Khao Sok it to 'em

After (reluctantly) leaving Ko Tao, we galloped inland to visit Khao Sok national park, passing Ko Samui and Koh Phangan on the way. We ended up living in a tree house over a river just outside the park.

Our treehouse

Sunset near our house - noisy monkeys, frogs and cicadas not pictured

The area seemed to infect us with an unnatural wholesomeness and we were exceptionally active during our stay. First on the list was tubing down our river with Ah (?) our 12 year old guide, who was a very cheeky child who kept tipping us out of our tubes!

Rope swinging into the river

Next we wandered through the park to see the rainforest and the waterfall.

Matt facing his fear with a plastic hornbill...

how will he cope when faced with the real deal? Read on to find out...

We returned to the park that night with our guide Adam, who took us on a night safari to show us tarantulas, scorpions, bats, vipers and monsters.

Matt (LHS) and Adam (RHS) in the jungle after dark oooohhhhh

The next day we were up bright and early for our day trip to the man made lake in the park.

After a short boat trip over the lake we stopped for lunch and swimming at the raft houses.

Then after lunch, the adventure really began...

As we set off for our afternoon jungle trek the storm started. We sailed past monkeys and hornbills (Matt was very brave) to the starting point - which was underwater. The boat turned us around and we tried again; jumping out of the boat into waist deep water in the pouring rain...

After a brief swim across the waterlogged path we came across a sign warning us not to enter the jungle when it was raining!! We ploughed on bravely through the leech infested water dressed only in our sarongs...

Sarong crew + guide

We finally reached the trek's end destination; a water filled cave deep in the heart of the jungle. As we were about to head inside the guide stopped us and told us that we couldn't go in as the water level was dangerously high and rising - some travellers had been trapped and died in there the week before, so we were forced to retreat.

Exhausted and soaked through we went back to our treehouse - alive to trek another day.