The mountains coiled around the broad valley
turn to silhouettes against a colour wash of
lilac, rose and tangerine. The air is warm
and still, and I can hear what sounds like a
waterfall rushing in the distance. My guide,
Khun Patirop Thipparat, tells me to look up.
The sound isn’t coming from whooshing water
but from a torrent of wrinkle-lipped bats
emerging from their cave to spend the night
hunting for insects.
The colony exits the hillside above Tham
Sila Thom Buddhist temple like smoke seeping
from a volcano. It’s an extraordinary sight.
There are hundreds of the creatures — no
thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, two million, in total, it turns
out — moving in a continuous ribbon across
rice fields and grasslands, around limestone
outcrops and red-roofed farmhouses, towards
rainforested mountains, where they dissolve
into the pink-cloud distance. The only things
that break the snaking stream are the crested
serpent eagles that dive into the flow to pick off
their prey — an easy meal — before the wavy
line reforms.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The beguiling
display goes on for over an hour, perhaps
longer. Finally, we lose sight of the animals
in the darkness. Through the night, the
dormouse-sized bats, with faces like fanged
chrysanthemums, will act as a natural form
of pest control, hoovering up the multitude of
insects found in this agricultural region. The
guano they later produce will become a highlyTHE SUN IS DROPPING SLOWLY,
AS IF WEARY FROM BURNING
SO BRIGHTLY ALL DAY.
prized fertiliser, earning the tiny mammals
the gratitude of local farmers and Buddhist
monks alike. Then, at first light, the torrent
will weave its way back home, vanishing into
the labyrinthine core of the mountain again,
just as it has done for millennia.
This natural spectacular is taking place on
the edges of Khao Yai, Thailand’s first national
park, around 50 miles north east of Bangkok.
Created in 1962 , it’s now the third-largest in
the country, sprawling over four biodiversity-
bursting provinces: Nakhon Nayok, Nakhon
Ratchasima, Prachin Buri and Saraburi.
It’s home to lakes, waterfalls, rock pools,
prehistoric rainforests and a number of rare
and endangered animals. But, bats aside, I’m
here on the trail of a species that until recently
had rarely been seen in the area: Bangkok’s
bohemian set.
“About 10 years ago, people from Bangkok
started building condominiums here,” Khun
Pat (as he asks me to call him) says the next
day, as we continue to explore the outskirts
of the park. “In the past, you could buy land
here very cheaply; now it’s very expensive,”
he says with a smile, which could mean any
number of feelings in Thai culture. But Khun
Pat does have something genuinely good
to beam about: the return of tourism. The
pandemic border closures battered the Thai
tourism industry (which normally accounts for
17% of Thai GDP) and tour guides, the majority
of whom are freelance, were particularly
hard-hit. After 20 years of guiding, Khun Pat
suddenly saw his source of income evaporate.
As we pass an array of private residences
with grandiose names — Chateaux Les
Royales, Rancho Charnvee Country Club, The
Kensington English Garden — he tells me how
he turned to one of his passions to keep his
family afloat. “I love to drink coffee, and evenPrevious pages: Ancient Buddha statue
at Wat Mahathat, in Ayutthaya, a
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Clockwise from top left: A spread of
noodles, pad thai and summer rolls
at Phak Wan Noodles, Ayutthaya;
the Buddhist temple of Wat Yai Chai
Mongkhon, a name that translates as
‘the monastery of auspicious victory’,
Ayutthaya; locally grown food on sale
at Pak Chong Market, Khao Yai; gallery
at 129 Art Museum, Khao Yai