Beasts in Jungle

March 13th, 14th and 15th: More Vacation in Khao Sok National Park

Mar 15, 2014

Day 151, Day 152 & Day 153

There are minivans from Krabi Town to Khao Sok National Park each day, and you can book the ride at most hotels or tour agents in town. The 3.5 hour ride was quite enjoyable. Stunning scenery unfolds as the highway curves around the mountains and jungles. We were delivered directly to our hotel – Our Jungle House, and Chopper did a great job choosing this one. Little wooden bungalows hidden in the thick forest along a clear river. Everything is well designed and fits into the natural surrounding. I was mostly impressed by their effort to provide filtered .drinking water to minimize the plastic waste, and this is the only place we saw that recycles.

We took a late afternoon hike in the national park, and just as the sun was setting we reached a natural swimming pool. There are few things that can compare to the joy of dipping in the river after a hike in the hot weather.

During our two-night stay, we saw more wild life than the entire 3 months we’ve been in Thailand. We saw a Draco (also known as a flying dragon) and I got to pet him. A Tokay was living in our room singing his mating song all night. Chopper saw an Emma Gray’s Forest Tree Lizard and a snake was chasing his prey – a little gecko in our front yard. The constant chirping and tweeting from the forest reminded us there is much more hidden behind the scenes.

Even though there is demand for public transportation from Khao Sok National Park to major tourist towns, Hat Yai World Tour provides the most regular and direct transportation. From Khao Sok National Park to Krabi Town, the public bus will take you 5 to 6 hours and require multiple transfers, so there is really no competition for the Hat Yai minivans, which only takes 3.5 hour for the journey, including hotel pickup. Still, you need to be careful with the minivan mafia, as they will always try their best to squeeze some extra baht out of travellers. They have a transfer center 4km outside of Krabi Town, and once we got there they claimed that if we want a ride into town we need to pay another 50 baht each. From the beginning we were promised hotel drop-off, but at this point nothing could prove that. The ticket says “destination: Krabi”, and we were technically in Krabi. A guy next to us was desperately trying to get them to take him to the airport as promised, but they insisted that no pay no more transfer. Chopper did what he is good at, by following a driver around and repeatedly demanding for a minivan to Krabi Town. Pretty soon, we were put into a van that took us to our hotel. Kudos for his annoying nature!