Ban Bang Ta Thian

Bamboo rafting 🎋:
Since we only had one day we had to pick out of many exciting day excursions. One of our top picks was diving in the magnificent Similan islands - a group of islands so untouched that they only open the national reserve half the year to allow the ecosystem to recover . However looking at the price and us just having spent a week diving, we opted to maybe return to this another holiday.
Khao Lak has a wild national forest park that just had to be visited when in the region, so we made our way up there. First stop we did a quite touristy activity that was super fun though - and wet. We went down a river with small rapids on a bamboo raft. The nature was beautiful and it was an exhilarating boat ride, pretty impressive how they navigate those.

Waterfall hike 🌳🌧️:
Second stop was a waterfall, however we had our own personal waterfall just outside the car as it was pouring down - tropical rain is something else. After 30 min of waiting we were brave enough to make our way into the park, the waterfall was nice but the true masterpiece was the jungle. The trees were so high you can barely see the crowns and after the rainfall everything looked lush and vibrant. Charly also got a free pedicure by some local fish. The second part was a bit more challenging, especially in Jeroen’s flip flops, but made it out without any broken ankles. Charly was very excited about hiking and did some jumping from stone to stone and slipped losing her sunglasses in a waterfall. Luckily no elbow or wrist pain, only a cracked phone protector. Luckily since the sunglasses are very light and have a obvious colour we spotted it in one pool of water further down the stream. have In our way back we almost got washed away by more heavy rain, luckily Charly had taken one umbrella with her. At the end of rainy season an umbrella is a must, plus it doubles as a sun cover. One of the most essential items to bring.

Turtle Conservation 🐢:
Now as you could imagine by the time we were done we were already pretty tired but there was one more item on our itinerary. We had a bit of trouble finding it, second guessing ourselves how smart it is to enter a Thai military base. But it turned out the turtle conservation was indeed part of and run by the Thai navy. After being in one in Cambodia, this was also quite interesting for Jeroen, most prominent was a giant golf course. The turtle sanctuary was initially opened by the kings mother and they do some education about plastic pollution. They both breed turtles to release into the wild, but also collect them after hatching to increase survival chances once they are older. They also had some adult turtles that were taken in due to injuries. We had never seen so many turtles close up before so it was really cute. They are surprisingly fast swimmers. There is also a tsunami memorial next to it for all the lives lost in the navy, the ship displayed had been miles out at see when the wave struck. Torrential rain number 3 surprised us after which we made our way home.Les mer