Nam Nao National Park, Phetchabun Province, Thailand

4Debbie M 5:00 PM Sep 5, 2017

Refreshing stay - Cabin was simple but nice
Nam Nao National Park is on the major highway between Northeast Thailand and North Thailand. This makes the highway busy. The busy season for the park is during winter because it gets colder there that most of Thailand. That is why the thermometer is famous - to show how cold it is! Since we went in August it was warmer, but definitely cooler than the Bangkok area. We drove about 5 hours from Ayutthaya Province. The park was not very busy at all. Some days we were the only tourists around! The weekend, which was the Queen's birthday and thus a holiday, was a bit busier - but still there were very few around except the workers. We stayed 6 nights. We stayed in bungalow 301. It is the only 6 bed cabin. It worked well for our group - 2 grandparents, 2 parents, and 5 children. The one room had 4 beds, wall to wall, so no one would roll out of bed unless they were sideways. The parents and children all slept there. The children were ages 8 months to 10 years. They did have a small playpen for the baby to use, but she sometimes slept with everyone else. This room had a cupboard with 6 towels in it. It also had 4 hooks to hang things on. The other room had 2 beds side by side, and worked well for the grandparents. This room was also the main room. There was a decent size refrigerator with separate door for the freezer, which was nice. We hadn't expected a refrigerator so had brought a cooler and ice, expecting to use boxed milk (which the Thai use regularly) after the first day or two. We refroze the ice and used it when we returned. There was a TV (which we didn't use), a hot pot, and some bowls, cups and silverware, and a dish drainer. There was a cabinet that was locked that we used for a counter. This room had one power strip that was the only power outlet. There was a little bit of empty space in this room, which was needed for walking back and forth. The front door was at the foot of the beds. The bathroom was off of this room as well. This was a typical Thai bathroom with shower, sink & toilet (Western style) all together with no partitions. There was a hot water heater, but the higher you turned the heat up the slower the water flowed. There was a mirror over the sink with a ledge for toothbrushes & toothpaste. There was also a back door to a little porch where there was a sink for washing dishes. There were screens on the windows, but there were cracks around the doors. Also the bathroom drain was unscreened so large spiders and moths flew in there. One night I got bit numerous times so turned on the light and found my bed was full of tiny ants that were biting me. They were coming in under the door at the foot of the bed and found a shirt that had a bit of fruit juice on it. These "sugar ants" bite!! There was a can of bug killer in the cabin and a quick spray on the bottom of the door stopped the ants. There was a small covered porch where there was a table and 4 chairs. There was a little yard with a concrete picnic table and 4 concrete stools, but there were lots of ants by the table and all over the yard. We still played a lot in the yard. One night we went outside and watched the beautiful Perseids Meteor Shower, something we could not have seen from the city. I will try to scan the map of where the bungalows are so you can get some idea of where certain numbers are. There is not a map on the National Park webpage. The cabins seem to spread out from the Visitor's Center. There are usually 2 cabins somewhat close together. Cabin 301 was the closest, which made it easy to go get ice cream cones or bars from the little "gift shop". There was one little restaurant open that we ate at every day, either for lunch or supper/dinner. The prices were a little higher than other places, but still not bad. A meal for all 9 of us that would usually coast about 600 baht ($18 US) cost about 800-900 baht ($25-$27). That includes drinks. WARNING: The trails that start by the Visitor's Center have leeches on them. On the sign it says snails, but these are land leeches. We started taking one trail the first morning, assuming that this would be like the leech trails at Kao Yai National Park, where we got 2 leeches on 6 of us the whole walk. These trails are very leechy!! We turned around shortly as the 4 year old started to shriek and we all had leeches on us - on our socks, under our feet on the insoles of our sandals, on our legs, etc. These leeches look like dark inch worms - they crawl like inch worms and are small and thin. They keep one end on the ground and wave the other end around looking for a victim! They bite right through your socks, crawl up your legs, and hang on leaving your leg bloody when pulled off! We