Khao Sok, Thailand

This was somewhere that I was really looking forward to and it did not disappoint! We decided to fly from Bangkok to Surat Thani and then managed to find a shared taxi to the national park with two girls. We were really lucky as we later heard stories of people being scammed with the bus company that goes from the airport. We paid an extra 50B each compared to the bus but it was so worth it!

We arrived at our hotel which was a little out from the centre of town. It was nice but it meant that we had to spend 200B on a taxi from our hotel to get to the restaurants which seemed pretty expensive considering it was a 5 minute drive. We had a little bungalow that was clean and spacious. Later, we headed out to a pizzeria to have some food. While we were waiting for our dinner, the power went off - welcome to the jungle! The blackout didn’t stop our food coming out on time thanks to the wood-burning oven. The pizzas were really good too! After this, we headed back to our little bungalow. We didn’t realise what would be there waiting for us. It started with a spider in the bathroom which was pretty easy to deal with; however, while we were on the bed a scorpion decided to join us! We managed to get rid of the scorpion but as I was getting rid of the remains outside, a gecko came into the room. We just accepted that the gecko was staying the night and managed to fall asleep after turning the place upside down in search of more scorpions! I am quite lucky Chris spotted the scorpion as a sting could have been quite dangerous.

The next day, we had booked a floating bungalow on the lake which I was a bit concerned about after the incident from the night before. We arrived at the national park and were escorted to a boat which would take us to the floating bungalows. It was so beautiful around and as we checked into our cabin, we realised we had gotten one of the better ones. It was pretty cute with it’s own bathroom and everything! We had a quick swim before lunch and then spent the afternoon relaxing on the lake and doing some kayaking! Before dinner, we went on a night safari. We managed to spot a few monkeys up in the forest but not as many as I had hoped. When we got back, we had dinner and socialised with the others on the tour before heading to bed.

The next day, we woke up early to go on a morning safari to see some more animals. We saw a few monkeys and a hornbill or two. After this, we went on a jungle walk. We were advised that it would be muddy but I didn’t expect to have to walk through water up to my hips (at least it washed off the mud). The muddy paths had a few people slipping onto their bums! At the end of our hike, we came to a cave. We were warned that the water was really high here so I opted out of going in and sent Chris instead! As I was waiting for him, I made friends with a butterfly. This butterfly particularly liked the colour blue and so was attached to my shoe for a good 10 minutes.  Eventually, I managed to get him off before we headed back. I would rather have the butterfly on my shoe than the snakes that were in the cave.

Despite the muddy tracks, we had fun and the scenery was beautiful. We headed back to the raft house, had some lunch and a shower, and headed back to Khao Sok town.

I would recommend a visit to this national park and especially the floating bungalows.