I'm the king of the swingers... a jungle VIP

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We arrived at Khao Sok to peace and quiet and fresh air... ahhh bliss!! We dragged our over stuffed bags down the road and eventually found our hotel. We are staying at Las Orquideas Resort in our own little bungalow complete with porch. It is great to sit outside with only the sounds of the insects to keep us company. There is some amazing noises coming from the surrounding area. There was this incredible screeching like a really loud, high pitched horn. We asked the owner about it and apparenlty it is an insect called a Cicada. The hotel owner is a very nice Spanish gentleman who has been very helpful and told us where to eat and where to avoid etc. After a much needed nap we had a wander round the village which leads up to Khao Sok National Park.

Khao Sok National Park is a huge forest and is apparently older than the Amazon Rainforest. This is because the ice age didn't reach Khao Sok, or so the guidebook says anyway. The forest is home to elephants, tigers and a whole host of other animals who are not as exciting. It is also home to the world's largest flower but it only blooms for two months of year so we won't see that. We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the porch like two old fuddy duddys reading our books and listening to the various sounds around us. Francisco the hotel owner recommended a restaurant called Pawn's to us, so we trotted off there for dinner. When I say restaurant I mean a kitchen in the back with a large porch with patio furniture. That seems to be the norm here, I suppose when it is so hot why would you want to go inside? For dinner I had boiled rice soup and then some sort of thai curry with coconut milk, peanuts and chillis.
Andy had some sort of noodle soup and a garlic and chilli stir fry. It was delicious, even though I am sweating curry today.

We arranged with Fransico to go the elephant sanctuary this morning. He said he normally takes people at 8am so you are the only ones there because it gets very busy. So this morning after a false start when the alarm didn't go off we set off for the elephant sanctuary. Fransico drove us about 20 minutes up the road which had some fantastic views of the mountains. It is amazing to see mountains covered in trees right up to the very top. The elephant sanctuary was basically a park full of elephants. It was quite unbelievable to see so many elephants. Some were having their breakfast, others were having a wash, some were just chilling out in the sun. Fransico was right and we were the only people there so that was a bonus. We climbed up into this little hut and this guy wanders over with the most enormous elephant. Seriously, the elephants were all huge (as they are) but this guy towered over the rest.I think he must have been a good 11 foot or so. He really was magnificient. Dumbo stopped at this little opening and we just hopped on. It was pretty bizarre to be honest, the elephant just trudges along like nothing is happening and here we are sitting on his back trying not
to fall off. His owner (owner? keeper? master?) comes along with us making the odd "hhhhhheeeeeaaaawww" or "hhhooooiiii" noise which I guess means more to the elephant than it does to us. He was carrying a spear though which was a bit worrying, who needs to carry a sharpened spear around with them? After wikipedia-ing elephants I think it was probably
in case Dumbo decided he had enough and went pyscho which is apparently a common thing for elephants to do. So Dumbo gets a piece of bamboo to
munch on as he walks which he does ever so happily. I guess the saying
"elephants never forget" is true because Dumbo knew exactly where he was
going and what he was doing. When it was time to make toilet he stopped
and turned to the side so his business went down into a ditch and not
into the path. Who knew you could potty train elephants? The whole
experience was very impressive, Dumboo took us through a river and even
climbed up a mini waterfall. There was the occasional moment I thought I
was going to fall 12 foot from the elephant but Dumbo was a pro and
kept us on board. On our return trip we passed about 6 elephants so we
were glad we had come early and got to enjoy the experience by
ourselves. We must have trecked for about 45 minutes so it was a good
trip. You can't help but look at the elephants in awe, they really are
amazing creatures. When we got back to the farm place we got to feed him
some pineapple. You have to put it in the trunk and he sort of pulls it
out your hand with his super strong trunk. The pictures just don't do
them justice, they really are beautiful animals.

For the rest of the day we relaxed and took a walk through the national park. Well I say through the national park, we walked 3km into the park which is something like 750 km sq, I am sure this is bigger than Scotland - anyone know? We saw lots of butterflies but no tigers or anything too exciting. The signs kept directing us to a waterfall that turned out to be a river flowing over some rocks about 20cm off the ground. That night we went out for more Thai food. Noodle soup and thai red curry for me, noodle soup and some sort of stir fry for Andy. The food is delicious and the flavours are amazing, but it is quite difficult to eat every day because it is so rich.

Next time.... Lake trip, cave climbing and beach time.

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