KHAO YAI KNATIONAL PARK

If you like adventure, nature, animals, fresh air, camping etc. you can fall in love Khao Yai National Park. I went there for the weekend with two friends of mine and we had very nice time. 

In the entrance, foreigners need to pay 400 baths, for adults (around 13 dollars or 10 euros) and 200 Thai baths for a child, Thai or Thai resident have to pay 40 baths, for vehicles you need 50 baths more.
Since we came inside I was fascinated by the nature, just one road leading in and out of the jungle gives you a trace of civilization and nothing else but a thick forest which is a very big area of 2168 square km, and it has been declare as a "UNESCO World Heritage Site". You can hear many sounds there, plenty of birds and other animals and I must say I was little bit afraid when I saw this sign:

                                         Little bit scary


In the national park they also have wild elephants, sambar deers, barking deers (I don't believe that they are really barking :-) ), monkeys, bears, tigers, leopards, crocodiles...
You can do jungle tracking, kayaking and rafting, a lot of people like to drive bicycles there.

 
We stop few times to take a pictures on view points. It was kind of late when we arrived (around 5 pm) so we wanted to set up the tent before dark, but we were late :-). Camping is permitted only in camping areas.

 

We rented the tent and blankets, something to sleep on and all of that was 530 baths plus 30 baths per person for overnight in camping area.

 Actually, we are not professional campers and we had some problems with setting up the tent in the dark, but we were in luck, two guys helped us and they were very swift. After that we had dinner (food that we brought) and the garbage from the food we placed in the plastic bag in front of the tent. BIG MISTAKE. The sambar deers (two of them) came after we slept and they take out all garbage that we had in that bag, garbage was everywhere and two of them are fighting for the food. We heard the noise and we woke up.

 I was thinking maybe they can have problems if they eat a plastic and I tried to make them scare away, but the deer was very brave and he looked me like "what do you want I'm hungry" and he didn't want to move. I was little bit afraid and I just waited them to finish it and I clean up the garbage. By the way, it is not allowed to give food to the animals.

                Our tent (big enough for 3 persons)
Next day, we woke up at 5:30 am, we took a shower and we went to the waterfall, but we decided to walk 3 km trough the jungle to reach that waterfall. We could go with the car but adventure has advantage :-).

It was easy when we started but later... It was very muddy inside the jungle and we didn't have equipment that we needed to do the tracking ( two of us had flip-flops - BIG MISTAKE). 

It was slippery and two of us fell down one time :-) and we had lot of leeches on our legs and we had to take them off every few minutes. After that we saw the sign:

                                            Very scary

We needed around two hours to finish and the jungle tracking was good experience. I steal feel itchy, next time I will cover my legs better :-) (no flip-flop and no shorts). After that we had lunch in the restaurant, coffee and I felt fresh again.
This is one of the few waterfalls:

This is my story about Khao Yai, very interesting for me. I'm sure that in this National Park, you can have your adventure in the wild which I'm sure will be an unforgettable experience.   

SONGKRAN FESTIVAL / WATER FESTIVAL

Don't be surprised if you walking down the street and somebody throw the water  on you, just like that :-). You should accept the game and grab some water too. They are usually use the water guns, but somebody can use big basket and make you wet immediately :-). Songkran is a Thai word which means "move" or "change place" as it is the day when the sun changes its position in the zodiac. It is also known as the "Water Festival", as people believe that water will wash away bad luck.

Songkran is the Thai traditional New Year and begins in the morning with offering food to Buddhists monks and releasing caged birds to fly freely into the sky. The festival starts on April 13 and last usually 3 days. I said usually, because somewhere it last longer. The longest and the biggest celebration is in Pattaya and Chiang Mai.
 

I stayed in Bangkok before one year and I wanted to see how that look likes in the really big city. I went to Khaosan road (walking street, cheap area, very attractive for backpackers from all over the world) and Silom street (they close the street for traffic during Songkran) It is amazing. The street is incredibly crowded, you cant move so easily, eveeybody are wet and have some white color on their faces, because they also use some kind of white powder. They play music and dance all day. The foreigners enjoying Songkran Festival too. But the throwing of the water is throwing the water on the cars that they passing away and on the people too. Lot of them uses open tracks. One guy drive the track and few of them throwing the water on everybody around them.

 I dont know about you, but I love Songkran Festival and I eel lie a child who wants to play games all they. You should try, maybe you will like it too :-).