Khao Sok Jungle Revisited

Khaos ok?

After a brilliant but sweltering few days in Bangkok it’s time to move on to one of the highlights from my previous visit to Thailand, Khao Sok lake. To get there we must take a ten hour bus from Bangkok to Surat Thani where a minivan will await us to complete the journey to Khao Sok town, or so I am told.

We’re up early at 6am and inhale breakfast to ensure we’re at the South Terminal in Bangkok in plenty of time. On arrival we’re guided by the friendly locals pointing to where we should go next. Although spending the entire day on a bus isn’t ideal, it is air conditioned and comfortable, a welcome relief from the 40+ degree heat and humidity of Bangkok city. We’re even given a snack box and drink, luxury travel.

After a few hours we stop at a huge roadside canteen. A tanoy announcement conveys some screechy Thai message to everyone. We walk past a lady handing out cartons of water and feel overwhelmed by the amount of food options. As we wander around aimlessly, a kind lady informs us that we need to show our bus ticket to the water carton lady and we’ll get a voucher for a free meal. Brucey bonus. Still overwhelmed by the bustling chaos we settle for a simple chicken and rice dish. Too scared to try and ask for something more exotic.

After a few more hours on the bus we arrive in Surat Thani. Although I’ve been told by our accommodation there will be a minivan taking tourists across to Khao Sok, we’re pretty much the only non-locals on the bus. It’s early evening when we arrive and it’s looking pretty quiet. Not another tourist in sight. Hmm. A man approaches us and asks where we’re going to. We tell him Khao Sok and he beckons us to follow him. He makes a couple of calls and we wait outside a minivan office. Ever the optimist, I assure Alex it will be fine and a van will turn up shortly. “No van. Tomorrow morning. Here.” Our man delivers the dreaded news. Oh crap. He advises us that the only option is a taxi that will be around 2000 baht (£45) the van tomorrow would be 700 baht. We have two nights accomodation plus a tour booked so this is a real spanner in the works. I message the hostel owner and he says to try the Grab app for a taxi. I do and it suggests a taxi should be around 1100 baht IF anyone will pick us up for this three hour round trip. Almost immediately someone accepts the fare. Result.

We hunt the car down just along the road. A big modern pickup truck. A friendly looking lady hops out and shows us a translation on her phone. “Grab is too cheap, I can’t do it for that price”. *Expletive from me*. I type in “how much will you take us for?” … “1200” hmm ok, not as bad as I was expecting and only 500 more than a shared minivan. Seems like a good option as we’re a bit desperate. We agree and she cancels the Grab fare. If anything happens to us now, it’s on us, Grab won’t help. As we set off she shows us another translated message on her phone “Can I pick up my girlfriend?” … As mentioned before, I’m optimistic and probably too trusting but at this point even I’m starting to wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Is her “girlfriend” a man with a gun waiting to take all of our belongings and leave us stranded? Will we be chained to a desk and made to perform scam calls for years to come? Are we going to be served as kebabs from a street food stall in a few days’ time? Judging by the way she has interacted with us, her appearance and the car she has, I figure we can take the chance and accept… “Ok thanks, I need her to keep me awake on the way home” comes the translated message. That makes sense and is somewhat reassuring.

We drive five minutes out of town to a modern housing development with people walking their dogs and watering their lawns. Doesn’t look like a people trafficking factory. She lets onto someone across the road she calls “Papa” and a friendly looking woman jumps into the front seat. One more hurdle passed. We then set off towards Khao Sok. About ten minutes into the ninety minute drive our nerves finally settle down.

Just after 8.30pm we arrive in the quiet, petite town of Khao Sok. I translate a message of gratitude to our driver, she really saved our bacon (and didn’t turn us into bacon) and I hope that the fee has not doubled. It has not. We pay the agreed 1200 baht and check into our hostel for the night. After such a long, tiring day and sick of rice, we treat ourselves to pizza and beer and crash out. We sleep like babies in another large comfortable bed in a sleepy hotel.

Jungle Jaunts

After a breakfast surrounded by monkeys at our hostel, a minivan collects Alex and I along with Fem from the Netherlands and a couple from Germany (we think). Along the way we pickup Jack and Aoife from Ireland, and Ketch (and his large suitcase) from England. As Ketch boards the van he curses “shit I was meant to pack a change of clothes wasn’t I”. We’ve met a few travellers like this on our trip that make us wonder how they’ve made it this far.

