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22/11/09
Off to Khao Sok! Caught the bus from Ranong to Takua Pa at 09:30, 2 hours later we cought the connecting bus to take us to Khao Sok. Arrived and found some nice bungalows near the entrance to the park called 'Palm View'. Our 'bungalow in the jungle-o' cost 250B (approx £5) so was cheap enough and really nice, lovely family own it so so far so good! When we checked in we were shown some tour options so we could decide what we wanted to do, we chose a 2 day 1 night tour which involved spending a night on a floating hut, night/early morning safari, kayaking, jungle trek, cave trip, lake swimming, and included all our meals and water for 2500B (approx £47) each. We decide to go the next day. The rest of the day we chilled out and walked into the village for a drink and stuff but we thought we'd better get an early night ready for the next day!
23/11/09
Woke up at 08:00, truck coming at 09:00 so get ready, have a quick brekkie and we were off! We met our driver and tour guide 'Pom' and he bundled us into the back of his pickup truck and we went to collect the other people coming with us. Once we were all in the truck, a Czech couple(Vladimir and can't remember her name!), a German couple(can't remember names!) and a German girl(Anna), we headed to the dam where we would catch a longtail boat to our jungle hideaway. It was about an hour in the truck and another hour on the boat before we arrived and our bum's were killing us ha ha! All these different modes of transport is doing my coccyx no good at all!! Anyway, it was the most amazing boat ride, all the mountains and trees and all the different sounds of the jungle, as we came around one of the mountains we saw a small row of floating bamboo huts and we realised that we'd arrived. We were literally in the middle of nowhere but it was stunningly beautiful, the water was so calm, proper oasis! Once we'd 'landed' we were greeted by a family of monkeys that had come down to the shore to eat the scraps the ladies from the kitchen had left for them, that was pretty cool. We were all allocated a hut and told we had an hour to swim in the lake before lunch. Pom showed us where the toilets were, on the shore up a few steps into the forest, about 50m away from the huts, this I was not doing alone at night! We all got changed and me and Simon jumped into the lake from our back door/porch, it was amazing! The water was so calm and refreshing I could've stayed in there all day! Getting into the lake was the easy part, getting out again proved to be much more difficult, the row of huts were floating on the water all tied together and ours had a porch on the back which ws raised up out of the water, this was what we had to climb back out onto and there weren't any steps to help us! I decided to do to Anna's hut as she was on the end of the row and her porch was lower down than ours but Simon climbed back onto our porch cutting his shin open on the bamboo in the process! It was bleeding but not too bad so a bit of 'second skin' sorted him out. After we'd dried out a bit Pom shouted us for lunch. We walked down the floating walkway to the communal area where the table had been set with a few different dishes and it looked and smelt great! We had rice and chicken, a green curry and a few other things, and watermelon and pineapple for dessert. After we'd eaten Pom told us we would be going to the cave that afternoon and all we should bring with us is torch, camera, and the clothes we were wearing. We got into the longtail and headed off about 10mins into the jungle. Once we got to our destination Pom told us it would be an hours trek to the cave, we all jumped off the boat and had to walk through mud till we reached dry land, my poor Puma's! It was quite a steady hike and quite enjoyable really, we were walking through the jungle so the sights and sounds were incredible, it also suited me 'cause we were shadowed by all the huge trees. We walked up and down hills, through streams that varied in width and depth but up to this point the water was only ever ankle deep (at least I could clean my trainers!). Once we reached the cave we were told we needed our torches as once we entered the cave it was gonna be pitch black! A little bit nervous and a lot excited off we went into the darkness, about 5mins in Pom pointed to the roof and there were hundreds of bats just hanging around looking at us with their beady eyes! Pom then pointed to the rocks lower down and I'm not kidding, the BIGGEST spiders I have ever seen just sitting there! (I was ready to either go back or move on at this point ha ha!) We continued into the cave, we were walking in single file in really cold water that was mid-calf depth, it was so far so good. The further in we went the water got a little deeper and so it was harder to see where to put your feet, Pom was leading the way and me and Simon were just behind him. Pom and Simon stepped down a little bit and just as Simon said "I think there's a gap there" I stepped off the rock and fell into the gap! I was in the water up to my neck at this point and Simon had to help me get back up, Pom thought it was hilarious as I'd got completely soaked, I thought it was pretty funny too but I could already feel a giant bruise forming on my right shin! We carried on and I watched very closely at where Pom put his feet from then on!
About half way we had to hold onto a rope and climb down a few steep rocks into the cold water, because it was so steep the stream we were walking in turned into quite a fast flowing waterfall so it was a little intense at the time! What Pom didn't tell us was that the water at the bottom was neck deep and we'd have to part swim for a short distance, little tinker! It was bloody freezing and most of us (well, me!) squealed when we realised but by then it was too late! We all dragged ourselves out of the water and carried on through the cave, the stalagmites and stalactites were really impressive and they sparkled when we shone our torches on them, it was really beautiful.
