We arrived in Bangkok DMK airport on a morning flight via AirAsia, greeted by our friendly Thai driver, Mr Green, who brought us for a simple lunch at the local food court on the way to Khao Yai. It is really where the local go, hardly anyone that speak English, so we had to use a lot of sign language to order our food (imagine I was struggling to say No Prawn and Non spicy when ordering for the kids, lol)
• Palio Italian Village
It was a long 3 hour drive, we fell asleep soon after entering the highway and when we woke up, we were overlooking some beautiful Tuscan buildings!
The village is not that big but I had to say it's very well planned and well maintained, they really tried to replicate the Europe villages experience, the entire place reminded me of the French villages we visited 2 years ago.
Palio is a picturesque townville, with luscious plants that climb over walls and buildings, colorful flora and bushes in ever corner, pebbles path and steps, classical music on the play and live music performance in the evening... Despite many stores were not in operations (there were some fashion, handmade stores and one ice cream shop), it is still an interesting place to visit.
Remember to go up the tower thru the spiral steps for an unobstructed view of the village.
The kiddos were excited to discover the maze garden, it's not magnificent like the Royal Botanica garden of Melbourne or the Trick Garden in Austria, but it is petite and beautiful.
Visitor Information:
- Entrance fee: Free (parking THB20)
- Visiting hours: 9:00am – 8:00pm daily
- - Location: Mitrapab - Thanarat Intersection, 5km from Chokchai Farm
- Tips: best to visit on weekends as I've read that some shops are closed on weekdays.
• The Witches Brew Restaurant @ Vinetto Piazza
The restaurant is located within 5 minutes walking distance from Palio, serving Thai and western cuisines. Very reasonably priced and thumbs up for their warm hospitality. The best experience I had with green curry - to eat with crispy roti canai, never would have thought of it.
The kind lady (who is also the chef and the owner's wife) brought the duo a big bag of ultraman figurines, they literally went hysterical as they never had so many ultramans figurines before. Lol.
We ordered 3 main courses and 2 pints of Singha beers, only cost us THB990. Very reasonable, as I said earlier. Perhaps because it's the ONLY restaurant in the entire area, the rest of the shops are still unoccupied (some under construction)
The biggest surprise was the Princess carriage located in the center of the piazza, C couldn't wait to snap photos after photos... Any little girls' dream I would say :)
Day 2 Sunday
• PB Valley Vineyard tour & Wine Tasting
• Chokchai Farm
• Khao Yai Premium Outlet
• Dinner @ Krua Khai Yai
Breakfast was generous & healthy kind, we had our coffee overlooking the pond, surrounded by chirping birds, tiny butterflies and listening to the sound of flowing water.. while kiddos enjoy themselves at the swing nearby.
I even took C for a bicycle ride while admiring the flowers around, they planted a lot of roses, ixora and other colorful flowers around the area. Simply refreshing!
• PB Valley Vineyard & Winery Tour
PB Valley vineyard was founded in 1989 and is one of the most well known wineries in the region. There is a total of 500 hectares of land and with over 60 varieties of grapes which was sourced from France, Australia, Spain and Italy. They have their own vineyard, winery and restaurants called the Horn Bill restaurants serving local and western cuisines.
We arrived at the PB Valley vineyard around 10:15am, just in time for the vineyard tour. The carriage can accommodate about 24 passengers and there was an English speaking guide that introduced us around the vineyard.
We've been to the Moët Chandoney and other winery in Melbourne couples of years ago. The setup of this winery is pretty impressive but when it comes to wine tasting, there is really a significant different in the taste of the wines and the wine tasting experience. However, considering the amount we paid (the fee included 3 glasses of wines), this was a worthy visit and I would think it is a good experience for anyone visiting Khao Yai.
We attempted to hijack the truck :)
At the vineyards & wine tasting.
The duo's first time in a winery, so amazed by the giant wine chiller where the wines are chilled at 24°c between 12 months (white wines) to 24months (red wines). These are for the white wines while the reds are stored in oak barrels.
