Newly reinvented Jane, seeks Tarzan for comfort during nightly tree-house terror where every noise no matter how tiny makes you think king cobra and the bedbugs are guaranteed to bite... Just kidding. Tarzan did a great job of scaring off the wildlife during the night.
We arrived in Surat Thani, grubby, sleepy eyed and famished to be greeted by our personal driver, blacked out SUV and all. One and a half hours later, we pulled up at The Khao Sok Nature Resort which was to be our home for the next two nights. Nowhere has ever felt so much like home so fast thanks in part to this cloud of love: "Poy"(Thai phonetic spelling allowing) who attached herself to me so closely that if I even went to the toilet it would set off constant barking until I emerged again. Trust me, the feeling was mutual.
The first time we ascended into it's bowers was a little hairy but the next time we were pretty much used to it - the most important thing is to not look down.
The Khao Sok nature resort is the absolute best place to stay if you want to go to a Thai National Park - admittedly it's the only one I've been to but everyone we spoke to had various complaints about their hotels and I see this as my major pre-planning big win of the trip. There are a lot of tour companies that offer you pre-booking for the national park at Western prices but if you want to pre-book it's hard to find other options. After a lot of digging and thinking, I decided to try booking treks and activities through the accommodation itself. AFter a few conversations between Tarzan (ahem) - yup I know how to delegate - and the resort's lovely owner Mr T, it was clear that this was the place to go with. Their prices are low, they are honest and transparent and their location and food are to die for. The entire place is family run - Mr. T's niece heads up the kitchen and their food was the best that we had in our entire trip. It tasted far better than it looked - which is saying something...
On day two in the jungle we got up at 6am and headed down to breakfast before taking a boat into the middle of the National Park lake.
Our boat dropped us at the floating rafthouses where we had a quick fish lunch and a dip. It was only after going in the water that they told us they've seen 10ft pythons swimming in there... what you don't know can't harm you eh?
After lunch we went on a long walk into the jungle where we saw all kinds of beasts and walked through a cave with flashlights on our heads for over an hour. It was amazing, but the kind of thing you really have to not know that much about and just do, so I won't rob you of the pleasure.
Four hours later we headed back to our floating base camp for another dip and the long boat ride home. We got to the edge of the mammoth lake at sundown.
A short ride later we were back in our Nature Resort eating Vegetable Tempura. A 5am rise the next day called for an early night. The next day we were taking a taxi to Phuket to commence our private yacht charter... the butterflies (and various other real live bugs) meant I could barely sleep with excitement...
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