I’m very excited to be doing this tour again having enjoyed it so much last time I was here, especially as it’s somewhere new for Alex which is, quite frankly, a bit of a rarity! After we’ve collected everyone we pull up outside a local market and have twenty minutes to look around. This wasn’t part of the trip last time and like in many other places, it seems to be shoehorned in to the excursion to encourage people to spend more money. I don’t mind if that money goes towards local sellers who would greatly benefit from a couple of dollars a day. Unfortunately most of the foreigners pile into the 7 Eleven to buy Coke, Fanta, Lays crisps and form a huge queue to buy from international brands 🙈

Our next stop is thankfully the proper start of the tour where we’re introduced to our wonderfully weird guide for the next two days, Pad Thai, yes like the famous noodle dish. Imagine him as a drunken Jack Sparrow who now speaks in a Thai accent. He tries his best to explain the itinerary but with broken English and strange annunciation, most of our group looks perplexed. Having done this before and picking up the odd word I end up as translator for most of the group. Basically on tours like this, just follow the guide and everything will be explained three times. It’s a relaxing trip staying on a lake, we’re not climbing Everest here. Thankfully this tactic works even when your tour guide starts yelling instructions to a different group of gringos.

All eager to get going, we eventually board the boat to take us to our floating accommodation. Or so we think. Pad Thai announces we must make an extra stop to pick up some booze as it’s not officially allowed by the park guards. We sit and wait in the baking sun for ten minutes while Pad Thai and his mates load crates of beer, cigarettes and rum onto the boat. I’m sure it’s a nice little earner for them to make a bit of extra money on the side. We’re extra hot as we’re all forced to wear life jackets by the same park guards. I don’t mind, we’ve met a surprisingly high amount of people on our travels that can’t swim but are sometimes too ashamed to admit it infront of a big group. I would suspect that these rules are enforced for grim reasons. With our contraband loaded we’re finally off on our hour long journey across the lake and how beautiful it is too.

Stepping onto the floating dock which connects all of our accommodation huts, Pad Thai confuses everyone some more and we’re eventually checked in to our rooms. Alex and I are slightly miffed that we’ve paid a bit extra to have a ensuite hut and the one we’re given is right next to the floating toilets for everyone to use. Not an ideal location considering the smell. We try our trick from Victoria Guesthouse of asking to switch rooms, but we’re met with confusion and indifference. All of the rooms are booked up and the reception can’t be bothered with the admin to move us to any of the rooms which currently sit empty. I suppose you can’t win them all.

Lunch is a buffet of fried chicken, green curry, veg stew and of course a huge vat of boiled rice. Alex and I are starving and gobble down three platefuls each. Over lunch we speak to Fem who’s also just attained her PADI Open Water AND Advanced(!) and we enjoy sharing diving stories. She also tells us her boyfriend from Sheffield is currently adventuring in Peru on a monkey bike, look it up, it’s hilarious. Pad Thai disappears off with a bucket (of booze I suspect) and entertains himself with a guitar for a couple of hours and tells us we have ‘free time’ now. We remind Ketch he’s still wearing his life jacket from the boat trip.

After lunch it’s time for a swim. There’s a bit of a breeze and it’s slightly cooler than the sweatbox of the capital but it’s still touching 40 degrees. Amusingly it’s compulsory to wear a life jacket but they’re all XL and half the straps are missing. Henceforth everyone wears them like a nappy or a floating armchair. We take turns to jump off the makeshift diving platform, each jump has to be unique and receives a mark out of ten. Even my front flip with a backslap scores highly. Alex and I swim a bit further out and are put off by big splashes of water from the large carp like fishes swimming with us in the lake water.

After we’ve dried off it’s adventure time as we depart for a jungle tour. Pad Thai tries his best to explain the local geography and some information about the jungle fauna and flora but most of it is lost in translation. We gather from parts of his talks that he’s from this area and his family have been living here since before the dam was built and the lake was made. He tells us how the jungle is their medicine cabinet, just like in Tikal with our Maya guide! He cackles and humours himself with who knows what, seeming to have the time of his life whilst the tourists stumble and trudge along the path wondering what on Earth we’re doing here. We do a horseshoe route and end up back at the boat. No tigers or elephants were spotted this time (except for the video Pad Thai shows us on his phone).

Our next stop is a large cave system I visited last time I was here. Oddly, this time the entrance outside the cave is covered in water, it was bone dry last time I was here.

