We spent the past two days at Khao Sok National Park, on the Southern Peninsula (we're back in the South now!) exploring and hiking around. It was a really funny part of the trip because we had all these ridiculous mishaps! First, we were offered mini-bus rides straight from the train station to Khao Sok, but our guidebook said 'don't take these! they are overpriced' etc. etc. So we followed the guidebook and took the city bus straight into town. Once there we couldn't find the bus station we were supposed to get to, and no one would tell us where it really was, they would just say "it's far! 2km! buy ticket here!' or "5 km away, very far, bus station, you buy ticket now?' and things like this. Since we didn't have a map we couldn't tell that the real bus station was really just a few streets over! So we ended up buying a minibus ticket at a little family travel agency for exactly the same price as the one from the train station, and then we drove straight back to the train station to pick more people up! Ha!
Once at the park we found an awesome bungalow for just 250 baht, which we discovered later had bedbugs (we switched immediately)...the next day we went on a hike and I got a leech on my foot, a first time experience for sure! Mike also had a fun time when a sharp piece of bamboo caught on his foot - we turned around and vowed to never go hiking in the jungle in Chacos again! (Our feet are fine now, no worries!) The following day we 'splurged' on staying at a jungle 'resort' (almost everything has resort in its name here though, it's super funny) which had a little porch, hammock, and beautiful jungle garden all around our really nice - and clean - bungalow. Win!
The hiking and scenery in Khao Sok National Park was beautiful. There were so many flowers and way more birds than we had seen anywhere else. The bamboo was crazy! There was so much and it was so dense that it must have decreased the light getting through to us by about 50%. I've never seen bamboo like that, it was awesome. We went on a hike that was supposed to take us by 4 or 5 waterfalls, but since the river was really low we only saw trickles. Everyone was hiking around asking each other 'where are the waterfalls?!!' It was so funny. We hopped around in the boulder gardens and looked at all the plants and laughed at the signs that promised waterfalls. We also decided that the signs warning us "Beware of Wild Elephants!" probably didn't hold much truth either.
So now we're back in the Tonsai/Railay Beach area! It's fun to be back, and it feels great to be in an area that we know. We know where the best and cheapest food is, and how to get between all the beaches and climbing areas on the jungle trails. There are fewer people here than there were when we started the trip here, since the season is winding down. And somehow, the people who are here seem nicer, as if the stress of the highest part of the high season has left behind a mellower crowd.
Here are a few more pictures of Khao Sok National Park, enjoy!
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