Khao Sok, Surat Thani Province, Thailand

3rd July – 5th July 2018

After leaving Koh Lanta, we set off towards our next destination. As it was early, we tried to get some sleep, but I always find it difficult on buses. Just as I managed to shut my eyes, we arrived in Krabi again.

Annoyingly for us, we arrived in Krabi early, at 9.30. This meant that we then had a two hour wait until our next bus. We knew we wouldn’t be leaving Krabi until 11.30, but we shouldn’t have arrived as early as we did. We tried to waste some time by going for a walk along the front, but we didn’t want to spend unnecessary money, so we were soon back in the bus office.

Time eventually passed and we set off to Khao Sok at about 11.40. It was a long and windy journey, with lots of stops and unsafe driving, but we eventually arrived at the bus office at 4, which was a lot later than we should have been there.

Just as we arrived, it started to rain, which was just typical. We were practically thrown off the van (I don’t think the van driver was impressed that we weren’t paying him extra to take us to our hotel). We ran under shelter and spoke to a man there, who called our hotel, as they were picking us up for free. They were going to be there at 2.00 for us, but we were extra late, so they came for us straight away.

When we arrived at the guest house, we checked in and were shown to our room, down a muddy path into the jungle. There, we were taken to our jungle hut, which is not what I expected to be staying in. We were shown in and I wasn’t overly impressed at first, as we were in the middle of the jungle and there was a huge gap between the walls and ceiling, so I knew it was an invitation for things to come in! It also didn’t help that we had no idea what we were doing and we were quite a distance from the village, so it wasn’t easily accessible for us.

After doing an initial frog inspection of the room, we walked back up to the reception/ restaurant area. When we got up there, we were told that if we walked to the end of the road, we would find the river, so we did that.

The end of the road, was also a dead end, so there wasn’t much more for us to do down there. We took some photos and walked along the muddy paths, before turning around and heading back to the house.

When we got back, we sat in the restaurant area and contemplated if we wanted dinner yet. As we arrived late, it was already about 5.30, so we were ready to eat, but when we were sat down, we met the daughter of the man who collected us from the bus stop. She seemed to be in charge mostly, as she knew a lot about what was going on, and had lots of advice for us. She said that we could borrow the bikes if we wanted to, and cycle into the village.

As we wanted to get our bearings of the place for the next day, we took her up on this offer. The ride, however, was a tough one! It seemed fine for the most part, but it was steep just before we turned onto the village road and I almost didn’t make it up! We cycled down into what we thought was the village (we learned later that it wasn’t) and nipped into a shop. As we were quite a distance from the village in our bungalow, we thought we should stock up on snacks to reduce the costs.

After our visit in the shop, we cycled back to the bungalows. When we got back, we ordered some tea and sat and watched it go dark. I knew that the walk back through the jungle, in the dark would not be fun, but I also didn’t want to go back too soon.

After dinner, we sat and played some cards and then watched the rain pour. It then poured for at least an hour, giving us lots of time to debate when we were going to head back to the room.

When it was time to head back, I got the torch on and kept my head down and just walked. Luckily, we made it back, seeing no frogs. When we got into the hut, Joe did a thorough frog search and we were frog free still, so I was happy! We got ready for bed and climbed under our mosquito net, into bed.

We played some more cards in bed, before falling asleep just after 10.

Although we had no set plans for our full day in Khao Sok, I didn’t want to get up too late, as I wanted to make the most of our time. We knew that we were going jungle trekking, so we wanted to get going, as it seemed to be a clear day, as we couldn’t hear any rain.

After getting dressed, we went up to the restaurant area for some breakfast. As soon as we sat down and ordered, the rain came down. It poured and poured and poured and didn’t seem to be easing at all. We had our breakfast and watched the England highlights, not knowing the score. While we waited for the rain to stop, we sat and played some cards – I think the family thought we had nothing better to do.

In the end, we decided that if the rain hadn’t eased by 10, we would get ready and go anyway. Luckily, it had eased a little, when we got ready, so that was better for us.

Once we were ready, we got a lift to the national park, from the daughter. On the way, she warned us about leeches, as she said they love coming out, especially in the rain. This was a little off-putting but we were on our way already.

When we got to the entrance of the park, we got out and paid our entrance. As a guide was so expensive, we said we were happy to walk it alone. However, they had rules that we could only go to a certain point with no guide, which was a little annoying.

Still without a guide, we set off walking anyway towards Bang Hua Rad waterfall. It was only 3km away, and we had all day so we knew we were in no rush. Shortly after we set off, the rain started to come down heavily again and before we knew it, we were dripping from head to toe.