later bought special canvas leech socks at the "gift shop" for 80 baht a pair (about $2.50) for the ones who decided to brave the leech hike. In the one kilometer hike the 6 year old counted about 120 leeches. These are just the ones she saw - not all those that were hiding in the leaves. The man at the Visitor's Center told us the leech socks were 30 baht a pair. I don't know if their price went up that much or if that is the price during the busy season and it was higher because it was off season. There are other trails that do not have leeches on them. The hike to the Sai Thong waterfall and Heo Sai waterfall had no leeches. However the pamphlet given to us at the entry gate was not accurate. We decided to go to the farther one first, then return to the other. In the pamphlet it says that Sai Thong waterfall is only 500 meters beyond Hao Sai. When we arrived at the "Y" one sign said Sai Thong 2375 meters and Hao Sai 120 meters. We went to the left and walked a while and came to a stream that went over Hao Sai waterfall. It was pretty, and refreshing. We walked on and on until the 8 year started screaming! She had hit a wasp nest and was covered in wasps. Grandpa took his shirt off and knocked the wasps off of her. The 8 year old got 9 stings, the 10 year old got one, and Grandpa and Daddy each got one rescuing the others. Needless to say we turned around there and went to Hao Sai waterfall. We soaked the stings at the stream, then continued to the other waterfall. The children played around by the waterfall and Grandpa went swimming. We went back another day and all splashed in the water, stood under the waterfall, and swam for several hours. The water was the perfect temperature to play in for hours!! This was the favorite day for many of us. We took a picnic lunch and ate it as far away from where we were playing as possible as the ants were awful. Daddy dropped the rest of us off and then went to the nearest town to get gas and some groceries. He still had time to play in the water after he got back!! One evening we went to "Sunset Viewpoint" or "Tham Pha Hong" viewpoint. We went early so we could look for a small cave that seemed to be near. There was a parking area by the main road where we parked. There was a road that we walked up, but it had huge puddles and was very muddy - suitable only for 4 wheel drive vehicles or motorcycles. We came to the end of the road and found the path, stairs, going up to the viewpoint, but no sign for the cave. We split up, going 3 different directions and found the cave by going past the parking area or viewing area there on a small winding path along the side of the hill. There was a steep ladder going up to the cave so Daddy helped all the children with Grandpa receiving at the top but Grandma stayed down as she had hurt her wrist. While she was waiting Grandma heard a loud racket, and thought it was from crows or squirrels. Well she finally saw two monkeys!! Phayre's Leaf-monkey is what they have there, and they were swinging in the tree tops. We all went up the 259 steps to the viewpoint and took pictures but came down before the sun set because it would have been hard to come down all those steps in the dark. We spread a mat on the parking area and ate our picnic and watched the sun set. It was beautiful! Most of the hikes required us to leave the National park boundaries, but we just showed our pass each time and only had to pay the first time. Sometimes we didn't even need to show anything as they recognized us. There were lots of signs warning of elephants, but we never saw any elephants. There were many lovely butterflies, moths and birds that we saw. We saw dung of different animals, smelled animals nearby, and saw "foot" prints of many animals, but did not see any large animals at all. We did see a large - about 6 inches long - black scorpion on the driveway one time, but it never got near us. Hint - we took a clothesline along and found a way to hang it up under the eaves of the porch. It came in very handy - for bath towels, for swim suits, and so we could wash juicy clothes right away to keep the ants at bay. Take soap along for washing clothes as well as dishes.

4Valueseeker13 5:00 PM Jan 12, 2020

Dry season visit... no leeches!
I reviewed this in the wet season in 2017 when the leeches were just too much to bear in the forest trails. Not a leech in sight this time so much more straightforward. We rented the camping gear which is really recommended - it’s all good quality and not expensive, the tent big enough to be comfortable. Birds if anything were less obvious than in the wet season - woodpeckers especially less obvious than in July, but the long tailed and silver breasted Broadbills were great amongst other species. And the small flock of olive backed pipits most endearing.