Khao Sok (National Park)

We arrived in Surat Thani at 4:30 am and as soon as we got of the boat we were mobbed by people offering taxi's there there and everywhere. We thought about getting a public bus but found that the bus station didnt open untill a few more hours and we really didnt want to wait around that long so we once again we had to submit to one of the people offering rides. We knew we were going to pay more than we neded to but this time we actually had a new lie thrown our way. Before we had even finished speaking to a lady offering a lift she was already pushing us into a mini van that was apprently going to take us to Khao Sok. We drove for 1 minute and then got dropped of outside another bleeding tourist office (we knew after learing over the last few weeks that they all work together dropping you off always at another office so you think you have to buy your ticket from them). We knew we were goign to pay more but we just wanted to get there and in reality when we pay more it only works out to maybe 2 pounds more so its not a major issue, just annoying knowing that you are being played by the system ;) but what we hadnt experienced it a straight out lie telling us that our minivan would take us at 5am when infact the following happened. We got into a truck that was going to take us to our minivan but instead were dropped of an another tourist office and then the van quickly drove away leaving us to face finding out for ourselves what had just happened, this is also after we had paid for our tickets. We walked in and spoke to the tourist lady who explained that it was her companies minivan that was going to be taking us but it wouldnt arrive until 6:30am, not the 5am we were promised. We obviously kicked up a bit of a fuss but the lady at the seconf office was actually quite nice and told us that the previous tourist office always did this to her, told people they would get a van a certain time to get them to buy a ticket and then dump them at the 2nd office and leave her to deal with it. She even admitted to us that the lady we dealt with at the port called her up and told her to lie to us telling us the van would be there at 5 am to keep us happy. She even called her a cow and crazy lady and appologised to us for being lied to. What could we say, it wasnt too bad, chilled out and caught up on some more sleep. We told her our plans for khao Sok and she was nice enough to call up noe her contacts tehre who would sort us with some accomodation and trips while we were there. We told her we were on a tight schedule and managed to get a tour sorted out for us when we arrived so we could go straight out which was wicked! The van arrived on time (kind off), we got in and carried on catching up on sleep for the next hour and a half.

We arrived in Khao Sok after driving through some really nice scenery and were instantly met with our nice lady tourist person's contact. He was a real nice guy who sorted us out some Jungle huts and then helped us create a custom tour with cut down versions of activites so we could do as much as possible in 1 day. It was good travelling around ina group of 6 because we were always getting good deals as we were a tour group just being the 6 of us so people didnt mind just taking us out privately. We chose a pretty cool customised trip which i'll explian as I go through. our tour guide was awesome, a real friendly guy who we spoke to all the way on the 1 hour journey (he even offered to take us shopping after the trip to a proper thai road market) into the middle of the park or so we thought. We arrived at a small jetty and then boared a long boat. The scenery by this point was breath taking. Huge mountains just rising out of an absolutely massive lake that stretched as far as the eye could see.We then spent the next hour cruising along this lake even further into the middle of the park, yes an dhour drive and now an hour boat journey just to get to our starting point. We arrived real early so the journey time didnt bother us at all, plus the fact our guide was telling us about loads of stuff on the way through.

We finally arrived at Tone Tuey, a small settlement in the middle of this amazing place with bamboo huts built on the river. Infact everything here was made of bamboo. We were treated to some lunch before we started our activities. Lovely sweet and sour dishes and sea food fried rice with pineapple and watermellon, yum!

We then set off on our frst activity, caving!! We had to trek thoguh the jungle for about an hour to reach the cave. There a lots of cave which are famous in the national park because in the 1970's

Thai students, who had joined the communist insurgency groups, set up a stronghold in Khao Sok, since it was ideal territory to hide and operate guerilla warfare. Between 1975 and 1982 these students not only kept the Thai Army at bay, but also kept the loggers, miners and hunters out. Had it not been for this seven year occupation, Khao Sok's forests may well have gone the same way as much of the rest of Thailand's wilderness - up in smoke. On the way to the cave we could hear gibbons but didnt get to see any. We passed through some rivers and clibed over fallen trees and was shown one of the biggest trees in the forest, our tour guide grabbed a rock and bashed it against the trunk, a huge thud echoed out across the forest, it was mad how loud it was, naturally we all had a go after that!

We arrived at the cave and attached our head torchs. We were told by the guide no stopping unless he said so and to move quickly when he said so...made us feel very safe hmmm. We started our journey down stopping of along the way to see bats, spiders, frogs, toads, and crazy rock formations. there were plenty of shrieks from the girls when we hit the spider and bat sections but we soon got used to the fact we wernt alone in there ;) If we shined our torches across the open space you could see hundreds of spiders eyes light up, was a bit scarey but our tour guide, whose name we now knew as Cheung, explained they were not poisonous. We passed though smoe pretty smelly areas where the bats droppings were and then hit the water! Cheung put everything in his waterproof bag (except my waterproof camera of course) and we headed down ito the water. At first it was hip deep but then we came to a real thin section where we had to hold to a rope and pull ourselves throguh neck high water. Was great fun and a good experience, no safety equipment just be carefull and use your brain! We emerged the other side all happy with what we had achieved and with some great pics or the trip.

We trekked back though the jungle to the bamboo raft houses where we were then given some kayaks. We got into pairs and being 3 guys and 3 girls obviously the guys had to paddle the ladies around. We didnt mind though was fun to paddle out into the lakes warm turquoise waters. We messed around for a while and then headed back to the raft houses again to mess around on the bamboo diving board! We spent the rest of the day chilling out at Tone tuey pulling shaped again as we threw ourselves off the bamboo diving board.

We left as the sun was setting and on the way back to our jungle hut Cheung stopped of as a street market and we all spent 20 mins walkign through it tasting some amazing foods. It was some of the best stuff id seen so far! We all rode in the back of the pick up on the way home being cooled by the breeze and lookng at the stars that were very bright because of the fact there was no lights around for miles.

We had dinner at our bamboo huts restaurant that night, basically a huge tree house and booked our next minivan over to Krabi for the morning where we would catch a ferry across to Ko Phi Phi, our next island destination! It was a brilliant day, we arrived early got a full days tour in and saw a good mix of stuff that you wouldnt normally get to see all in one day. We were moving along quick experiencing as much as we could along the way. Next stop Phi Phi!