On a sunny morning of June 2020, we left Hua Hin for a four-day, camping motorbike trip around the region. Our first destination was the Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. That is located roughly 50 km south from Hua Hin downtown. It covers an area of 98.08 km2, within which it hosts some spectacular rock formations, beaches, rivers, numerous caves, a variety of unique flora and fauna, and Thailand’s largest freshwater marsh.
In order to get there from Hua Hin, we followed the motorway south to Khao Tao, crossed the bridge over the Pran Buri river at Ban Tha Lat Kradan village, and drove the scenic route down south along the coast all the way to the park. We stopped for lunch and some beautiful views from the beach near Thao Kosa Forest Park, and we proceeded further. The whole trip took us some two hours on a scooter.
We arrived in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park shortly after midday and made straight for the beach at Ban Bang Pu village. That’s also where the trailhead to Phraya Nakhon Cave, the park’s most prominent sight, is located. But as we expected, the cave was officially closed due to the Coronavirus lockdown, and national park staff present on the spot rendered the possibility of trespassing rather slender.
We skipped the cave altogether and drove to the northern end of the beach to chill for a bit. The tide was very low and the water still very shallow and rather dirty for quite a distance after the shoal, so that swimming was out of the question. Nevertheless, we occupied a lovely shade under a cluster of casuarinas and got to enjoy the soft breeze. It was a couple of hours later when the breeze died out and the mosquitos attacked savagely. It was pure madness; for the rest of our stay in the national park, the only repose we got from their presence was while driving. Other than, wherever we’d be, day and night, we were constantly surrounded by a buzzing cloud of those tiny bloodsuckers.
We left the beach willy-nilly and decided to check out the Kaew Cave. Just like all other points of interest within the park, this cave was also closed. However, there was no-one on the spot to de-facto enforce the closure. In this case, we were lucky, as we got to visit the cave for free, whereas normally, we should have paid a THB 200 entry fee. We parked the bike at the entrance and had to climb a steep trail for some 200 meters until we reached the cave entrance. The mozzies prompted us to do that very quickly. Fortunately, the didn’t follow us inside the cave.
There was a metallic ladder leading down into the cave. Then, torches aforehead, we followed some arrow signs deep into the cave. At times having to climb a bit, at others to literally crawl, we proceeded from chamber to chamber through the cave’s darkness. At last, we reached a large, deep chamber where we awakened a big population of bats that hung upside-down from the stalactites. They seemed baffled and not very pleased with our visit. Many of them took reconnoitering flights at a menacing distance from our heads. The route continued further deep into the cave but it was getting trickier and gloomier. We decided to not find out how deep it goes.
We headed back out, onto the bike, and drove to Ban Don Tao Lao village for dinner. Then it was time to settle for the night. We got to drive around the various roads of the national park in search of a good camping spot. We ended up in a location near Kaew Cave where we pitched the tent in a kiosk by the shore of a little pond. Ten minutes inside the tent, we figured out that it won’t do. Though beautiful the place was, the heat was inexorable; we would sweat to dehydration were we to spend there the entire night. The mozzies having a good feast on us, we packed up again quickly and headed down to the beach again in hope of encountering a good breeze.
We ended up on the exact same spot we’d settled earlier in the afternoon. The breeze was hardly perceptible but better than nothing. The mosquito buzz remained constant and furious outside the tent net for the whole night. The countless bites of the day kept itching terribly all the way through to the morning.
We got up early and began working out a new plan. Originally, we were intending to spend three nights of this trip in Khao Sam Roi Yot and one more at Pala-U Waterfall. But now we had to revise that intention and look for a refuge from the heat and the mosquitos at higher altitude in the hinterland.
We got on the bike and rode south through the park. We tried to check out the Sam Phraya Beach but that was also closed; not because of the lockdown this time, but due to a movie filming. We also tried out Khao Daeng Viewpoint and the Porcupine Cave, but these were also closed.
We didn’t get to see many things of interest in this national park after all, but we chanced to see what we mostly wanted to: the Dusky Leaf Monkeys (spectacled langurs). These are concentrated at Laem Sala Beach near Nakhon Cave, where we would have probably chosen to camp if the park was normally open, but given the circumstances, we didn’t have any access to the spot. Luckily, we ran into a small troop of these cute creatures by chance beside the dirt road near the park’s headquarters. They were rather shy and kept their distance, but we managed to get some nice shots of them.
Before leaving the park and the raging mosquitos, we drove back to Ban Khao Daeng village where we checked out its picturesque temple and had an exquisite lunch at a restaurant called Sam Thong. While in the kiosk near the temple for a smoke, we got a visit by a curious, lonely macaque which you will see in the video below.
Still early afternoon, we left Khao Sam Roi Yot and drove to Kui Buri National Park where we spent the night. On the next day, before driving to Pran Buri Lake, where we would settle for the third night of this motorbike trip, we returned to Khao Sam Roi Yot to see the marsh on the west side of the mountain. Just like all sights of the national park, the scenic promenade over the marsh was closed to visitors. Anyhow, we managed to get some really beautiful views of the marsh by the road. And we also got to witness a storm of enthralling force that broke out while we were there; luckily, from the dry safety of a kiosk we were fast enough to get shelter in.
For more information, go to Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park’s official website.
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