Diary "Thailand -2019"

27.02.2019 – 20.03.2019
Our program: islands Kho Samui – Kho Phangan – national park Khao Sok – Phuket.

Part 3 Khao Sok national park

We left the island of Phangan at 12:30 by ferry. A joint ferry-bus ticket from Phangan to Khao Sok was purchased in advance on the BusOnlineTicket website. The ferry took about 2 hours at brought us to Donsak pier. Immediately everybody was seated on buses and off we go. It turned out that two more transfers in Surattani were to be taken, from a large bus to a tuk-tuk, then to an air-conditioned minibus. As a result, we left Suratthani only at 17:40. We got to the place only at 8 pm.

We decided to stay right next door to the national park, KhaoSok Hill Top Resort (1,500 THB per night, including breakfast). In the mornings and evenings, the calls of gibbons and different birds are heard. The hostess distinguishes them by their voices and even can imitate some, so they answer her. Such rare species as the great hornbill live there. We could hear the noise of their wings, but could not see them, - too far away.

There are only 3 bungalows in the hotel, they heat up during the day. In the evening-night it is very hot inside, we slept with the open door and two fans. The first night I even went to sleep outside on a sun lounger, looked at the southern constellations, so many meteors flew by - not possible to count.

Our Hotel was on the mountain away from the main village. On one hand, there is no noises and cars, but on the other hand, there are excursion vans that don't go there. We arrived at 8 pm, that minibus, that brought us, refused to go up the hill and told us to call the hotel so they could send a car for us, that they did. A friendly hostess with good English, immediately sent her brother and after 20 minutes we arrived. Here we are with the hostess (in the centre).

Besides us there was another French couple and later two British turned up. We managed to talk with everyone about their travels, including the owner and all her relatives. That is what remains in the memory after such journeys.

14/03/19
We took a canoe trip along the river Sok, just the pair ofus and the boy who rowed. Canoe is inflatable, 600 THB per person. When there is more water in the river during the rainy period, from May to December, they also organize "tubing" on inflated tires. Yes, the monsoon rains here lasts for more than six months, therefore this area of Thailand is covered with rain forest and very green all year round. But now is the period of drought.

We saw wild monkeys frolicking near the water, they did not pay attention to us; beautiful birds with bright blue wings, King fisher, and large birds with white wings. Strange, but nobody knows their name. Of course, we bathed in the river. Very beautiful river. On the stop our guide prepared us tea and coffee boiling the water in bamboo tubes over an open fire and then poured into cups which he also cut out from bamboo:

In the afternoon we decided to wander around, but it was hard because of the heat. The road from the hotel to the village is planted with palm trees used for the palm oil production:

and a rubber tree forest for collection of rubber:

We saw an elephant by the river that ate leafs from a tree. Our host said that yes, wild elephants come here to eat the leaves of young palm trees, but they wouldn't come close to the village. Maybe he was domestic?

The village is surrounded by spiky-shaped rocks. These rock formations are very ancient, of karst origin. The highest is up to 900m. Once it was an ancient coral reef, then the mountains rose when the Indian plate crashed into the Eurasian (like the Himalayas), later they got a bizarre form as a result of erosion.

15/03/19
Went to look at the main attraction - Cheow Lan lake. This huge reservoir with many islands and fjords was created in the early 80s by building a long dam and flooding a vast territory in the valley of the river Sok.

The main goal was the construction of a hydroelectric power station. In a local book we read that in this valley the last communists were hiding, who had opposed the government army for 8 years.

Many villages were flooded, as it's often happens in such cases. All families living in this fertile valley (there were about 300 of them) were given compensation and a new allotment of land. Later they were also were allowed to live and fish in the national park. But fishing wasn't enough for them; they organized raft houses for tourists:

And then it began: tours, tourists, some people became so rich that we may only dream about. Again authorities tried to evict them, because not everyone liked it. However, in the end they came to terms, tourists only bring profit to Thailand. But even these rich people still remember their communist past.

The lake is an awesome beauty and is a “Must see”. The tour costs 1500 THB per person plus 300 THB for the entrance to the national park. But it's worth to pay.

First, 65km on a minibus, then about an hour on a longtale boat, our guide takes photos of every couple (for free, see further). Then we were led through the cave for an hour in cold water, sometime waist-high, and sometime swimming. We climbed up the underground waterfall, and sometimes squeezed only sideways between sharp stones. The entrance to the cave is camouflaged by a rock hanging almost to the floor, here it is on the right, you must literally crawl there ...

I was terribly tired! Actually, I am not a fan of caves, but as a true Russian person decided: once the money is paid, I must go! Well, once in a lifetime we need to get this cave experience. The rest of the group was much younger than us, 20-30 year olds. People of our age mostly sit near the cave, but we passed this test, hurray, we are still capable!

Later, I read in the book provided by our hostess that this particular entrance to the cave was used by 170 communist students when they were hiding from government troops in this cave. More precisely, there was a hospital in the cave. Students lived there for about 8 years, having weapons, buying food in local markets. The reservoir was meant to flood them (according to the author of the book, Thom Henley "Waterfalls and gibbon calls").

There was also a delicious lunch with grilled fish, fruits and vegetables. There was a swimming in a lake and/or canoe. There was the way back, when I slept ...

16/03/19
Again went to the national park with a guide (the hostess's brother), but now on foot, for trekking. You can choose mountains or waterfalls. In this heat, I can only go to the water, so we chose waterfalls. The tour costs 600 THB per person for half a day, plus 300 THB for the entrance to the park. Everything is quite expensive, the only thing that comforts me is the idea that the money will go to preserve the wild nature.

Here is Roger with a guide and his nephew (right to left) under Benjamin tree, which grew from 3 to one. I can't say that the guide was talkative, but he showed a lot of interesting things. We saw a family of Langur monkeys, jumping from tree to tree, with little yellow kids, really high. Of course, this is not a zoo, they will not let you to be close to them. Only birds and insects can be seen in the vicinity, like this Buffalo spider:

Or this bug in the form of a stick:

Or a cute varan (big lizard), who crouched in a tree and thought that we did not see it. At the end of the journey, we swam in the cool waters of the Sok river and set off on our way back through the shady forest. It is possible to go to the park without a guide, but we would hardly have noticed all this living creatures along the way and learned something about local plants.

17/03/19
We left for Phuket by bus at 9:30. The ticket costs 220 THB per person, but our hostess took 300 THB from us, however, including a taxi to the bus station (10 minutes). The number of people were much more than places in the large bus. The journey is 3 hours long. While Roger was waiting for the loading of our suitcases, I already climbed in and have taken 2 seats, Russian habit! The bus was air-conditioned, so it was not hot to travel.

Interestingly, in the beginning we did not plan to go to Khao Sok. We wanted to visit another island, Ko Mak, the one near the island of Phangan. But I came across negative information about it on the Internet and we decided not to risk. Truly, all that is done is for the best. A new island means just new beaches. And here we saw such a natural wonder, so many interesting things were found out and interesting people met! Would be great to come back and bring children and grandchildren ...