Farm Chokchai — the farm where the cow is king.
If you’ve seen an ‘Umm… Milk!’ ice cream location, you might have wondered where the milk came from. Whether you’re interested in the Chokchai legacy (and the Chokchai Museum) or the only farm that’s considered a tourist attraction / theme park in its own right.
First started in 1957 by Chokchai Bulakul, the fully integrated dairy farm has 8,000 acres of land and 5,000 head of cattle. While the history is relegated to a whitewashed video at the beginning of the tour, we’ll get to that in short order.
Getting here means starting from Nakhon Ratchasima (90km away) or Bangkok (160km away) — and there’s precious little in the way of public transportation here. We caught a bus from Nakhon Ratchasima, and the bus driver knew where to stop.
With tours starting every 20 minutes on the weekend, you won’t be waiting too long for things to get started. You’re warned the tour guides speak in Thai only, though ours offered a fair bit in English as well.Featuring music from the Thomas Crown Affair, the introductory video seems filmed from the 1990’s. It’s subtitled in English, and is a fair introduction to the history of the farm.
After the ten-minute video, we were led past a few historic vehicles — the 1957 Peugot pick-up that was the first pickup truck in Thailand, and a Ferguson tractor, the first tractor to work the fields here.
Not pictured here is a short stop in the artificial insemination building, which involved a few videos that might help to explain the birds and the bees to the under-12 crowd. No actual insemination was happening, but a real-life cow posed for pictures while a video shows the dirty deed getting done.
More photogenic — and hands-on, if you like — is an opportunity to hand-milk some of the farm’s cows. A couple panels above offer some context: cows are milked three times a day, ostensibly due to their ‘high yield of milk’. The tour guide called for volunteers to try hand-milking the cows…
…and a couple of folks were happy enough to give it a try.
Before long, we boarded a trailer styled like an old-school carriage to get around the thousands of acres:
Just one of the pens — more than a few pens featured all the cows trying to stay under shade due to the hot sun.
Wait, where are we again? Self-sufficient farms need lots of corn, I guess.
The next major stop was a headquarters of carnival games, opportunities to ride ponies or horses, or pick up some souvenirs. Before we could explore much, the show started:
With a ring the size of a sumo-wrestler’s pit, you’d happily forgive the horses for wanting some more room. The show introduced cowboys and cowboy tricks well-known to anyone who grew up on American cartoons, but probably less known to the local kids…
Rope tricks: good. The man demonstrating the sonic boom from the end of a whip: good. Not pictured were the laughable attempts at calf roping and gun handling — as this performance is part of your job, you’d think you’d be better at it…
If you came to the cowboy farm hoping to get some time on the farm, this is the area is to ride a horse (or, as my wife found out, get led around a larger ring), a pony, or even an ATV on a separate track. You have adequate time to take a ride, get some souvenirs, or try your luck at any of the western-themed carnival games. Nothing new here, but it’s cute for the couples on their second or third dates.
…and then there’s the ‘My Little Friends Stage’ — if you have kids, they’ve likely exhausted their ability to behave after close to two hours of walking, sitting, and walking some more. Listen for the Mission Impossible theme.
He doesn’t just bike, he does math too.
It’s cute, I guess — the dog held the bottle while the calf attempted to drink from it. The banter from the humans could have been toned down a bit, however…
Next stop: the petting zoo. Pick up some grass or milk for a few baht to feed the open-range deer, the sheep, or carrots for the rabbits:
There’s a warning sign that the rabbits might bite, meaning you’ll get to feed them through the fence.
Go on, you know you want to feed them before… they, um.. feed you?
There isn’t much left on the trip — the trolley takes you back to the entrance of a souvenir shop, which offer a nice gamut of plush stuffed sheep and cows, horseshoes, and products made from milk. Cowboy hats and a few other leather offerings are around, complete with a wide range of prices (from 380 baht for a formed, felt hat to 2,500 baht for a leather cowboy hat you’d see on the staff’s heads).
Beyond the souvenir shops and opportunities to stock up on properly branded dairy products, there are no fewer than four places to get a meal from a steak raised locally. Your choice will likely be based on your budget and time. Chokchai Steakhouse is the flagship restaurant, with steaks starting at 300 baht and going way up from there. Chokchai Steakburger is a fine mid-budget restaurant, with burgers starting at 100 baht (fries and drink extra) . The steak hut (curiously advertising some salmon specials) is a bit hidden away, while the steak kebab is a good place for a quick, cheaper snack while waiting for your tour to start. You passed by them all on the way to start the tour, so it’s simply a matter of backtracking to your choice before making your way back to your car.
I can see why it’s garnered awards from the tourism authorities. It’s a fun, well-laid-out, and well executed tour — a reminder that repetition and decent training go a long way. I remain a bit disappointed in the language barrier, however — they must know that an increasing percentage of their tourists aren’t from Thailand (at least four folks from our tour looked Japanese). The prices I can live with thanks to the theme-park-like experience, but some serious improvement on public transportation is absolutely essential.
Name: Chokchai Farm AKA Farm Chokchai
Address: 170 Moo 2 Friendship Highway, Nongnamdaeng, Pakchong, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand (GPS: 14.656036, 101.346482)
Directions: Chokchai Farm is roughly halfway between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima — we started from Nakhon Ratchasima and took a bus towards Bangkok. Be sure to mention where you’re looking to get off when buying your ticket. This is about a 90 kilometer ride, so budget between 1 and 1 1/2 hours to arrive.
Getting back from Chokchai Farm will require some patience. Start by taking the overhead crosswalk to the opposite side of the road. While you might be able to flag down a passing bus headed back to Nakhon Ratchasima, we had little luck (they’re usually in the right-most lane and not looking to pick up potential passengers). Instead, keep your eyes out for white minivans heading back to Nakhon Ratchasima and proceed from there. Due to the distance from a major city, there are no taxis or tuk-tuks around.
Hours: Tours offered from 9am to 3:40pm on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays — new tours start every 20 minutes. For Tuesday through Friday, the only two tours are at 10am and 2pm. The farm to closed to tours on Monday — whenever you go, each tour lasts 2 1/2 hours.
Admission: 300 baht for adults, 150 baht for children (same for Thais and foreigners).
Phone: 08–6260–2577
Website: farmchokchai.com
