seem too expensive. As it turns out, I thought the night safari wasn’t bad.





The person with the spotlight seemed to know what he was doing and knew where to look for animals and with me also spotlighting with my torch, we saw quite a bit. There were loads of Malayan Porcupines and Sambar Deer as well as a few Green Cat Snakes, an Asian Elephant and a Leopard Cat. I had heard that the vehicles wouldn’t stop for long enough to look at the animals but this was untrue and we spent quite a while watching the animals and whilst there were a few other vehicles around (maybe up to four in some places) I was expecting much worse especially considering that was the public holiday of Songkran and what I had been warned about. After the drive I did some spotlighting myself in the area around the bungalows (you can’t go spotlighting by walking down roads/trails because of the danger of elephants) and I was able to see a Common Palm Civet as well as a Great Eared Nightjar but I would have struggled to see everything seen on the night safari by myself since they do a route they know passing the salt licks making it likely to see things and obviously our hire car didn’t have a viewing deck at the back to be spotlighting from.

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