Erawan Falls

On our first morning in Kanchanaburi Province, I took my family out to Erawan National Park. This was the very first national park I ever visited in Thailand and, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful natural spots in the whole country.

We left our van and set off across the paved path towards the visitor center. You might think that the paved walkway would be safe, but no! As we were making our way towards the park office, a huge snake suddenly appeared, slithering its way across the path in front of us.

Neither my mom nor brother are fans of snakes (and neither am I, to be completely honest), and we had to wait a while for the snake to move its way across our path and into the dense jungle off to the side.

(Later, we would learn that this was a Banded Rat Snake [Oreocryptophis porphyraceus], a common nonvenomous snake frequently found in the jungles of Thailand).

The Erawan Falls are a seven-tiered waterfall at Erawan National Park.

The hiking trail takes intrepid visitors up a steep and slippery path past seven magnificent waterfalls on the way to the top of the tropical jungle hills at Erawan National Park.

Erawan National Park, a 210 sq mi park in western Thailand in the Tenasserim Hills of Kanchanaburi Province, was established in 1975 as Thailand's 12th national park. Today, it's one of the kingdom's most popular tourist destinations, and for good reason.

Erawan is one of the most accessible national parks in Thailand, with several daily busses running from the Kanchanaburi Town Center right to the front gate. I'd love to go on a camping trip here, hopefully sooner rather than later!

The park is notable for its incredibly rich and diverse wildlife: Asian black bears, Asian elephants, muntjac barking deer, sambar deer, civets, slow lorises (one of my favorite animals), gibbons, leopard cats, tigers, and more. However, in the heavily trafficked area around the visitor's center, the more exotic and dangerous animals are thankfully nowhere to be seen (for our safety as well as theirs).

We started at the bottom of the falls and began hiking up to each successive tier.

As a way to help protect the environment, no food or drink is allowed past Tier 2 of the waterfall. You can check in to register a plastic bottle, but you must pay a deposit which can be collected when you come back down to the visitor's center. I think that is really great! One thing that has always impressed me about Thailand is how much of the country is managed and maintained by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (the Thai NPD). It's more than 20% of the country's territory.

Erawan National Park in particular is an especially beautiful park. The waterfalls fill up crystal-clear blue-green pools full of fish. The trek up to the seventh tier is a bit of a workout, but not too difficult. It was a warm and muggy morning. While many visitors were swimming in the cool pools beneath the falls, we opted not to, choosing instead to continue the trek up the hills.

We were really lucky that it was a pretty mild morning. Although it was humid, it was not too warm. We had a great trek up the falls.

After our hike, we ate lunch at a local on-site restaurant, then met our driver to take us onwards to our next destination.