Day 14 - 15: Khao Sok National Park

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We were picked up from our guesthouse at 11am on the dot, which is something of a rarity being on time in Thailand. We got into the airconditioned mini van which we had all to ourselves - what a pleasent journey we had ahead of us. We started to drive around Krabi and we picked up two more travellers, some post, some dry cleaning and a number of other random bits. We drove out of the main town centre and pulled into this shabby shack and was ordered out of the van and piled into an area containing about 60 other people. We were hussled into a corner after stupidly saying we had no accomodation - the guy was like you can have this one or this one and pointed to two faded old posters, neither looked appealing and although it took a while he finally understood "we'll sort it out when we get there!"

Everybody looked lost and no one had a clue where they were or what was going on, obviously like us no one had been told they would be shipped to this large shed and herded off as and when vans pulled up. Finally after all the other groups had left we were allowed to board our bus, it had air conditioning but was packed, plus they had an awesome way of catapulting rucksucks to the roof just through brute arm strength - I hoped I hadn't packed anything breakable! Just when it looked like we where going to make a move, three young lads joined us. They looked like they had been beaten up in a Thai boxing fight, bandages everywhere and all limping. The guy sends one to squeeze into the back row, one somewhere in the middle and asked a poor girl at the front to move, to which she politely replied "where am I suppsoe to go?" He pointed to where she was, he wanted them to share the seat! After a few minutes, he was scooted out of our bus to another bus which must have going there too, he waved goodbye to his friends....but they eventually left us too, finally we were ready to set off.

We had already looked at some accomodation on the internet so we had a rough idea where we wanted to stay, we just hoped they had some room as we didnt have time to reserve anything, the night before. As the bus stopped we met a young Australian girl who was Heading to 'Our Jungle House' too, she had been given directions and told it was about a 15-20 minute walk, so we joined her for the trek, luckily our back-up accomodation was next door just in case.

We walked into Our Jungle House and was blown away, the site was set in the middle of the jungle (hence the name!!) and they had tree houses and cottages scattered about, every house was basically secluded from the neighbours. Unfortunately only the most expensive tree house was available which was way over our budget, but they had a gorgeous little riverside cottage free for both nights, so we snapped it up. We settled in and was joined by a friendly dog (who to this day we have no idea who it belonged to, it just attached itself to us, slept on our porch and followed us on a little walk.

We walked over to a little bar named the 'Nirvana Bar' the young guy that ran it called Bau (not paul!) opened it up especially for us and sat with us to chat while we had a couple of drinks. He likes football, Manchester especially and we also watched a young 16 year old being taught to Kickbox. Suddenly the really cute puppy that had been playing about near us gave a massive yelp and there was hissing everywhere - Bau's cat had attached itself to the puppys back, protecting her kittens. It was quite funny, although a tad sad for the innocent puppy! Next thing Bau asked Bon if he liked Thai girl, Bon said they were ok, So Bau asked if he wanted to swap me for
the Thai girl walking about - LOL - I dont even get a say! Luckily Bon decided to keep me and we had a good laugh, even more so when Bau said that girl wasnt even his girlfriend!!

We had booked ourselves on to a night safari that evening, so we could experience the diversity of day from night. We were quite surprised to find out it was just us two and our guide named Tuk (pronounce took). He seemed like a really nice guy and his english was really good, not perfect but that just added to the fun. As soon as we headed off he started Sssshing us and beckoning us forward and he shone his light up into the trees, he had found a Slow Norris (Slowly :D) making his his way down a tree trunk - what massive eyes he had!! A little further down the track and Tuk found a Civit Cat wandering through trees on the slope - we hadnt even reached the park yet!! Tuk really was an awsome guide he could spot things we would just walk straight past, he was also crazy and totally unafraid. He spotted an albino cobra type snake lounging in a tree and was like "very very poisonus, dead with one bite, give me your camera I take picture" and off he went!! He found such a huge variety of wildlife bugs, more poisonus snakes, tarantulas, scorpions - which almost stung him and lizzards - we had such a good two hours and couldn't wait for morning. We had booked on an all day trek and yes it would be just me, Bon and Tuk again!

Our trek started nice and early, Tuk was very tired as he had stayed up 'till about 4am watching Manchester play - he was very happy though as he had consequenly won a lot of money on a bet he had placed! We walked high up into the hills (which let me tell you is extremely hard work in the heat), to find the Rafflesia flower, the largest flower in the world!! They are very interesting, growing on the ground producing rotting carcus smells, but are also becoming increasingly more rare due to habitat loss and human collection. I feel privelidged to have seen one, even the King of Thailand took the walk to come and see this flower!

We carried on our trek through the jungle, climbing higher and lower and higher again. We spotted an array of wildlife - butterflys as big as your hands, gliding lizzards, gibbons and monkeys - all of which would have been impossible to see without Tuk. All of a sudden he got really really excited and asked for the camera and ran off, we didnt have a clue why, he came back a few minutes later and was sorry he didnt get a picture. Still confused we managed to decipher the animal as being very rare and either a small Sian Tiger or the Malaysian Tapir - a bit lost in translation - but to think we were so close to either one of these rare creatures was awsome!

Tuk guided us to the top of the waterfall and said we can swim at the bottom and we would be having tea and lunch. I struggled to see how we would be getting to the bottom of this waterfall. Turns out we were going to climb down, using only rocks, tree roots and a few small placed ropes - health and safety does not exist here lol, this definetley wasn't for the faint hearted and was very scary at times, but we managed to reach the bottom. Tuk had cut some bamboo to boil the water and carved out some cups and spoons while we swam in the water, when we dried off we had a much earned feast of tea and chicken fried rice, followed by fresh pinapple, hmmmmm yummy. The afternoon was spent leisurely walking through the forest along a river bed, at the end of the trek Tuk even made us some Robinson Cruso hats that got many a laugh from other passing groups, but hey, we had hats!! We finished our walk with a lovely mango shake at the park entrance, before heading back to our accomodation - ready for a well earned nights sleep before heading off to the Gulf Coast in the Morning.

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