Khao Sok National Park is everthing the islands aren't, calm, peaceful, and with a wider range of travelers (i.e not just young, beautiful and wanting to party). We spent our first few mornings waking to the sounds of monkeys, birds chirping and frogs croaking. We ventured into the park twice and did scenic walks out to waterfalls. It was great to hike without a ranger or guide and the park provided maps which gave us a rough idea where to head. Both walks took around five hours return with one being much more technical and steep.
Tash was delighted to see her first monkey in the wild swinging through the trees during our second hike and we swam in some beautiful waterfalls. On our way back to our hut we came upon a local who had "knocked out" an extremely long king cobra; it looked pretty dead to us but we were happy we did not stumble across one in the jungle!
On our third day we decided to relax. Sitting on our balcony we saw monkeys enter our resort going through bits and pieces left on other huts and peering through windows to see if there was anyone in. During the evening we treated ourselves to massages.Tash was worked on by a petite (yet strong!) thai lady whilst I had to wait five minutes before my massuse arrived; who turned out to be a ladyboy who proceded to walk all over my back and attempt to test the limits of my inflexibility!
The next day we headed deeper into the jungle on a hiking tour where we spent the night on a floating village, hiked, went caving, animal spotting and swimming. We met a lovely couple, Astrid and Henry from Belgium, sharing several laughs at the expense of a group of younger backpackers who were "finding themselves".
We left the jungle for the madness of Phuket, where we write this now, to meet our friends Gemma and Darren for drinks and some beach time.
