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Published: December 30th 2010
What a wonderful place to wake up to! Khaoh Sok, is Southern Thailands largest national park that covers around 500 square Kilometres and is home to many large wild mammals such as the tiger, leopard and elephant. Sounds scary, but you are very unlikely to encounter any of these majestic beasts on a single day hike in the park. You would have to head much deeper into the untouched jungle to have the possibility of catching a glimpse of one. And even then, the likelihood of seeing one is unfortunately very slim. Breakfast was cooked in the rickety little restaurant by the managers wife and was pretty good! Boiled eggs and toast for me. Mr Tawee told us to gather our things for the hike while his wife prepared us a Pad Thai packed lunch, it was like having parents! Mr Tawee then drove us to the National Park and showed us how to sign in and gave us his number in case we had any problems and also for when we wanted picking up.
We headed off into the jungle which became dense within a few metres. The largest bamboo I have ever
National Park Entrance
Complete with the largest flower in the worldseen towered above us; it really looked like something from the jungle book. I expected baloo the Bear to pop his head out any moment. It was kind of odd walking in a jungle where I knew there were ACTUALLY wild tigers. What would I do if I saw one?! There were auite a few moments when I looked into the incredibly dense foliage and could really imagine seeing a tigers eyes staring back. Believe it or not, there are plenty of places to swim in the jungle river. It’s not full of scary leeches and poisonous snakes, in fact, the water was incredibly clear. The jungle became denser and the paths became narrower as we headed further and further in. All the swimming areas were signed, and we found a particularly lovely area to test the temperature of the water. It was a lovely clear, green colours and lined with steep jungle-clad hills. We could here monkeys howling in the distance and an eagle screeching above. There were tropical looking river fish near the edge of the water and the bottom was lovely white sand, not mud! The water was pretty cold and it took a few minutes to
be able to completely submerse myself. Verity and Ste joined me and we all just bobbed around cooling off and talking about how this was the kind of place you could imagine a tiger coming to drink and about how we felt really out of place in the jungle, like we weren’t designed to be there. All the animals that lived here, hidden out of sight, were masters of the jungle. They would see us long before we saw them!
We were making pretty good time considering we were stopping to look at things every moment. There were incredible trees, soaring up into the canopy with gnarled roots taller than me and flowing the hill like frozen waterfalls. Some parts of the path were incredibly seen and would be treacherous had it been raining. We had to pay particular attention to the paths we were taking as there were so many different options that were unsigned. The thought of getting lost in this labyrinth of trees turned me cold. So between us we made a super effort to remember each turning we took.
Soon we reached the river once more
and sat down for lunch. Our Thai mum had made us Pad Thai all wrapped up neatly in a leaf, complete with a fork. It was still warm and super tasty. We were all enjoying ourselves until Verity got bitten by something, which we assumed must have been an ant, because it was on fire and instantly swelled up red and white. After Verity had recovered from the evil ant Palaver, we all realised that it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and decided it was best to turn back at this point. We had no problem finding our way back through the jungle and we made back at the start at lightning speed. There was time for one last dip in another part of the river. Here we saw more fish including a very odd one that looked like a type of box fish that kept nipping our feet. We kept moving out of its way, but it continued to sneak up on us from behind. The final straw was when something bit stes toe from underneath a rock. He leapt out to find his toe was actually bleeding. That was enough swimming for one day we all
thought.
We collapsed into a tiny outdoor café to get a drink and wait for Mr Tawee to come and collect us. The owner told us all about how he used to be a Thai Boxer and showed us all his scars. He also told us about how his necklace with a Buddha inside protected him form an accident and handed it to Ste to try on. He also invited us to come and watch him sing a happy birthday Kareoke later in the evening! He even suggested we go right that moment to the bar down the road so he could sing to us! How bizarre, we all thought. After numerous phone calls Mr Tawee appeared looking a little bleary eyed and we joked that he looked stoned. He must have heard however, as for some reason he felt the need to mention that he only like whiskey and doesn’t smoke weed once we got back to the bungalows. We sniggered and mumbled about a guilty conscience. But he invited us to come for dinner and talk to him later in the evening and even partake in one of his cousin’s birthday party.
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