Travel news - Eco tourism and national parks in Thailand

Humans wreck havoc at World Heritage park

We all have our pet reasons for visiting Khao Yai, Thailand oldest national park that just happens to be the closest to Bangkok residents who yearn for forested hills and slightly cooler weather.

Mine is simple enough. I like cycling up the 35 kilometre climb from the Prachinburi gate to the park headquarters and rewarding myself with two bowls of noodle soup. That's my Sunday taken care off.

Others head to Khao Yai to pitch a tent. There are not too many places near Bangkok where this hobby can be pursued safely.

Right now it's the camping season when hundreds of Khao Yai enthusiasts dust off their lightweight tents and head to the three or four designated sites in the park. They usually take everything but the kitchen sink with them to make camping as comfortable as possible during long weekend stake out. Some hardy folk take their children for the duration of the school holidays, not forgetting of course the TV hooked up to a car battery.

Others are there for research and field trips. They are serious folk sporting the latest long-range binoculars that enable them to spot wildlife from a discreet distance. Usually a team leader briefs them on the dos and don'ts of national park trekking before they trundle off down hardly recognisable trails that start at the national park headquarters.

There are butterfly experts, bird watchers and even those patient enthusiasts whose calling in life is to count tigers in this vast national park. Always they pray for a single sighting that would crown decades of suffering leeches and mosquito bites.

A fancy imported minivan arrives at the car park with automatic doors and a retractable ramp. The driver brings round a wheel chair, the new motorised version. He carefully lifts an elderly gentleman into the chair who stares at stately trees around him almost with a childlike wonder. For senior citizens, Khao Yai is a chance to be with grand children for a day and escape Bangkok's incessant noise and pollution.

For most of the year Khao Yai is relatively quiet but during the "cool season" months of December and January Bangkok day trippers descend on the park in their thousands just to get away from the city. It's a 150 kilometre drive either via Nakhon Nayok (H305) or Pak Chong (H2).

Car drivers are attracted to a circular route following the highway to Saraburi and Pak Chong and then crossing Khao Yai's hilly plains and descending the steep gradients of switch back bends to Prachin Buri. The round-trip is almost 300 kilometre but the road that transverses Khao Yai's 1351 metre high range is the nearest hill circuit to test driving skills south of Lampang.

So take away a handful of bird watchers and forest hikers who love the forest and possibly 90 percent of Khao Yai's visitors are vehicle owners who view the national park as a recreational driving circuit.

Khao Yai's motor cycle fans require a mention. They descend on the park, decked out in leathers, riding a variety of bikes from the heavyweight choppers and fast racing machines to the smallest of pip squeaks that can barely muster the strength clear the speed humps.

Everyone has a different reason for being in the park during the cool season, but it all adds up to another bumper joining the grand traffic snake that wends its way through the hills.

It's a dilemma for the national parks, that desperately need the gate revenue that cars and day trippers bring. Yet they acknowledge the huge stress vehicles exert on the park's resident wildlife.

Earlier this year Khao Yai was awarded Unesco's coveted "World Heritage" status. The title proudly adorns the gates, an advertisement that suggests the park has arrived at a pinnacle of success. It's a designation that might not win a nod of approval from the park's wildlife if they ever had a voice.

They suffer stress plenty of it during the long weekends of December and the festive month of January.

On a joyous December 5 public holiday, the park is packed with Bangkokians revving up their powerful cars and motor bikes ready for the fast descent to the Prachin Buri gate. Khao Yai is resplendent, its plains, lakes and forested hills watered by unusually heavy rains. A steel snake of gleaming cars and pickups vie for pole positions as they roll along the road that crosses plains of tall grass leading to the 30-kilometre descent through the Khao Yai range.

We were cycling in the opposite direction around the bends travelling at a snail's pace grinding uphill through a silent forest. A couple of mountain bikers travelling downhill warned us to be wary of "crazy drivers" overtaking on the wrong side of the road, but they didn't mention a "crazy elephant."

Predictably the cars flashed their headlights as they came round a bend, one over taking the other. It was an incessant noisy parade of ill tempered, poorly skilled drivers showing off. Then a lull in the traffic followed; almost silence but for the sharp crack of twigs. We were not the only travellers stressed out by cars at full throttle. Roaring from his cover, a young bull elephant thrashed through the trees and stormed on to the road just ahead of us.

We stopped, speechless scrambling for a foothold on the tarmac in our impractical cycling shoes as the bull elephant shook his head in rage. He raised his trunk trumpeting, stomping his foot; his intentions never in doubt. He was crossing the road and we were in the way.

"You are supposed to fall to the ground and lie still," my colleague told me after he caught up with me 50 metres down the road.

The bull elephant let us off lightly. He pursued us for less than five metres and headed off into the forest on the other side of the road.

We didn't need to ask what had got under his thick skin on this particularly beautiful morning. Another stream of speeding cars was already approaching. We resumed the climb past where the elephant had charged and round a couple of bends. A monkey with a bright white face contrasted by a black shining head swung from the trees jumping halfway across the road. It landed near the white lane and scampered towards the far edge of the road. The pick up car smacked it hard sending it spiralling into the air. The cars that followed rolled over it. As we passed by it shuddered, a bright line of blood flowing from its small white face on to the tarmac road.

Welcome to a World Heritage national park where humans on holiday wreck havoc on nature. Not exactly the face a national park would want to present to Unesco but it's the reality of an unpoliced environment during the silly season.
Bangkok Post December 2005 www.bangkokpost.com