Khao Sok

When I arrived in Thailand, I had a hotel reservation only in Koh Samui, and I had only a few vague ideas of where I would go after having my fill of the island. My travel plans changed daily as I read through my guidebook. Krabi, Phuket, Rangon, and Prachuap were each tentatively planned as my next stop before I read about Khao Sok, a national park said to contain a rainforest that is older than the Amazon (and, according to the park website, “the oldest evergreen rainforest in the world”). So, about 20 hours before I had to leave Koh Samui, I bought a ticket for a ferry across the Gulf of Thailand to the mainland and a bus ride from the coast to the national park.

I arrived at a dirt road on the edge of the park six hours after leaving Koh Samui. A man waiting for travelers offered me a ride in the back of his truck from the bus stop to my guesthouse. After I checked into my room – a small, rustic bungalow with two beds, each covered by a mosquito net mounted to the ceiling – I made a reservation to join a 10 hour day tour that included a boat ride across Cheow Larn lake (the result of damming the Pasaeng River), hiking in the jungle, and spelunking in Namtaloo cave.

The tour cost about 40 euros. The hour boat ride from the main docking area to the raft houses, where travelers who choose a longer tour option sleep overnight, was worth the price of admission alone. The beauty of the jagged cliffs that rose from the teal waters was, as my guidebook suggested, supernatural. When we arrived at the raft houses, I immediately regretted passing up the overnight trip in favor of the day tour. Cheow Lake was already the highlight of my three weeks in Thailand, but I wish I could have slept inside one of the bamboo huts on top the water under the clear, star-saturated sky, and woken up at dawn to the chattering and buzzing of the jungle fauna.    

After an hour break at the raft houses when others swam in the lake and I explored the slopes of the surrounding hills and took some pictures, the subset of the travelers willing to hike through a pitch black cave with neck high waters boarded a boat to dock at the trail heading toward the cave. Our guides gave each of us a head lamp, which first came in handy on the uneven, slippery ground, and then allowed us to see hundreds of bats taciturnly hanging from the ceiling, a spider the size of my face sitting resting on a rock, and water spilling over alien rock formations that glittered like diamonds in the light.

The hour boat ride back to the docking area was even more spectacular than the morning ride was. The sun was low enough in the sky to produce noticeable beams of light above the cliffs and glowing auras behind them, and the water shifted from a cloudy teal to a reflective turquoise.

For my next (and last) day in Khao Sok, I took a short hike alone through the jungle from a trailhead not far from the guesthouse. I saw some others on the trail, including some small groups with Thai guides who identified animal tracks on the ground and named birds, butterflies, and trees near the trail. When I was close to one of these groups, the guide pointed out the loud (and obvious) activity of primates shouting and bending tree limbs in the canopy a hundred feet above the ground. Other than a large golden orb spider lounging in its human-sized web, I didn't see anyone on the trail for an hour after this.

About thirty minutes after turning around to head back to the trailhead, I followed a bend in the trail on the way back, and I found myself less than 20 feet from a group of four primates sitting on a two by four foot park information board. One was much larger than the others, and I assumed it was the mother of the three smaller ones. I froze when I saw them, and the large one stared at me while the smaller ones continued to scurry around on the ground. I avoided eye contact and walked slowly along the edge of the trail, as far away from them as I could. When I was ten feet past them, I slowly glanced over my shoulder and saw that they had barely acknowledged my presence as I passed (or, at least were acting the exact same as they had before I’d passed them). Satisfied that I was in no danger of having my face ripped off, I knelt down and removed my camera and watched them play for five minutes before they scampered into the jungle after hearing a loud group of hikers approaching from behind.

My last adventure in Khao Sok occurred in my shower. As I took my last shower before getting on a bus to Bangkok, I noticed what seemed like a large blister on the inside of my left foot. I was surprised – I’d been walking all morning in my running shoes and a pair of high cut athletic socks, and I hadn’t felt any discomfort. When I rubbed it, I felt no pain, but what seemed like a bloody piece of skin fell from my foot onto the bathroom floor. When I examined the piece of skin on the ground, I saw it transform from red to black as it was rinsed by the water. I looked back at my foot, and blood began flowing quickly from the blister. It was a rather painless, fascinating first experience with a leach. I was amazed that it had been able to get under (or through) my sock and so deep into my shoe, even though I never touched water on the hike. On the whole, it was a welcome alternative to blood loss via mosquito bite.