Khao Sok national park

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We took a mini bus from Krabi over to Khao Sok ntional park on the west of Thailand. We'd booked a treehouse but when we arrived we discovered that we'd actually be booked into the most revolting concrete hut thing ive ever had the misfortune to stay in in my life. Luke thinks i whinge a lot but even he agreed that this place was a hell hole! We made a fuss about it and the guy halved the price to 200 bath which is about 2 pounds 50 but it was still worth less than that, the only thing that kept us there was that the family that ran the place was so nice. Because we werent happy with our room the owner took us on a tour to see the monastery where the monkeys live and over to the viewpoint as the sun began to go down. In the evening we headed down the road to use the internet and got chatting to one of the guys who lives locally. We ended up spending the evening talking to him and his family who cooked us Tom Yam and organised our accomodation for us on Koh Phang nan which we couldnt find for love or money on the date of the full moon party. Luke had gone back to the room to have a shower and found our bathroom crawling with leeches, then as he was having a shower a mouse dropped from the ceiling and fell at his feet which he said wouldnt have been so bad if he had had clothes on but i guess sharing your shower with a greasy little rodent when youre naked wasnt the most pleasant experience. We had a few drinks in a bar then went back to our hovel. Things went down hill when i went to the toilet and ended up peeing on 2 mice that were having a swim in there. It was so dark that i could only see there tails wiggling so i went to get the torch and made such a fuss about it that the danish couple next door were a little angry and came over to complain, they were fine when we explained but still mice inn the toilet, leeches in the cold shower and a mosquito net that sat on your face all night wasnt my idea of fun.

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The next day we'd booked to go treking in the rainforest and headed an hour around the park to catch a long tail boat out into the lake to the floating huts. The huts are made of bamboo and are tied together at the side of the lake in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the people who came with us there wasnt another soul for miles. We left our stuff in our huts, had lunch and got ready to go jungle treking. I had no idea what i was letting myself in for and anyone who knows me at all will know that i hate getting dirty, i hate being cold, i dont like bugs or wading through water with plants and slime at the bottom and i had to do all of these things and worse. we were advised to wear flip flops so that we could see the leaches if they crawled onto us and swimming stuff because we would be swimming through a cave full of bats. We took the boat to the edge of the jungle where we had to go through knee deep pond water and thick mud to get to the path. My shoes kept falling off so our guide ripped up a tshirt and tied them on. There was a lot of splashing through rivers and clambering over rocks. We saw spiders as big as my hand, monkeys and all kinds of weird plants and fungus type things. The trek to the cave was about an hour long through thick jungle and although i knew we were going through a cave i didnt realise we would be swimming up to our necks against the flow of the water in the pitch black with a torch in my mouth and bats overhead and i had a bit of a panic. After about 10 minutes of being in the cave i chilled out a bit, that was until i saw the size of the spiders that live in the cave, then i was pretty glad to get out. We walked for another hour or so back to the boat then arrived back at the huts in time for dinner. Luke and i were shattered so we went to bed very early but most of the group ended up drinking Thai whiskey until 2am.

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We spent the next day swimming in the lake and kayaking. We wanted to see some more monkeys but they were alluding us. We could hear the gibbons but we couldnt see them so we had to settle for lots of birds instead. We took the boat back to the park in the pouring rain and freezing cold and got a minibus to the local bus stop to get the bus to surat thai and on to Koh Phangnan.