After we'd been well and truly soaked the rest of the cave was pretty shallow, the worst it got was thigh deep. We were in there about 45mins before we saw the first sign of daylight again. We scrambled up the rocks and out through a little hole and we were out of the cave! It was when we were all sitting around drying out that Pom told us that this was the cave in which 8 people died 2 years previously when they had been in the cave when a flash flood had occurred and the cave had become flooded in a matter of minutes. Eight people drowned and only one English girl had survived by getting as high up as she could and she clung on for over 20 hours. Simon had already been through this cave with Ade and so we already knew the story but I was still glad Pom saved it till after!
We trekked back to our boat and headed back to the huts for a quick swim and some dinner before we went on the night safari.
After dinner which was fresh fish, rice, green curry and some other yummy things we got back on the boat to try and spot some of the nocturnal animals of the jungle. We were on the lake about an hour and all we saw were a few hornbills which look like toucans and they were massive! Every time we got near one and shone the light at it, it did a big poo that plopped into the water with a big splash so we didn't stay under them for long! Once we got back to the huts we just chilled out in the communal area and decided to try and have an early night as we were gonna be up early on the lake again. We walked to our hut and opened the door and there was a massive frog on our bed! My reaction was shouting "frog in bed!" to which the Czech couple in the hut next to ours burst out laughing, they found it highly amusing! It jumped around a bit, ricocheting off our mozzie net and then jumped out of the back door and we thought that was the last we'd seen of him. A little while later when we were tucked under our mozzie net and the light was out we heard a thud and thought "what the hell is that?" Turns out our little friend was back, he was sitting by the back door watching us! This time we made sure he'd hopped off before we got back in bed, didn't want him trampolining off the mozzie net in the middle of the night!
The next morning we were up at 07:30 and back in the boat to go monkey spotting. We went around the lake listening to the gibbons whooping and howling and tried to follow their calls. We saw a family of black gibbons high up in one tree, it was amazing, they were swinging about and we got a really good look at them. We also caught a fleeting glimpse at a brown gibbon swinging through the trees, it was brilliant but we would have liked to have seen more! We were on the water about an hour and didn't really see anything else but the noises the jungle makes early in the morning is something special that we will never forget. Back to the huts for breakfast and then we could choose what we wanted to do in the afternoon. We decided to get in a 2 person kayak and go and do some monkey spotting of our own. Off we went out to some islands in the middle of the lake where we followed the monkey sounds until we saw movement in the canopy. We waited for a while and then two monkeys appeared and sat on a branch high up in the trees. It was as if they were watching us watching them, it was brilliant! It was probably about 11:30 by then so too hot for them to be really active and they just looked like they were lying on the branches chillin out in the shade. Once we got back to the huts we asked if anyone else had seen anything and noone had so we were pretty pleased with ourselves!
After lunch we packed up our stuff and we left the huts on the longtail around 14:00ish to go back to Khao Sok. Another hours boat ride (my bum!) and an hour in the truck and we were back at Palm Veiw. We were knackered so we only managed a little walk around town before bed. We'd arranged to go on an elephant safari the next morning so it was another early start.
25/11/09
The owner of Palm Veiw took us to the elephant trek this morning, it was only about 15mins away from the bungalow so my bum was glad about that! Almost as soon as we'd arrived we were ushered up some steps and onto an elephant, I didn't have time to think! We sat on a little bench side by side over the back of the elephant with a rope tied in front of us, I suppose that was the safety harness! A guide walked behind us and off we went, it definitely isn't the most comfortableof rides but it was an experience nonetheless! We went through a stream (where our elephant decided it was time to go to the toilet!) and up through a rubber plantation until we reached the disembarkment area where we could walk up some steps to a waterfall. It was really good but there were a lot of elephants and a lot of people, we were in a big line going up and all the way there were paople passing us on the way back down. We weren't sure if we liked the idea of this as we were unsure on how the elephants were treated, we thought it seemed a bit cruel to do this to them all day every day and we felt bad because we were there doing it and being part of the problem so it took the edge of it a little bit. (We later found out that the elephants used to be used to help with construction and since machinery had been brought over to do the job the elephants were no longer needed and they were either killed or mistreated and they stopped breeding them so these treks were started to earn income to look after them, this made us feel slightly better about the whole situation). On the way back down from the waterfall our guide asked if oe of us would like to sit on the elephants neck and ride back to the beginning of the trail. I declined the offer, I'm bad enough on a horse and there was nothing to hold onto(!) but Simon went for it, he climbed off our bench and sat right behind her ears, Tarzan or what?! Well that was it then, yet again I was relegated as he instantly fell in love with her! We got back to the 'depot' and climbed of our beautiful 14 year old lady elephant and we were told that for 20B (approx 40p) we could feed her some pineapple. She'd been so good that of course we wanted to give her a treat so we fed her big chunks of pineapple that she seemed to really enjoy. It was a brilliant experience but I just hope they are looked after well. We left her munching away and went back to Palm View to pack as we were leaving later that day.
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