What is Rod Fai and why is special
Yesterday I decided to have a morning photo walk in one of the biggest and most famous parks (for Thai) in Bangkok; the magic Rod Fai or Officially named Suan Wachira Benjatha.
Originally this big land space was once part of the State Railway of Thailand’s golf course, but later, the total area of 0.6 square kilometers of land was converted to a park. And this was a great idea for the advantage of residents, giving good air in the almost persistent pollution of the city, creating sports activities such as Cycling, running and many others (I usually spot huge groups of mid-age Thai following a course of Zumba or similar and they look very active!).
How to arrive to Rod Fai park
The park is located on the north side of Bangkok, easily accessible by BTS Skytrain or the MRT Underground straight after the Chatuchak market, visited every year by millions of tourists. The good thing is that all the tourists that they will visit the market, they will not go on and have a walk inside this magic place, full of birds, butterflies, lizards, small lakes, rivers and lot of space to enjoy some sport activities or simply walk and listen the sounds of nature at two steps from the busy traffic of Bangkok.
The map to reach Rod Fai, with directions to go inside easily
To reach the park, if you are in the center of the city, it’s just 20 minutes with public transports, take the BTS Skytrain and leave at Mo Chit Station; go out the station and walk along the main road until you will see a small gate on the left, enter the gate and you are already in the park. Precisely, when you enter at that gate, you are entering Queen Sirikit Park, but both are connected so it will be easy to visit both of them. I always prefer Rod Fai, because is less “touched” and most of the people will stop before.
I attached above an image where you could see the walk I usually do as soon as I leave Mo Chit BTS station to reach easily the park.
Yesterday was an amazing morning in the park, I spotted many Indian Ponds, egrets, herons and for the first time a Javan Pond Heron!
I often make the same path clockwise around the park, taking some sidetrack to explore new hidden spots and small water ponds; this time I was really lucky because I spotted new birds I never saw and I made some good images for my website. I also started to save on my map where I spot birds and which species, to have a clearer idea of where to head first as soon as I enter the park before the sun goes up and the temperature rises.
I also spotted a Kingfisher
I tried to take a photo of him but was too far and clearly not in a safe spot; under the tree where he was sitting there were a big Monitor Lizard waiting for him.
After the curious lucky Kingfisher, I headed on the main path, that cut the park in two and I found a new pond I did not see last year, I’m not sure if it’s me that I don’t remember well but that area changed a lot this year and they added a lot of more flowers and small benches to relax under the shadows of the trees.
It’s exactly here that I took a break for a bit and I started observing birds arriving in this pond.
My break lasted maybe less than 5 minutes because I got excited at the opportunity I was having. I immediately get in the lowest position I could, carefully checking if my slow crawling to approach the side of
the pond was scaring the birds. I won the scary test, found a relatively good position to be able to use my camera and look at the viewfinder (in the 5d mark IV there’s no orientable LCD). I always shoot in Manual mode for birds, my settings were good, I changed the settings at 1/1600 at f7.1 ISO 1600: I closed a bit the aperture because I saw that at 1600 ISO I was pretty in a safe spot for not having noise in my final images (the widest aperture at 600mm on Tamon 150-600 G2 is f6.3); also closing the aperture give me more sharpness and the chance to don’t miss the focus if slightly in back/front of the eye. I jumped
between these settings and 1/2000 at f6.3 ISO 2000. I used a fast shutter speed thinking that these birds usually have very fast movements of the head when they catch a bug or a little fish and my idea was to freeze that moment if happened.
I was not so lucky and patient to bring home crazy action bird shots, but I’m really happy with the photos I did today.
It was a relaxed morning and there were very few people around. I love these situations, you can hear sounds of nature, follow bird singing and take your time to enjoy the moments. Like this Finlayson’s squirrel, he was so calm he closed his eyes and start stretching and sleeping.
These situations are common in Rod Fai, if you never visited it and you will stay in Bangkok for few days, it’s time to change the usual tourist route and see what else this city has to offer.
I hope you enjoyed this article and I wait for you here for my next adventure. Next week I will visit the Khao Yai National Park! Stay tuned for new updates.
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