After lining up at our hotel in Bang Saen for a photo shoot we drove out onto the road behind one of our tour guides and followed by another of our guides. The reason for this is a new law was passed last year that more than 5 foreign owned cars travelling in a group must be accompanied by 2 local guides, one at the front and one behind. This law was brought in because of the number of Chinese tourists who drive down to Thailand and were involved in fatal car crashes. Consequently we will have our guides with us to the Cambodian border. Good job they’re really lovely people & we get on so well with them, they have been a great help to us this past week.
Today’s drive is approximately 150 kilometres & the traffic on the road to Dasada for our overnight stop isn’t very heavy by Bangkok standards. The drivers here are really polite, they merge really well and most of them don’t drive fast, which makes it easy for driving.
We went straight to the Khao Yai National Park which is a UNESCO world heritage site of some 2,100 sq. km. The part of the park we went to is a dry evergreen forest, however today it was very wet! MG Thailand have arranged for a photographer & journalist to meet us & take photos & do an interview with Michael & John to be used in promotional material.
It poured down while we had lunch and by the time we went for our walk the rain had eased somewhat, but we didn’t mind getting wet as it cooled us down. What we didn’t like were the leeches, with a few of our group being bitten despite us wearing gators that went inside our shoes up to our knees, they were a good look!
Michael managed to get a leech on his tummy that he didn’t even know was there until he saw his blood soaked shirt!
We managed to see a couple of different types of deer, porcupines, horn bill, gibbons, but no elephants, only the evidence they left behind to show that they had been there.
We are staying the night in the magnificent Dasada Resort which is just beautiful.
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