Tait in Thailand: Khao Sok

After a big final night in Khao Lak it was time to head to Khao Sok. I had heard great things about Khao Sok, but was in two minds about going- I was really keen to head straight to Koh Tao and continue diving and partying.

We arrived in Khao Sok and the first thing that struck me is how peaceful the place is. A small town in the middle of junglish terrain with friendly locals. We checked into Morning Mist Resort and signed up for an overnight lake tour leaving early the next morning. Once we had been picked up we headed to the lake (about an hour by car). Simply Stunning!! The lake is part of Khao Sok National Park (about 738km2) of pristine jungle. The lake was formed as a result of a dam that was installed in 1982 which caused the upstream valleys to flood. The result is breathtaking as you'll see in the photos below.

We headed to a spot on the lake about an hour away for our first 'jungle treck'. This was interesting, but felt a little lame - we weren't trekking, we were walking a fairly easy trail. Great scenery though. After about 2 hours we made it to where the boat was picking us up from and went to the raft house where we were staying for the night. They put on a massive spread for lunch which I think we were never supposed to finish. As long as people were still eating, fresh plates of food were brought to the table. After lunch I jumped in the lake for a swim. The water was about 28 degrees on the surface, but got much cooler about a metre below the surface. That evening we went for a boat tour to look for wild life at the edges of the lake.

The following morning we went for another boat tour and saw various birds of prey and monkeys. We then headed off for a more serious jungle trek followed by caving. This time there was a faint trail that could be followed mainly because the way was only partially obstructed by leaves, branches, logs and rocks. This felt more like the real deal - up to my ankles in mud and up to my waist in water for some river crossings. After about an hour we arrived at the entrance to a cave with an underground river flowing through it. We checked for clear skies as the area is prone to flash flooding (a group of 7 drowned in the cave about 3 years ago because the tried to pass through in heavy rains). My best guess is that the cave is about 500m in length. I think it took about 20 minutes to come out the other side, but can't really be sure. The conditions in the cave were fairly difficult - football sized rocks underwater - makes for slow progress and plenty of people going arse over tit. We were walking in chest deep water at times with low head room above - thankfully no one in the group was claustrophobic. I was the last of the group of eleven going through the cave and being shit out of luck my torch stopped working. While trying to catch up with others with light I lost my footing and found myself in about 2m of cold water with the strap of my dry bag wrapped around my neck a cut (more of a scratch) on my side a series of cuts on my shin and a fair knock to my knee. Not as bad as it sounds and as a brit in the group pointed out, scars are the tatoos of the brave. About 80 metres further we emerged from the cave into the jungle and made our way back to the boat which took us to another raft house for lunch and a swim before a two hour boat ride and 1 hour in a car to get back to Khao Sok.

The overnight lake tour (especially the 2nd day jungle trek and caving) was amazing. I had never really pictured playing Tarzan and I'm really glad that I did the tour. I'm now taking a course of antibiotics as a pre-emptive strike against infection in my new cuts and scrapes or contamination of my diving cuts and scrapes. Much many cuts and scrapes.

I can not recommend Khao Sok National Park highly enough to anyone seeking amazing scenery in a place that is silent except for the sounds of the jungle. It is a place where people can truly escape the rest of the world.