Lunch at the Horn Bill restaurant was a relaxing one; soft ambience, prompt services and splendid view of the vineyard. The ribs were delicious but I found my beef steak a bit too old and hard to chew.
Wondering around the restaurant ..
Important Info
Tour & Wine Tasting: THB400(adult) | THB200(children)
Green Season Package:
- THB590 (local main course) or THB990 (western main course)
- includes main course, a glass of wine and fresh sorbet.
- Visit their Facebook page here
- Tip: February is as a good time to visit, as it's the harvesting month and the weather is cooling ;-)
• Chokchai Farm
Chokchai farm is located about 30minutes away from the PB Valley vineyard, and I pre-booked the tour knowing that the kiddos will like this place - cows, milks and ice cream.
After getting our entrance ticket, we proceed with our first activity - milk the cow! You can opt to milk the cow by hands or just stand aside to watch, like us :)
Machine milking (reminded me of my breast pumping session, lol). The kiddos were seriously amazed to see the amount of milk abstracted!
We then proceed to milk factory & ice cream tasting. Kind of disappointed as they only explained how it works (half the time in Thai) while we were expecting an actual demo. Anyway, the milk ice cream was creamy and rich.
We then boarded the truck that took us around the farm.
The kiddos enjoying some shooting games before the cowboy show began.
Important Info
Entrance + Tour Fee: THB300(adult) | THB150(children above 90cm)
Tour hour: Visit their website for more info, make sure you arrived at least 30 minutes before the tour.
• Khao Yai Premium Outlet
Initially I wanted to bring the kids to the zoo, but after reading some disappointing review of the zoo, Idecided to visit the premium outlet instead.
It houses about 50 different brands; some sports brands (adidas, Nike), some female wear (can't recall any particular brand), and men's wear (Lacoste, Timerland), but nothing much that excites me... No branded bags as I can recall.
We spent about an hour here and decided to leave early. Sorry but this is just not quite my kind of place.
• Dinner @ Krua Khao Hai
This is a popular Thai restaurant serving the most authentic dishes at amazingly reasonable price. How we know it's authentic? Its almost full house and we were the only foreigners around, everyone else were speaking in Thai. Lol.
The food was surprisingly delicious. If you are a tomyam lover like me, you would love their tomyam soup - hot and sour and full of flavor! Their green curry chicken, sty fried sunflower sprouts and the salt fish egg Omelete (which is their speciality) all deserved thumbs up too!
All these, plus a large bottle of Shinga beer for only THB795!
Super satisfied with my tomyam khai (chicken), not a single drop of soup left!
With that, we returned to our hotel with a very satisfied stomach.
Day 3 Monday
• Khao Yai National Park
• Huew Suwat Waterfall
• Thimgsomnoon Club
• the Bloom Flora park
• Vienticco restaurant @ Granmonte Winery
Khao Yai National Park spans over 2,000 hecters and is an UNESCO world heritage site. Many wild life enthusiastics were seen busy capturing pictures of the wild life and birds that were roaming free in the park.
• Haew Suat Waterfall
The waterfall is located some 26km away from the park entrance, took us a good 25 minutes to reach by car. It is quite a winding route, but a scenic one passing thru reservoir, lush woods, open fields and mountain top.
But, we finally arrived at the haew Suwat waterfall only to find there isn't any waterfall now as there has not been enough rain.. What?!!! But despite the disappointment, we explored the quiet stream and discovered a spot full of butterflies..
Love the Mystical view with the messy branches and their turquoise green reflection. If only we had our Nikon SLRs with us.
Important Info
Entrance Fee: THB400 (adult foreigner) | THB200 (children above 4yo) | Vehicle + driver THB100
Visiting hour: please check the website
• The Chocolate Factory
We stopped by this modern cafe for lunch, I was expecting a chocolate factory, but it's really just a chocolate shop and fusion restaurant, selling hand crafted chocolate, local and western cuisine. Haha, what a mistake. Anyway the ambience was nice, but the pork tenderloin I had was rather dry and the portion of the pasta was rather small (for the price they charged)
If you would like a nice place to chill out and fulfill your sweet tooth, this may be the right place. Their almond dark chocolate was actually pretty nice.