How it looked four years ago:

And how it looks now:

We see many bats within the cave, one flies at me and makes me jump out of my skin. Apart from that there is just a large spider, so big that one of our group jokes that it has its own social security number. Outside of that there isn’t much to report that we haven’t seen before.

Bats in the belfry:

Returning to the boat we all practice our acrobatics getting into the wobbling vessel. After we’re all aboard the captain makes his way to the back to set off. He loses his balance and takes a tumble into the drink! The poor guy is soaking wet and a little embarrassed as he climbs back in and takes his seat to continue the journey.

Pad Thai in a reflective mood:

Snail eggs:

We spend another half hour on the boat, partly looking for animals but mostly just enjoying the beautiful scenery all around us as the sun sets on another day.

Dinner is another spread of local food, massaman curry, steamed cabbage, one of my favourites fried tilapia fish and of course, buckets of rice. During the meal I get talking to a couple from Nottingham who have four children, all of which are either studying medicine or are qualified doctors somewhere along their career. One of which did her training in the Philippines where she was encouraged to film brain surgery on her mobile. I wonder where those videos end up!

Last time I was on this trip, after dinner the group and guides sat out on the floating dock and drank buckets of alcohol and played guitar. This time will be a slightly more romantic version as it’s just Alex and I sitting at the end of the dock looking up at the myriad of stars above us.

I just don’t know what to do with myself

Once more, an early start, we’re on the boat at 6.45 for a morning safari. We try a few spots but apart from a false alarm with some sort of buffalo, we don’t see anything. It’s not surprising as we’re in a large boat with a giant motor engine, any animal would hear it coming a mile away and run for cover. Thanks for the spotter Fem we do see some dusky leaf monkeys performing acrobatics in the morning sun. Pad Thai spots a horn billed toucan way up in the trees but it’s hard to get a good look at it from the boat. No matter, we had toucan tv in Costa Rica.

Returning to base we’re presented with fresh pancakes, honey and watermelon. Yum yum. There are a couple of bees buzzing around as we take our seats. Then a few more arrive… Then they invite their friends… Before long there is an entire hive of bees swarming around us and our food. A few people make a run for it but the bees follow them to wherever they take the honey. It’s pretty hilarious and luckily no one is stung. You would have thought they’d serve something else if the honey causes this much chaos but they must enjoy this circus every morning.

Alex and I then take a kayak out to spend some more time on this beautiful lake. We don’t spot any elephants but get very close to a large hawk-like bird of prey.

We collect our belongings and prepare to return to Khao Sok town. On the way back we stop at the famous site of “Three Brothers” rocks apparently meant to represent the local people here.

Pad Thai drops us back where we began and immediately goes off to lead another tour group, his third in three days (at least). Strange guy, quite funny (most of the time unintentionally) and kind enough, but not exactly a guide, more of a comic relief character.

We’re herded into a large coach and driven five minutes away to enjoy a viewpoint and lunch. Everyone is going in different directions after this tour and asks the driver how they get there and what time we’ll need to leave to make connections. He seems slightly annoyed to be bombarded with questions and simply tells people to enjoy the view and come back later. It is a very nice view to be fair.

Once we return, we’re advised to get into a minivan to take us back to Khao Sok. Except our bags are in the big bus. The door won’t open and the driver is trying to fix the engine with just a pair of scissors. “PRESS BUTTON” he shouts when we ask him to open the door. We tell him we tried that and he rolls his eyes and comes to do it for us. Of course it doesn’t work and before long three of them have to force and hold the door open while we squeeze inside to grab our belongings. Ketch and his big suitcase join us and we’re off back to Khao Sok. Hilariously when we arrive at the bus stop the driver asks Ketch where he’s going and he responds “I don’t know?”. It seems like we are much more organized than some of our fellow travellers!

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Adventure – Revisiting the beautiful Khao sok lake. Trying to translate Pad Thai’s ramblings. Meeting interesting and diverse travellers, some are here for two weeks, some a few months and another couple doing at least a year.

Excitement – Realizing we haven’t been kidnapped. Another comfortable stay in Khao Sok town, like a hotel for hostel prices, me likey. An evening of Western food, the food of Thailand is lovely but there’s only so much rice a person can take.

Trauma – No minivan waiting for us. Potential kidnapping. Not sleeping well next to a giant floating toilet. Bees for breakfast.

Bonus: Finally trying mango and sticky rice for dessert. It’s pretty mid fr.