From Ayutthaya we took the train to Pak Chong, a small town near the Khao Yai National Park. We had booked in to a guesthouse that organised tours in and around the park.

Our first tour was in the afternoon shortly after we arrived. We jumped in the back of a sawngthaew, (basically a pick up truck with bench seats in the back) and headed to a natural spring. The water has filtered through the limestone and is as clear as tap water, it naturally fills up from the ground. We had a dip, the water was freezing.

We then made our way to the caves, the entrance was opposite a temple, we climbed down the steep steps in to the darkness where we were greated by Budha monuments and shrines. Our guide led us in to the caves showing us the bats, he then found some other creepy crawlies to show us. First a huge tarantula, then he picked up a spiky centipede, then a scorpion spider. All of these creatures were scary looking and were poisonous. The cave was also used as a temple, the Monks climb down late in the evenings to meditate in the dark sometimes up to 6 hpurs at a time!

After climbing out we headed off to see some more bats. We stopped to look at another cave entrance high above us in a mountain, we were told that here around the same time every day 2 million bats head out for there evening meal. We saw some Hawks flying around the entrance waiting to strike when the bats flew out. After a while we saw a couple of small groups of bats leave the cave followed by one huge continuous line that didn't stop for half an hour. You could see them spiralling round in the distance hunting for bugs, it was an incredible site as you can see from the blog photo. Once it got a bit darker our guide got a telescope out and zoomed in on the moon, it was amazing, it was so clear, you could even see the craters. He then went on to show us Jupiter, it wasn't as clear due to the distance but was still pretty cool, you could see the moons around it. We headed back to the guesthouse for dinner and got an early night ready to be up at 7AM for our day of trekking.

After breakfast we headed in to the national park, the van stopped a couple of times as the guide had seen some snakes in the bushes at the side of the road. They didn't seem too bothered about grabbing them to show us more closely. One even tried to bite our guide, it was a little scary!

After stopping to put on our leach socks we headed to the information centre. After a quick look around and a very strong coffee we heard the guide had seen something in the jungle. We walked over a very bouncy bridge and could hear the gibbons screeching above us. Our guide pointed them out in the trees and set up a telescope so we could see them more clearly. There are very few in the park, we were very lucky to see them.

We then jumped back in to the van to head deeper into the jungle. We left the van and started trekking. The first thing our guide found was a scorpion, it seemed tame as he picked it up by the tail and put in on peoples arms. We aren't greedy people so we let others hold him. We continued walking looking out for the wildlife. We stopped for a break and had some sticky sweet rice which was very tasty. We suddenly heard a loud noise from above, it sounded like someone shaking a tar-pooling. As we looked up we saw a huge horn bill fly over, it's wings spanned 2 metres and that's what makes the noise. The sight was amazing, they were impressive birds. We continued our trek through some thick foliage hunting for elephants; there are more than 300 living throughout the park and we saw lots of evidence of them but couldn't seem to find them. We stopped off at a viewing tower for lunch where our second guide (the driver) had been waiting. Our guide woke him from his hammock so he could give us our lunch, a tofu stirfry and rice. We then headed back to the van and drove to the waterfalls. The first was pretty impressive and was used in the film The Beach. As we headed to the second we stopped to look at another horn bill high up in a tree. Our guide seems to be able to spot them a mile off whilst sitting in the van, it took us a while to see it once we had stopped even when he was trying to point it out. Again the scope came out so we could have a closer look and he managed to take a couple of photos through the telescope.

We arrived at the second waterfall, this one was the biggest in the park, we were quite excited to see it. We were wondering why our guide had stayed at the van, but once we got closer to the waterfall we realised why. It was a bit of a walk and the amount of stair were ridiculous, the climb back up the stairs was hard going but we made it and our guide was waiting at the top with an ice cold Coke for us.

We then headed to another of the elephants favourite spots but it wasn't our lucky day so we headed back to the hotel. It was surprisingly cold driving back, we were filthy from the jungle and we only had a cold shower to look forward to.

The trekking was great fun and we met lots of people.