Our next stop was Khao Sok National Park, north of where we were. We had found accommodation not too far from the park entrance, hoping to do tours on our own there and watch exciting Thai animals. The room was simple but large and super cosy. With the included breakfast, for the first time in months, good tea was served in a pot for refills, which immediately made my tea-loving heart beat faster. Value for money was much better in this area than in Thailand's beach towns. For months I hadn't been able to get good tea (let alone organic), even though you'd expect it in a tea-growing country. I had imagined it would be similar to Sri Lanka, with countless tea shops and categories of tea to choose from. But it wasn't – neither here nor in Indonesia. (Vietnam scores points once again, because you're offered at least ginger tea and green tea almost everywhere.) In Indonesia the good varieties are exported to Europe, and the hotels and mini-marts provide something that isn't really drinkable. Important tip for tea drinkers: be sure to bring your own tea (and herbal tea)! Here in Thailand it was similar, or there simply was no tea in the morning, only coffee. In both countries, with a bit of luck, you could find a Twinings display in rare large supermarkets that had either one kind of black tea or peppermint tea in stock. But that was it for herbal teas. And after several weeks you get sick of peppermint tea too. Luckily I had my travel knife and our immersion heater (!) with me and could at least make myself a tea from ginger root now and then.
But back to nature.
The village itself consisted only of a main road leading to the park entrance, along which the few restaurants and mini-marts were lined up. Side paths led to various resorts and hostels or campsites.
By now we'd become pretty good at assigning other tourists in hiking areas to their home countries just by their outfits. If we then walked as close behind them as possible to recognise the sound of their language, our guess was often confirmed. Austrians, Germans and now and then some French are very likely to wear functional clothing, hiking boots and outfits whose age is hard to tell. US citizens and Australians usually look as if they had a travel washing machine with them and could pop into the gym at any moment. Whereas some Brits could even be found in the jungle in hot pants, mini skirts or club outfits.
On the very first evening we went on a night walk well organised by the hotel. It was unbelievable what we got to see. Either it was our animal luck once again, or our guide's remarkable skills, or a mix of both. In any case, our expectations were more than exceeded, and besides all kinds of fascinating insects we even spotted an extremely shy little wild cat species and a monkey. We also made out and photographed snakes, a bearded dragon, frogs and stick insects.
When I told the tour guide that I find spiders extremely fascinating, he said he could show me a rare electric blue tarantula. I thought he'd better be careful making announcements like that, since it's a very rare tarantula species. But a few minutes later he had already found us 2 specimens to photograph.
The next day we did a 3-hour hike on our own. Unfortunately, during the day we didn't have that much animal luck; we also just missed the gibbons in the area and could only hear their calls from a distance. The hike was still a lovely experience. We walked a loop that led down to a river and back again. At the river we got to watch a macaque.
To round off our nature adventure, we booked a 2-day tour to the big lake (Cheow Lan Lake) in the middle of the national park, in order to travel on towards Phuket from there. We approached the lake tour with high expectations of animal sightings too. That's why we were a bit disappointed at first when, apart from a few fish and macaques, we didn't see much. Gradually, though, we understood that people came here to enjoy the beauty and peace of the lake, and to jump into the cool water without having to worry about water creatures.
We were taken through the park by boat and then brought to our floating boathouses, where we were to spend the night.
Right at the start we met a really sweet couple from Great Britain (in designer clothes), with whom we spent quite a lot of time. In the evening we sat together with most of the travel group over dinner and afterwards, and once again shared our travel experiences with the others. The lake trip included a fun little jungle hike, an excursion into a small cave and two boat rides on the lake. Once again time flew by, and soon the two of us were standing at a van stop with our luggage again, waiting for a ride towards Phuket.
Enjoy the video and the photo gallery: