We rented a car for a few days for a short road trip to explore some of western Thailand. Our goal was to reach Kaeng Krachan, the largest national park in Thailand, it boarders Myanmar and it has been declared a UNESCO world Heritage site.
We are saddened by the terrible recent earthquake in Myanmar, on March 28th, 2025. Despite being relatively close we did not feel any of the shock or after shock waves. One building went down in Bangkok, it was under construction. Death tolls in Myanmar were over 5,300 with many more injured and mass destruction. Humanitarian organizations are trying to help.
Our drive west of Thailand was amazingly beautiful. Alastair had decided he wanted to take his motorbike because we would be heading through interesting countryside. As the driver, I enjoyed having the ability to impulsively pull over to try and take photos of some of the majestic scenery, of course the photos don’t do it any justice. Sophie, who enjoying sitting shotgun enjoyed seeing all of the different types of flowering trees. Other interesting sights included the rural people going about their life, the jungles and mountains, and many huge gold Buddha’s and ornate temples.
After checking into our hotel, we attempted our first visit to the park. Unfortunately, as it was already three in the afternoon we were only able to see the lake and mountains, but not able to enjoy any of the trails. This meant more time for swimming at the hotel, watching locals float down the rushing river from the hotel hangout area on the river bank and enjoying a traditional Thai dinner. Sophie ate what she describes as the “spiciest meal of my entire life”, she was proud to finish and commenting “it was delicious”. Aiden was thrilled with his fizzy rose lemonade. Sophie and I enjoyed the hotel’s butterfly house and cocoon hatchery.
The next morning, we got up early to head out, hoping to miss some of the intense heat. Unfortunately, Google maps took on a small detour and we ended up at an army base rather than the park gate. This park is known for driving to see the scenery and trying to spot wildlife at certain spots where you can pull over. There are only a few trails that are very hard to maintain because of the dense jungle. Some of the trails require a four-wheel drive to reach and you must be accompanied by a Park Ranger because the park has many large mammals; elephants, leopards, jackals and more.
As we drove through the park to the main campsite we saw lots of elephant poop on the road. We also saw many birds and butterflies and unfortunately a large snake that had been run over. We stopped at a few of the watering holes hoping to spot wildlife. As we were driving by one, I saw what I believe was a Saba deer or some type of antelope. At another watering hole, we saw a huge number of butterflies (many different species), reportedly there are over 300 species of butterflies in this park. At this watering hole there were some very interesting footprints in the sand, we spent time guessing what could have made the prints, the ranger station later furthered helped the guess work. There was also a large depression in the sand likely dug by an elephant. At the main campsite we were able to get directions for the hiking trail where you do not need a park ranger as a guide. As headed out we moved through another huge collection of beautiful butterflies (more than any of us have ever seen)! We started our walk-through a dense jungle, it was clear to us that the trail would need to be cleared regularly as there were many aggressive vines, ferns and palms, thus we all had to watch out for each other. We were lucky to see a monkey family twice, they were up in the trees and hard to capture in photos. We saw numerous different types of birds, a baby snake, and Aiden spotted a lizard about as large as an adult forearm. For a good portion of our walk, we were serenaded by Gibbons singing, we eventually spotted the Gibbon couple high up in a tree. It is quite unusual to see them in the wild and this was exciting. Although this park is known for having all 14 species of the famous Horn Bill birds, we were not lucky enough to see them. It was very hot out about +34 and very humid. After our first trail, the kids decided to sit in the shade and read their books, while Alastair and I extended our walk on a different trail. While exploring this trail (a bit denser with jungle) Alastair spotted a large lizard, he estimated it would have been about 4 or 5 feet, it moved surprisingly quickly through the dense under brush and I was only able to see part of it for a few seconds. Neither of us was fast enough to get a picture, later identified it as a Clouded Monitor, a lizard commonly seen in this park.
Our time near the park finished with a lovely lunch of homemade pizza at a garden restaurant run by a very friendly Thia woman. She is married to a French man and spoke fantastic English and French. She proudly explained how she made homemade sausage, grew all the vegetables for the pizza in her yard, made homemade crust, and then served as her own fresh grown fruit for dessert; mango, dragon, fruit, and watermelon! The day before a Hornbill had been flying in her house and a tree across the road that used to attract Hornbills for many years, she was sad that it had been cut down a few weeks ago. She showed us the fruit trees in her garden that the Hornbills liked to visit but we were not lucky enough to see one.