After such a touristy time in Phuket we decided it was time for some culture and went up to Khao Sok to get our trek on.

Back to another hut on stilts with a big need for mozzie nets! At leats this time we had an actual shower unlike Koh Jum.
We went on a hike/caving trip with a local guy who had the most amazing bamboo tattoos and Kat got the tatto bug again, but managed to refrain herself.
There was just us 3, the guide who was called Sa, and a german couple who were on holiday.
Sa was training to be a search and rescue guy so we knew we were in safe hands.

We drove up to the lake in the national park which was an amazing drive so early in the morning as the clouds where still covering the tops of the mountains and you could just see the tops through them.
We got a long boat to a floating village in the lake which was very cool, you could actually stay there, but considering the group we figured one of us would forget we were on a raft and walk out our room door and drown. probably kat.

We had lunch here and a kayak around, except coop who wimped out because you had to walk through a swarm of bees to get to the kayaks. Apparently it was completely safe though and they would only swarm if you killed one, great!

Sa took us on what can only be described as a boy racer version of a long boat, if he could have had subs and a body kit on it i think he would have!
We began the 'trek' which was more of a bimble through the jungle with a couple of streams to walk over, hard core! This kind of unprepared us for the caving which was quite the opposite.
Weve definatley got our silver caving badges after this one! Half of it was underwater and we had to swim though with the help of ropes as the river was flowing in the opposite direction! That and the fact that Kat dropped her torch in the water half way through and coop didnt have one at all, so we were only using Sa and Claires.
We learnt from this caving in the dark where you have to swim, without a torch is not as easy as one would expect! there was a few near drownings and some flip flop rescue missions before we reached the dry section of the cave, which turned out to be more scary for Kat and Claire as there were spiders the size of your hand, so there was some very gentle 'oh look at that lovely rock over there claire' from kat to prevent a full on panic attack, and a bat poo incident which kat would rather not talk about.

After this ordeal was over we headed back through the jungle and back on the GT long boat to the floating island for another swim to get rid of the bat poo and have a drink with some londoners we met along the way.

Back at our place in Khao Sok and we headed to Khao Lak which took us back to people which we werent very impressed with, coop did a scuba tour of the similian islands then we headed straight to Kanchanaburi via Bangkok after a mass panic that coop was gonna miss the bus. In true coop style he rocked up 15 mins late and wandered over to the bus with kat and claire screaming at him to hurry the hell up!
Compounding the nickname fee short for faffer extrordinare which was started in Koh Jum.

The Semilan Islands were amazing! The white sand, the coral and the fish were beautiful, I even Saw a turtle!! The beaches were out of bounds on most of the Islands as turtles had laid their eggs there. The tour really just took use around some snorkeling sites and then we had lunch. The only way to stay on the Islands is to camp in the pre pitched tents. I would have done this if I had more time. Getting back to get the bus was a bit rushed, but Kat and Claire had clearly not adjusted to "Thai time". Just chill and it all will be fine. After the telling off, we still had to wait 45 mins for the bus..