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Published: March 15th 2011
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Disenchanted by what Koh Samui had to offer, we looked forward to heading to Khao Sok safe in the knowledge that would find something totally different.
To get to Khao Sok we took a rather rickety coach to the port in Samui, where we took a ferry to Surat Thani on the mainland, followed by a minibus to Khao Sok all for around a fiver each. During the minibus journey from Surat Thani to Khao Sok it soon became clear that we would not be disappointed by our excursion; we passed brilliantly disorganised, mpuntain sized shards of limstone covered in dense jungle flora which would not have looked out of place in Jurassic Park. You could almost imagine the giant prehistoric beasts roaming what was to this point the most amazing topography I had ever seen. From ancient giants to modern day; there seemed to be some comotion at the road side and the locals had stoppe their cars to view what there was to see underneath a bridge we were passing. We asked the driver what was going on to which he responded, somewhat casually, "elephants fighting". By this point we were already too far passed to go back
and watch but it seems for the locals that two of the worlds biggest mammals having a ruck is much like any Nicholas Cage film...perhaps worth watching but nothing to get too excited about.
We were dropped off a little way from the tourist centre in Khao Sok, which was essentially in the middle of nowhere! It was wthe first rain we had seen in Thailand and as Gibbo loved to say "out here, when it rains...it pours!". Desperate to get out of the proverbial tumble drier, we recruited the help of some local shop owners to try and get a little close r to the tourist centre. After a couple of phone calls and some confused faces we were picked up by a little bit by a peg toothed man who was intent on showing us "his place" and the nice things that people had written about his place in a book. Politely declining his offers, we were dropped at a random set of villas which werew clearly not the toursit centre...we had been hustled, for all of four quid. The kind man at these villas (which were clearly out of our price range) took us to where
we needed to be for a small fee, which seems to be the way it works out here - people will do anything for you so long as you are willing to pay the right price, if they can't solve your predicament they will have a brother/sister cousin or friend who can!
We trekked our way to a place called Our Jungle House and were immediately impressed with setting; not only were we already in the middle of nowhere, but this place was another kilometer or two away from the main settlement. We arrived to the news that all of the rooms, tree houses and bungalows were full, but where there is a will there is a way and the owners of the place offered to put us up in a tent for the night for a fee of 500baht. The proposition of camping in a jungle which dates back to the prehistoric ages seemed all to captivating and we accepted their offer with great enthusiasm. The caveat to this was that they would be able to put us up in a bungalow for the following two nights which was agreed at a price of 800baht per night for
the room.
Through the guesthouse, we booked to do a full day jungle trek with a difficulty classification of "hard"(100baht each). This is where we met Bau, our local tourguide who looked like a slightly more dishevelled Manny Pacquiao. We were dropped off at the trail point several kilometers out of the settlement and we embarked on what would be a long, hard day of jungle trekking across (or more correctly, up and down) mountainous jungle and rocky riverbeds. As luck would have it, we arrived just in time to see the world's biggest flower in bloom, which happens once a year for four days. The plant itself looked much like something out of the little shop of horrors and was not exactly beautiful but I still felt hugely priveleged to have seen it! Bau's grasp of the King's english wasn't exactly the stongest we had encountered in our time here and he provided a couple of moments of inadvertant hilarity; when asked what kind of monkey we could hear holwing, and they howled loudly, Bau pointed to Jake's socks and simply said "grey" (I'm no David Attenburgh but I'm 99% sure that is not the accurate term), and
when chewing on a peculiar jungle plant which was supposed to make us strong like Pop-eye we asked if we should swallow the leaves...he said "yes", we followed the command, he spat his out (normally this would be no cause for alarm but Gibbo is allergic to bloody everything). The highlight of this trek for me, other than the sense of achievement at finishing the 14km journey, was the scaling of the 100m waterfall; aided only by a flimsily fastened rope, we all ably traversed the rock faces and were rewarded by lunch which had been kept warm in banana leaves and a dip in the rock pool which provided some amazing photo opportunities.
In the evenings we frequented our newly found favourite restaurant, Thai Herb which offered a number of excellent dished at reasonable prices. On the way back we gazed at the clearest nights sky we had ever seen and it suddenly hit home just how secluded a spot Khao Sok actually was.
The next day we headed down to the river which was right next to Our Jungle House. The river itself was shadowed by a colossal cliff face, which again had to be seen
to be believed and provided many an opportunity for us to imagine ourselves as professional photographers, directing our subjects into the perfect position so as to achieve the right artistic composition (however it was more just a case of taking as many pictures as you can and hoping one comes out great...chuck enough s**t and something will stick!). We booked an Elephant trek (800baht per person) and were amazed by the size, power and agility of these giant creatures who we were perched on top of. I was riding the back of the biggest bull at the sanctuary (at least I thought it was a bull) and he or she was noticeably bigger than the opther Elephants...I felt a long way from the ground! Later, after trekking up a stream which you wouldn't think possible for a creature of this size, I was starkly alerted to the fact that the Elephant I was riding was definitely a bull and I rather childishly and crudely alerted the lads to the size of the thing hanging down between its legs...it was clear the bull had become aroused by the presence of some of the females and was quickly lead away from the
rest of the group for what can only be assumed was a cold shower! We had originally booked to do a night trek to see some of the more reclusive wildlife the jungle had to offer but rain stopped play.
We left the next day amongst a panic that Gibbo had lost his iPhone, only for it to miraculously turn up at Thai Herb in the morning, knowing he had left it at the shop next door...one suspects foul play and had it not been for the very helpful people at Our Jungle House, the staff at Thai Herb would no doubt be regailed with tales of idiocy by Karl Pilkington on Tom's iTunes. Next stop was Ao Phagnga via Krabi, which would cost us 500baht each (or a tenner in the queen's).
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Auntie Eileen
non-member comment
elyons57@hotmail.com
Hello Boys, Have just read your wonderful blog Tom and can get a real flavour of your trip from your excellent writing. I am not reading any rude bits so don't worry. Please send our love to Tom G and hope he is having a wonderful time. Hello to Jake from us all too! God Bless and take care, Auntie Eileen xxxxx