While we were walking, we took occasional breaks to decide the best way to dodge the lakes that had formed on the paths in front of us. We got quite muddy along the way, especially on our feet, but it also splashed up onto our legs. As I looked down at one point, there was a leech sucking on my leg! I definitely freaked out a little bit, but we had luckily read a sign earlier on the trek that told us how to remove them, so Joe was on the case for me.

Once the first leech was removed, we were on extra watch for them. Over the course of the whole walk, we each had a couple of little ones, but none as big as my first one, so it was accepted that I freaked out.

On the way to the waterfall, we passed a sign for a different waterfall, so decided to head that way first. We didn’t get the whole way down the path, as it was very muddy and slippery and we didn’t want to get stuck, so we turned around and carried on to Bang Hua Rad.

When we arrived, there was a little hut, where we could take a rest and sort ourselves out. As Joe’s phone had been in my pocket and we didn’t want to risk opening the dry bag during the torrential rain, we decided it would be a good idea to move it while we were under shelter. We also took some photos and enjoyed the rainy views, before heading back.

The walk back was even quicker than the walk there, which was annoying, as we were back in the village by 1.

As we didn’t want to go back to the bungalows just yet, we decided to find somewhere to sit and have a hot drink, as we were so cold from the rain. We found a café and both ordered a hot chocolate and shared a cake. Neither of them were great, so it seemed like a waste of money, but it warmed us up a little.

From the café, we rang the family and they came and collected us. We were still soaking wet, so we were looking forward to a hot shower when we got in.

Sadly, this wasn’t happening, as we only had a cold shower in our room, so we had to brave it. It wasn’t worth washing hair, as it was that cold, so we just washed the mud from our bodies. Getting out and getting dry was the best part though, as that really warmed me up, as I put dry clothes on. We hung up our wet clothes and put our soggy trainers on the porch, but we weren’t hopeful that we would get them dry by morning, as it was still raining.

Once we were dry and clean, we went up to the reception area to do some writing and video work. For some reason, word had stopped working on my laptop, so I needed to fix that before I could do any writing, meaning I was very far behind where I should have been. We occupied ourselves by researching and playing cards in between, before deciding that we wanted to go out for tea, as we had spent all afternoon sitting around doing nothing.

When we asked for a lift into the village, we were told we could, but then they told us to take their scooter instead – I guess that they didn’t want to come back for us. We got to the village and parked up outside a restaurant that we had researched.

When we looked at the menu, the prices were a lot higher than expected, so we had a look around instead. We found a different place across the road which was much cheaper and I had remembered it being highly rated too. We found a table near the front, which we thought would be a great place to see the mountain view. We both ordered a curry and played some cards while we waited – I don’t know how we’ve become addicted.

Both dinners were so tasty, we could tell that they were freshly cooked and they were so full of flavour! As I was finishing up mine, the rain started to come down again, so we quickly finished our game and paid up, so that we could head off before it got heavier.

Luckily, we got back before it got heavy, so we soon dried off. We decided to sit in the restaurant as it was too early to go to bed. Joe went down to the room to get a few bits and I sat up and checked my emails. As I was sat minding my own business, two geckos fell from the ceiling, skimming my ear. It was scary stuff but kind of all happened in slow motion, and I thought it was a frog at first, so I understandably shot up.

Once Joe came back and rescued me, we moved places to a table where there weren’t so many geckos above our heads and settled there for a while. We played more cards, obviously, and I got more writing done. More rain came down, so we had to wait for that to ease before we could go back to the bungalow.

When we got back, Joe did another frog check and it was a miracle that we were staying in the middle of the jungle and we hadn’t seen one frog between us! I was very happy. We got into bed and chilled out, trying to get some things sorted, before falling asleep.

During the night, we were so cold, it was hard to sleep. It rained pretty much all night, so it probably kept the air very clear, making us very cold.

When the alarm went off at 7.30, I was glad to get up really. We got up and ready and finished packing our bags. It had just about stopped raining, so we took all of our things up to the restaurant, so we could check out. When we were up there, we ordered some breakfast and paid our bills.

Once everything was settled, the rain came down heavily again, as we were ready to leave. We made a dash for the van with our things and the daughter (whose name we didn’t learn) took us to the bus stop, so get our bus to Koh Samui.

Although it rained every time we wanted to go outside, in Khao Sok, I really enjoyed the change of scenery. Besides the chance of seeing frogs, I love visiting the jungle, as it fascinates me so much. I love the tall trees and fresh air and various animal noises. I was lucky to not see any frogs this time, which made the experience even better, and it was a welcomed change after the dirty beaches in Koh Lanta. Let’s hope Koh Samui lives up to the Thailand island picture.

To travel is to live, Katie x