Address: Thanon Thanarath, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
• Thongsomboon Club
Mr Green recommended us to the Thongsoomboon club, an adventour theme park which boosts to have the largest luge in the south east Asia. The kids insisted of going upon seeing the booklet, as they still remember the previous luge rides in Queenstown up till today.
Upon arriving at the entrance, we though the place looked overly quiet as we were the only visitors around. However, later only we found out that the crowd were at the park located 5 minutes away, which can only be reached by the carriage.
The park offered loads of fun and was well worth the ticket price. It cost us a fraction of what we paid at the Queenstown Luge ride, but the major drawback was the weather - it's hot. It would be much more ideal if we come in the winter season.
The sky lift that took us back to the station after the luge ride.
The ATV ride, E and my favorite!
Our ATV broke down... Opps.
So we tried the luge, ATV and mini go-kart (E only, as the minimum height limit is 130cm). There were other plays such as BB gun, flying fox and laser tag, but we decided to move on as I have made plans for other places to visit.
They offered a wide range of accommodation at the park too, from teepee, caravan, cowboy suite to cart suite, looked interesting but it's important to take note the club is quite a distance away fro other places of interest.
Important Info
Entrance Fee:
- THB50/pax (child 4yo and below FOC) for returned carriage ride
- THB150/pax/activities (buy 5 free 1 ride)
- Winter donut only available in winter season
Visiting hour: check their website here
• The Blooms
It was 33°c but we could not resist to visit the Bloom.. It houses over over 1,000 roses, plumbago, lavender and has a very interesting giant guards tunnel.
February would probably be a better time to visit as it is not as hot as now..
The Giant Guard Tunnel. These guards were HUGE! They had winter guards, bitter guards, lufa, swan guards.. Most of which we would not normally see in the market.
• Vincotto @ Granmonte Vineyard
From Blooms, it's only 20 minutes away to the Granmonte Vineyard. I've read good review about this vineyard for the restaurant and their wines. So i insisted to come by this place for our last dinner in Khao Yai.
It was the right decision. The food was fantastic, the vineyard was spectacular and the wine was really smooth and flavorful.
They sure had good chef here. The salmon was cook to perfection and it paired well with the spinach, the Tomka Kai (Tomyam chicken with coconut milk) had a really nice fragrance and Big Guy really enjoyed his rosemary lambshank, which went really well with The Orient Syrah.
But what truly amazed me was their homemade olive spread.. it was so rich and fresh, I could not stop eating my bruschetta topped with the olive spread! and did I forgot to mentioned, it's on the house? ;-)
If we were to visit Khao Yai again, I would sure re-visit Granmonte again!
Important Information:
Address: 52, Moo 9 Phayayen, Pakchong, Nakornachasima, 30320 Thailand.
Vineyard Tour: Weekend @ 10:30 am, 13:30 pm and 15:30 pm.
Tickets Price: Adult|under 20 (THB 300| THB220THB with complimentary bottle of grape juice)' free for children under 5 years old.
For more info, visit their website here or their Facebook page here
Day 4 Tuesday
• Shopping @ Bangkok
• back to KL!
After the big breakfast at The Pig House, we departed back for Bangkok at around 9am and managed to do some last minute shopping in Bangkok, at a Mall nearby to the Dong Mueng airport (which is about 25 minutes away).
Within that 1.5 hours we managed to shop a good 2 boxes full of goods. Some new wooden and porcelain ware for my kitchen and bathroom, and a lot more others. Never underestimate a woman' ability to shop. Lol.
Look at the piles of plates....
Unboxing our loads at home was so satisfying...
My new cooking collection.. Yippee!
With that, we ended our wonderful trip to the Land of Smiles, we will most certainly return for more....
Thanks for reading.. Feel free to post your questions in the comment below, and I shall attemp my best to reply soonest possible (except during working hour.. ;)
Love,
PH
The very limited Thai that I've learnt, may come useful for you..
Sawadeeka - hello
Koh Khun Ka - thank you
Lot noi de mai - discount a little please
Mai Yao Gung - no prawn
Mai piet- no spicy
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