Day 29

Khao Sok National Park

After waking up bright and early for our breakfast, we head to "Our Jungle Camp" HQ and wait for our van to be ready to leave. We drop our bags and board the minivan and head towards a 7-11 to grab and water and snacks we needed for the trip. A short trip onwards and we arrive at Rajjaprabha Dam where we meet our guide for the next 2 days. After paying our fees we eventually board our longtail boat and head into Cheow Lan Lake.

Cheow Lan Lake is a 185 square kilometer man made lake. In 1987 they built a massive dam and flooded the forest for hydropower, flood control, and fishing. This lead to a beautiful clear lake with towering cliffs and jungle both in and around it. Our longtail boat took us through part of it, until we reached our small village of floating raft houses. There was a clear scale of luxury as you looked along. Me and Alfie were staying in their basic package, a small bamboo house with mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets (which for me is still plenty enough) but others had fancier materials, with bed frames, and ensuites.

The little village had more amenities than I expected, with toilets, showers, and even electricity during the day. First things first we put our stuff in our little hut then I stripped down to my swim suit and jumped straight into the water. It wasn't long until I was diving, front flipping and back flipping from the walkway into the water. The walkway however, felt like fire as it had been baking in the sun all day, so you either had to be very quick or wear flip flops. On my 2nd attempt of a backflip I got a little close for comfort to the walkway and Alfie banned me from any more flips.

It was lunch time, where were served to a beautiful mix of rice, noodles, vegetables, fish, and omelettes with mango and dragon fruit to finish off. Even better is we could have as much as we wanted. After lunch, we headed straight for the kayaks where I was expecting to have one each, but Alfie wanted to go for a 2 in 1. This was a mistake. When I kayaked before it had been easy to control, but with 2 people it was chaos. At first we tried padding together but we couldn't go 5 meters before we meandered uncontrollably to the side. We eventually turn back and go back to swimming before it was time for our afternoon activity.

We head back on the longtail boat to a section where there was a short hike before we would enter a cave. When we landed, the first warning we got was that there were wild elephants on the path yesterday and if our guide saw any elephants, or recent evidence there was a 2 step plan. Step 1: be very quiet. Step 2: run as fast as we could back the way we came. Very exciting.

Along the trail to the cave, our guide pointed out various animals and plants along the route, even showing us the tracks for where elephants had walked, bamboo they had eaten, and trees where they had itched themselves. We're then taught some basic Jungle survival, and he showed us that with a "small knife" (it was a machete) you could get water from young bamboo, as well as find "bamboo worms" for a small snack. He then pulled some barely alive white worms from his backpack and asked if anyone felt hungry. With no one else volunteering, I thought "might aswell" and went for it. Feeling the poor little guy explode in my mouth wasn't a nice feeling. Neither was his chewy little body.

We eventually make it to the cave where we are handed headtorches and warned about the many many big spiders that called the cave their home. Deciding to wear my big boy pants, I ventured down. Oh my god they were fucking massive. Disgusting little spindly creatures I can't believe I got as close as I did to the. By close, it wasn't close atall, I made sure I socially distanced as much as I could from those things, treating them like patient 0 of COVID-19. As we get deeper we see hundreds of bats flocked on the ceiling squeaking away. We turn back and it wasn't until we had left that I realised how tense I was.

We wander back down the trail and board our longtail boat, ready for an evening "safari". I'm gonna be honest I'm not sure if our guide just didn't see any animals to point out but it was more of an evening snack eating festival. I'm not complaining of course I love snacks. We had dried rice crackers, banana in sweet sticky rice, and oreos taking in the serenity. That was when the massive diesel engine wasn't blaring.

We get back to our floating raft houses and after another swim, it was time for dinner. It was similar to lunch, but we had a full on fish that had been fried and put on a plate. With none of us knowing how on Earth to eat this thing, we just started cutting small chunks off as best we could. I was terrible at this and almost ate maybe 5 small bones. The table next to us evidently had some experience as they had a perfectly meat free fish skeleton still intact. After chatting to a Canadian dude about travelling in Canada and Africs, we went to bed ready for our 6.30am safari.Read more