oxygenoutside my tent like jurassic park. It must have been the thunderous footsteps of some ancient giant that made the canvas tremble. I looked outside. In the midnight darkness, I could make out the outline of a young bull elephant, stomping beneath our protected camp, tapping the bamboo in sexual frustration. I watched for a while, then went back inside, where the nocturnal serenade of the Indian nighthawk lulled me back to sleep.
This is the really crazy part. My tent was pitched in Kaeng Krachan, Thailand’s largest national park and one of the world’s newest UNESCO heritage sites.It’s in the southwest and is a £12 taxi ride from the golden beaches of the luxury resort of Hua Hin, while Hua Hin itself is £1 Take the train from Bangkok. This is probably the most accessible yet biodiverse jungle experience in Thailand.
After the elephants woke up on day one, I left my tent and explored the protected jungle park of Banklang Camp on foot. A tribe of ten dusky langurs – the big-eyed teddy bears of Asian monkeys who resolve conflicts with a big hug – are living their best lives in an upstream playground. They spend a third of their time feeding in the tree canopy. When playing, they spread their arms, legs, and long tails to fly from tree to tree, grabbing the next branch with their entire body.
Asian elephant in national park
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Kaeng Krachan is also a regular Clapham Junction for birdlife. This 1,125-square-mile park is located in central Thailand, nestled among mountains, rivers, and beaches. There are 420 recorded bird species, including Himalayan birds, resident hornbills and marine migratory birds.
The birds flew close to my camp in dense and rapid numbers. An Indian mouse, its iridescent tropical plumage resembles a British kingfisher in Sunday finery, performing an aggressive aerial display to drive away rivals. These include the large-billed crow. Sixty minutes away on the coast, these crows drop nuts on zebra crossings. The nuts are then knocked open by car tires and eaten in between traffic. shrewd.
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By lunchtime, my neck ached from staring at the sky. I dined on mushroom rice, braised pork and stir-fried water spinach at the camp’s outdoor restaurant with veteran park ranger Samrong Meekaew. What can I see in three days here? “Depends on what time you get up!” he said. Rangers built salt licks (mud baths with added calcium, magnesium and other minerals) near Bangerang to attract large game at dawn and dusk.
Will I see a tiger? “I’ve only seen them twice in thirty years,” Mikao said. “One was 2m long and muscular. When he saw me and I saw him, we both ran away. In addition to orchids, monkeys, butterflies and other creatures, Kangka Chan’s own Big Five also include tigers, bison (1,000kg horned bison capable of fighting tigers), elephants, leopards and sun bears.
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As if by magic, a sun bear appeared before us. It’s a stocky, swaggering bully with sleek black fur and a tongue that can lick honey from between trees. This friendly monkey is called “Khanun” (jackfruit) by the rangers because it is his favorite lunch. I kept my distance, but I was told that Kanu’s main interests were breeding and sleeping in trees. legend.
Before the afternoon disappeared into Papaya Sunset, I hiked the two-mile Pran Buri Trail that extends from the campground. It passes through streams filled with carp, through a curtain of orange lacewing butterflies, and past orb-weaver spiders, their huge curved horns the size of saucers. Everything at Kaeng Krachan is grand.
Keep an eye out for black-backed kingfishers in the forest
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I tried forest bathing, reclining in my swimming trunks in a boulder-strewn rapid—a jungle jacuzzi—and closing my eyes. I hear the car alarm of a blue-throated woodpecker and the high-pitched moan of a monitor lizard. Toon ciliates, or red cedar tree. I opened my eyes and saw a black-backed kingfisher drinking water from the stream. The forest feels so alive.
At 5.30 the next morning, after dodging a porcupine shuffling around the toilet, I booked a guided tour with Kaittisak Klomsakun, a leading naturalist with 35 years of Kaeng Krachan experience, as conveyed by Keith Richards of humor and dress sense. Krom Sakun and I were sitting on a raised safari platform on his Mitsubishi pickup truck. Liana vines whipped the cab. Docked macaques barked at the edge. The zigzag perspective frames the dawn mist, shimmering with fuchsia and mango against a backdrop of tropical forest. Without Milo ice drinks (made from Nestlé chocolate powder, a Southeast Asian staple), we might be in Colombia or Rwanda. Krom Sakun hands me one from his refrigerator.
