Wow Khoa Sok National Park! What a place, we've loved every minute.

For the last 3days and 2nights we've spent life in the middle of the jungle and sleeping in a floating lake hut. On our bus journey to Khoa Sok we met a lovely couple called Tanja and Christian who were planning on doing exactly the same trip as us, so we agreed we'd do it together to save money!

The trip started when we were dropped up at the peir and greeted by our tour guide "My names two like the number" he said. With our crate of Changs safely in the long tail boat we headed off for an hour journey to "Number 4-Tone tuey huts".
As expected the raft houses were very basic with one mattress, a mosquito net and a partly open roof. To get to the toilet was a trek and obstacle course in itself.

Our first trip was to "Nam Talu cave" meaning water through cave. It took us an hour trek to get to the cave. Two told us that it would take an hour to get through to the otherside and we would be partly swimming it.

Whilst making our way through the cave we saw thousands of spiders, crickets and tonnes of bats. In the cave we rock climbed and squeezed through until we reached the water. We swam through a section of freezing water for around 5minutes with our head torches on and were happy to see the light at the end of the cave!
We had an hour walk back to the boat and the huts for dinner. Two made every trip so much fun by telling us lots of info about jungle life were he'd grown up and making things like bags, flutes, hats and water bottle holders out of the jungle material as we walked on. We were glad there was only 4 of us, as all of the other groups had about 15 in and it felt really personal.

We had the biggest feast waiting for us when we returned. My favourite thai dish, massamun curry and freshly caught fish in sweet and sour sauce to name a few. That night we went on a night safari in twos boat to try and see the nocturnal animals. We saw a hornbill bird, owls and a few big frogs that two try to catch for us to look at. We heard lots of animals but didn't see much this time. We turned off all the torches and it was amazing how clear the stars looked.

We played cards that night and tryed to teach our German friends a few games before an early wake up at 6.45am for a morning safari. I had to shake Matt about 8times before he finally opened his eyes :). (More Chang more fun him and Christian were saying the night before).

Day 2: This morning we managed to see Kibbon monkeys, giant squirrels, eagles and two said he could hear what he thought was elephants breaking bamboo under their feet but we couldn't see them :(. There's also known to be black panthers, black bears and tigers in the park but they try and stay well away from us.

We didn't know what was ahead of us as we were told "surprise surprise my friend". We climbed to the top of gigantic mountain to find a breathtaking view over the park. We sat on a ledge and ate rice and chicken that two had carried up along with a pineapple in his junglemade bag. He'd began to carve us a quarter each. As we sat and enjoyed the view he carved me and Tanja bracelets out of Ratan wood.

That evening before dinner the four of us went cannoing in the lake.

Day 3: As Tanja wasn't feeling well at all her and Christian stayed back for the last trek to Snakes cave. Matt, Two and I trekked to a cave seeing elephant and black bear prints along the way. We went inside the cave and straight away saw a snake of about 2metres. "Great time for photos!" Two said. We thought great time to run! But carried on through, saw some massive spiders and came to a part where there were approx a million bats. Their screeches sounded like a witches cackle and poo made the smell unbearable. We made a swift exit as he said it would take less than an hour for the amonia to kill a person. Fresh air ahhh :)
On the way back two spoke of how he nearly died as a kid bitten by a snake and explained about how the cave we had been in on the first day was very different to normal caves in Thailand as theres water straight through and 10years ago a group of 6 tourists and 2 of his friends had gone inside the cave whilst it was raining and got trapped when the water became too high.

We ate our last lunch overlooking the lake and made our way back to the peir, and said goodbye to two who had been such a legend. Very tired but we'd had a really special time.

Next day we stayed in a tree top bungalow where we were woken up by monkeys causing mischief on the balcony. This has defiantly been our favourite trip so far! After a lazy day we're just off to book a train up to Chiang Mai were it's meant to be a lot more chilly than here.

Lots of love Sarah xxx