Khao Sok National Park is the oldest rainforest area in the world and is estimated to house 5% of the world's species. The diverse environment allows for various activities like climbing, hiking, kayaking, tubing and rafting. We decided to stay for three nights and wished we’d have stayed longer.
We stayed in Bamboo Huts Resort which cost £5.75 a night, each. A very reasonable price for our own detached, ensuite, bamboo cabin in the heart of a jungle older than the Amazon rainforest. The hut did however make us aware of the sheer concentration of wildlife a lot earlier than we anticipated; we arrived to a lizard as a roommate and a wolf spider taking up residence on the back of our toilet and had to accept “squatters rights”.
Apart from our 40 min walk in the rain from the bus stop to our accommodation, our first night was uneventful, as we booked onto a guided hike the next morning and went for food at the nearest restaurant we could find.
The next day our guided hike started at 9am. We booked through our accommodation with it costing 700 Baht for a half day guided hike with an added 200 Baht national park fee on arrival: a total of 900 Baht, around £20. We expected to be joining a group of people but our hike was just us and the guide: a perk of coming in the quiet wet season. However we were rained on the whole hike: a pitfall of coming in wet season. Despite the rain we thoroughly enjoyed our hike and would recommend it to anyone. We went fully off piste, hacking through jungle terrain, climbing up steep embankments and shuffling across fallen trees to cross rivers. We saw so much wildlife including three types of monkey (gibbon, grey languar and long tailed macaque) tons of frogs and even a flying lizard which our guide caught and let us hold.
Our guide's name was Tuk and he’d lived in the park since his Mum moved to set up a business when he was 7. He knew the jungle like the back of his hand and his passion for living in nature made the trip so much more exciting. Half way through our walk he drew out a machete and started chopping down some bamboo whilst asking us whether we liked tea or coffee; which at the time seemed completely unrelated. It all made sense, however, when we arrived at a shelter where he very impressively lit a fire in torrential rain. He carved us cups from bamboo and boiled tea and coffee to drink from them, making the tour extremely personal; he even whittled us a pair of rings and bracelets. He gave us an extra hour, having our tour finish at 1 rather than 12 and really made the day for us. If anyone is interested in doing a tour with him when visiting Khao Sok, drop me a message as I have his details.
We left the tour thrilled and being in a jungle was everything I had imagined from being a child watching David Attenborough. We had food and debriefed and booked onto a lake trip for our final day.
We again booked the tour with our accommodation, and a full day's lake tour which included: a cave walk, a waterfall hike, kayaking, swimming, a buffet lunch and the national park entrance fee, cost 1700 Baht each, around £39.
After an hour in a mini bus to Cheow Lan Lake the day started with an hour- long tail boat ride to a huge cave. We walked around it for around 30 minutes, taking in massive stalactites, avoiding the copious amounts of bats inhabiting the cave, and saw a spider the size of my head.
After an hour in a mini bus to Cheow Lan Lake the day started with an hour- long tail boat ride to a huge cave. We walked around it for around 30 minutes, taking in massive stalactites, avoiding the copious amounts of bats inhabiting the cave, and saw a spider the size of my head.
Our lunchtime stop was next, which had us stop at a platform surrounded by floating cabins. We were provided an all you can eat buffet which included curry, rice and noodles and were given an hour and a half free time to swim and kayak as we pleased. The scenery was beautiful and we were extremely jealous of the people who had booked to stay in the cabins overnight, they were jumping from their balconies into the water.
Our final activity of the day was the advertised waterfall walk. We assumed we would be hiking to a waterfall as most would, but when we arrived we realised we were climbing up it. This was the highlight of our day as even though the heavens had begun to open (again) and the waterfall was soaking us to the bone, the sheer audacity of hiking through a waterfall in a national park in Thailand, having to traverse rope swings and tree roots the size of small houses, had us laughing the whole way.
Our journey home was not so jolly. An hour on a longtail boat with no shelter in rain so powerful it felt like hail, was not a fun end to the day. However, the events that had just occurred kept us going and we were soon back in the safety of our Bamboo Hut drying off.
To anyone weighing up going to Khao Sok: it may be a bit out of the way and a struggle to get to, but I strongly urge you to come. We researched all options and found that for us going from Phuket was the easiest. I had the best two days of our trip so far doing the two excursions that we booked and have made core memories.