Up once again at the crack of dawn for a 6.40 flight; yes you read it right. After a little stress with our airport pick up being late we have an uneventful journey and arrive at Bangkok Airport where we pick up our hire car to drive the 170 km to Khao Yai National Park.

Up there on the podium with some of the worlds greatest parks, Khao Yai is Thailand's oldest and most visited reserve. Covering 2168 sq km, it incorporates one of the largest intact monsoon forests remaining in mainland Asia, that is why it was named a Unesco World heritage site. The park's terrain covers five vegetation zones including evergreen rainforest, mixed deciduous forest and Savannah.
Some 200 elephants, leopards, tigers, bears, deer, gibbons, macaques, pythons and over 300 spices of bird are some of the animals that make this park their home.
Several beautiful waterfalls grace the park including the famous waterfall from the film 'The beach' in which Leonardo Dicaprio dives off a cliff into the waterfall.

After an hour or so of filling in and signing forms we are are finally taken to our hire car. As a car is the best way to get around the park David has taken the brave decision to drive there. To say we are nervous is an understatement. Bangkok's traffic is horrendous and the driving no better with drivers weaving in and out of traffic with no thought to safety.
Phew! we arrive at the hotel nearly 3 hours latter; frazzled but relieved we have got here in one piece.
The hotel complex is set just out side the park boundaries. It is huge with a lake and a Jack Nikolaus designed golf course all set in pristine manicured gardens. From almost anywhere in the hotel the glorious mountain backdrop of the park is visible making you feel close to the elusive tiger. I say elusive as although there are some tigers left in the park the last one was sighted 7 years ago!!!!!
We are amazed at the size of our room - it's an apartment really with a sitting room/kitchen, a large balcony overlooking the mountains, a good sized bedroom and a huge bathroom the size of a double bedroom with the obligatory stand alone bath, shower etc... PERFECT! You may recall us mentioning earlier on the the blog 'who needs 5*', well......

Heading to the fabulous infinity pool sometime later we find we are the only people there - brilliant! sunbathing, snoozing, reading and swimming I say to David 'this is the life'. Moments later a group of Thai families invade the pool screaming and laughing and playing pool games. 'Brilliant' David says; Oh well you can't win them all........
The rest of the day is spent booking a park trek and arranging some 'doing a Kirstin's' (sorry Kirstin).
Absolutely exhausted we have room service while watching Hangover 11 and are amazed to see pretty much our view from the Hillhouse Guesthouse on Koh Yao Noi. Unbeknown to us it was filmed in Krabi.

The following morning we decide to ignore the 6 am wake up call we had requested so as to explore the national park. Instead we have a much needed R&R day doing very little apart from lounging around the pool, continuing our usual holiday scrabble tournament and having a few beers.

I don't know why, but there is something about this hotel that feels a bit like a 5 star retirement home. I have no idea why as there are plenty of noisy children learning to swim in the pool and plenty more teens on trips going on trips to the national park - but it does? I have it! there are lots of golfers - no offence to golfers but they are all older and tartan clad. I get this feeling in my head as we are golf-carted over to the spa to indulge in a 'ThaiKirsten' followed by an 'AromaKirsten'. On the way we spot what looks like a stage being set up and a load of tee pees dotted around??? The massage is great but is spoiled by me getting cramp and the singers blasting out renditions of US soul from Luther to Alicia, Surreal. Topping this all off was the deafening call of a giant gecko just outside the spa. On speaking to the masseuse we are told giant geckos grow up to a metre long!!!!