Juldis Khao Yai Resort & Spa Pak Chong

We were on the train from Ayutthaya at 8:30am after already taking a ferry to the station! Our tickets were 3rd class, so you can imagine what the 'seats' were like! We were crammed into a train carriage, along with many other people and well, stood by the doors (which remained open I might add!) for our entire journey! It was interesting, especially as the various vendors attempted to walk to and fro trying to sell their wares! The journey was due to take around 2 1/2 ...

... bird-watching. The guide had a monoscope and an amazing talent for finding all sorts of birds from the distance of a football field through thick jungle. We saw a variety of lovely colorful birds including a few Great Hornbills which have a wingspan of 3 meters!! The hike was about 5km, which took several hours through thick jungle. We kept in step with the guide since there were king cobra's and wild elephants roaming around! We found several groups ...

... a mostly straight path to Laos, with buses and trains the whole way. We found a national park in our guidebook called Khao Yai, which is over 4000 sq. km of mountains and forest. It is known for its diversity of wildlife and 250-300 elephants that roam freely. We hopped on a bus where we were the only falang (white people) and took it three hours to the nearest town, Pak Chong. We found a guesthouse outside the ...

... haben sich Elefanten und Tiger versteckt, aber wie ihr auf den Fotos seht, gabs trotzdem einiges zu sehen. Am nächsten Tag haben wir dann noch eine Fledermaushöhle besucht und die ca. 2 Millionen Fledermäuse bewundert, die zum Sonnenuntergang auf Nahrungssuche gehen. Am Abend gings schon wieder weiter, da wir ja am Donnerstag schon nach Australien fliegen...

Khao Yai is on on Thailands many national parks and also one of it's most famous as it's situated just and few hours north of Bangkok and also because it's where the waterfall in the film 'The Beach' is located. Unfortunately the stunning beach and vegetation in the film are found elsewhere! The big problem with the park is access as the nearest town is 40km away. When we arrived here we didn't really have a notion ...

... best national parks in the world. I then had to run off as the next train was in 5 minutes, even though the whole deciding process took about double that. Taking the third class ticket as I have had many a funny time on it before, I got on to find this would be the same as it was packed. I struggled with my bag for a few minutes, while finding somewhere to sit and trying to let all the sellers past with their trays of dried fish mmmm. This sight was a great ...

... large-beaked birds not dissimilar to tucans. We also visited the famous waterfall that Leonardo di Caprio's stunt double jumped off of in the movie "the Beach". We had a great time travelling with Anja, Nadine, Laura and Isa. We also met Steve and Lesley, "neighbours" from Saltash in Cornwall who are on a 7 month 25th wedding anniversary tour and whose website comes much recommended (see our links). A further memorable meeting was with Noi, a Thai PE ...

... is going to Seattle, winners either way. Ford, cashing in on the publicity, announced it will celebrate the event by closing 14 factories and laying off 30,000 workers. Excellent PR move. 90 million Americans are watching the Superbowl today, 20 million of them throwing parties. Assuming there are some big parties, that works out to a lot of really lonely party-throwers. Today America will spend 5.6 billion dollars on booze and pretzels. I spent $15 ...

... for saving millions of lives, but since those living with AIDS are now greatly outnumbering those newly infected, the subject of AIDS in Thailand has gradually shifted to the area of treatment. About 100 of those 600,000 PHAs live in my town, and receive treatment at the hospital down the road. Thailand has universal healthcare, so they receive whatever treatment they need for 30 baht/visit (75 cents). The whole of them form "Friends Group Nam Phong", which is a PHA ...