Full Day Khao Yai National Park (from/to Bangkok)

Khao Yai is Thailand's oldest national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has some of the least disturbed and most accessible forest in the country, and is one of the best places in Southeast Asia to see wild elephants. Other highlights are gibbons and hornbills, there's quite nothing like watching a family of White-handed Gibbons calling out and jumping around high up in the trees, or hearing the whooshing sound of a Great Hornbill flying over your head. Many other wonderful animals call Khao Yai their home, such as sambar deer, macaques, pythons, monitor lizards, more than 300 species of birds, and an amazing variety of colorful insects, some of which seem to have jumped straight out of a cartoon! Wildlife sightings cannot be guaranteed, but your guide and the ranger will be on hand to point out everything of interest and answer your questions!

Early morning depart Bangkok for the approx. 2'bd hours' drive to Khao Yai. At the park entrance, we'll be met by our rangers, who as well as ensure our safety, guide us on a non-public trail to the ranger base. It is the rangers that add to the experience of the remote jungle, for not only are you getting the jungle 'to yourself' but you get to see these men whose lives are intertwined with the jungle. They spend their days, and nights, surveying it, maintaining it and protecting the animals within it, from those who see not beauty in wildlife, but merely a price tag. These rangers are essential to the future of Thailand's wildlife.

During the trek, the rangers will show you several tracks of wild animals, for example those of elephants and perhaps broken honeycomb at the base of a tree that gives testament to a recent visit of the sweet toothed sun-bear, and maybe stop you abruptly if any wildlife is near. You will learn about flora and fauna, some jungle survival skills and to pick edible weeds that supplement today's lunch which will be prepared for you at the ranger base over an open fire. On the way back, you will pass watering holes, a salt lick site to maximize the chance to see wildlife and a waterfall. In the afternoon, leave the park and enjoy the scenic drive through the countryside back to your hotel in Bangkok.