He tracked a group of white-palmed gibbons near the park’s paved roads. He tapped on the Mitsubishi’s cab, signaling our driver to stop. Mum and Dad Gibbons are performing their morning call, a daily jungle duet. Next on their primate playlist was a cheer of “This is My Territory,” followed 20 minutes later by a contented “Relaxing in the Trees.” Klomsakun possesses the Doolittle-like gift of being able to imitate the creatures of Kaeng Krachan and mimic tree-top mammals.
Our destination was the park’s second campground. Phanoen Thung is nearly 1,000m above sea level and renting a tent and sleeping bag costs around £5. Seven-story-high barakata trees surround the camp, while a simple snack bar is shaded by banana groves. Visitors can look out across Myanmar, which borders another national park, making the area one of the richest in wildlife in Southeast Asia.
Before our next hike, Klomsakun served a quick homemade breakfast of English omelets and sausages cooked on his Primus stove. Maybe he knew the time was coming.
Klomsakun has visited most of Thailand’s 147 national parks. Most of them have simple campsites with restaurants, and the entrance fee is around £7. His two favorites? Lofty Khao Yai operates night safaris and has the highest concentration of wild elephants; and Tarutao National Marine Park is great for snorkeling, with dugongs and sperm whales just a few nautical miles from Langkawi, Malaysia. Place to play. Maybe next year.
We hiked along the well-marked orchid trail near Phanoen Thung Camp. As we tiptoed through the clutter, Kromsakun spotted footprints: those of a leopard and a bison, both made days earlier. My guide also pointed out that there were sun bear scratches near the tree cavity. “He climbed up and licked the honey from the nest.” The cavity will now serve as the nest for the largest bird in Konkardang, the great hornbill, which reuses holes dug by others rather than pecking at its own, while using its machete Its shaped beak picks the lizard out from under the leaf.
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Next we took the Mitsubishi to the Batcave. We climbed into a stone cathedral to explore the horror show at dusk. Alerted by our headlamps, the calls of insect-munching horseshoe bats echoed through the room. Bat skeletons littered the floor. I panicked and headed back to the sunny Ban Klang campground for lunch: a delicious tom yum noodle soup with chicken meatballs and watermelon slices.
A white-handed gibbon
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Dusk heralds another magical moment in nature.Giant red-nosed lanternfly clinging to wood ginger Trees used to make jelly desserts and incense. We are surrounded by rattan plants, which are used to weave wicker furniture. Clomsakun handed over his binoculars: first we saw a chestnut-headed bee-eater, then a rainbow bird, then a white-fronted scops owl, sleepily hiding in a tree like a Cute toys. Without him, I would not have discovered these animals.
At dawn on the third day, I scanned the skyscraper canopies and prayed for the five final miracles. Klomsakun takes me on a walk along a recently destroyed elephant trail. Bamboo stems as thick as scaffolding were damaged on the forest floor. There was a faint smell of chocolate – proboscis feces. Then we found him sulking in the river below us: an angry young bull elephant, excluded from his tribe. We watched him throw a tantrum from behind a giant banyan tree. Klomsakun remembers this tree as a sapling; it is now 40m tall.
Is one morning of natural scenery enough? Kaeng Krachan always surprises people. Near the park exit, a lone panther skittered across the tarmac, staring at me casually. It was a spine-tingling few seconds.
My time in Thailand’s Cheap Eden is coming to an end. But the final treat can be a quick trip from Hua Hin to an archipelago of freshwater reservoir islands that can be navigated via an Indiana Jones-style rope bridge or long-tail boat. I choose the latter. Powered by the engine of a Suzuki SUV, my long tail weaves between groups of macaques who swim here to carve out their own private islands while trapping crabs in holes dug out of the sand. Think of an ape with six senses: there’s not much to do except swing, eat, and commit adultery. An hour after leaving Khaang Krachan, I was swimming in the 30-degree water of the Gulf of Thailand, next to the new beachfront hotel Charras Bhawan, a family-run residence where Thai royalty once stayed. A massage by the infinity pool can soothe elephant-induced insomnia. In this hedonist’s paradise, I am the king of the jungle.
Tristan Rutherford visited the Tourism Authority of Thailand (Thailand Travel Network). Kaittisak Klomsakun (ko*********@ho*****.com) offers one-day guided tours from £201 for three people. Park admission is £7 for adults and £3 for children; one night camping is £1; vehicle entry fee is £1 (Thailand National Parks Website). B&B doubles from £204 including use of kayaks, paddle boards and bikes (charrasbhawan.com).Fly to Bangkok
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