Hiking in Khao Sok

October 27^th, 2024 

At 8:30 in the morning, I met my guide at the tour office on the main road.   He introduced himself as “Bowie” (not sure of the spelling).  “I’m Dave.”  He immediately clued in that we were the “David Bowie Team”!  I got a chuckle out of that.

 

After paying my 200 baht ($8) entrance fee to the national park, we began our hike that was supposed to last four hours.  Immediately Bowie pointed out a tiny fruit bat that was sleeping under some palm branches that provided a nice, enclosed space for him.  I’m guessing that there’s almost always a bat there in the morning, probably the same one.

At the entrance:

The small fruit bat sleeping:

Next, he pointed out a massive spider on a web that spanned about a meter between a couple of trees.  He showed me three tiny spiders around the perimeter of the web and explained that those were the males and the big one in the middle was the female.  Wow.  If the male did do his job properly in the mating ritual, I imagine that was the end of him!

Hard to get perspective, but it was probably about 2-3 inches across.

Just a few hundred meters later, Bowie claimed that he could smell monkeys.  What?!?  This guide is good!  I couldn’t smell anything but thanks to my hay fever, smelling is not one of my strong suits.  Sure enough, thirty meters further up the trail, which was actually more of a road, we saw 7 monkeys high up in a tree.  A group of five Russians came walking up the path, with a couple of men in the lead, and they just walked past us.  When the three women approached us, we pointed out the monkeys, or “ling” in Thai, and the ladies were excited to see them.  The men backtracked to check them out.  You’d think it would be common sense to stop and take a look when you are on a jungle trek and you see a guide stopped with his client, looking up into the trees…

Young bamboo has stripes like this...never seen this before.

A super tall tree by the trail:

Look at the size of these bamboo clumps! (I'm sure that's not the scientific name for them)

Later on, Bowie mentioned the monkey scent again and this time I could smell it.  It’s their urine that is stinky.  This time we couldn’t find the perpetrator.  It was at this point that I realized that I should have gone on last night’s hike as this was not a trail, it was a rough road through the forest.  I thought we’d be hiking a narrow trail where one would get wet from brushing against wet foliage.  Oh well, who knew…obviously not me.

 

A highlight of the hike was supposed to be a waterfall, which as I mentioned in a previous post is not a big attraction to me, but we took a side trail down to the river and could see a 10-15 meter high waterfall, although some of it was obscured by trees.  The rain had started to fall too so I put on my $4 rain jacket (since I lost my expensive raincoat somewhere over the last 3-4 days).  The long button-up jacket does do a better job in keeping my shorts dry compared to my lost jacket, but it doesn’t breathe so after a while you feel just as wet on the inside from your sweat.

The waterfalls:

Fashionable isn't it?!?

We reached a “checkpoint”, which was really a small shelter and some toilets.  Bowie cut up a pineapple and I sat and enjoyed the view of the river for about half an hour before we hiked back.

The view from the shelter:

I giggled at these signs at the toilet...

As we approached the entrance to the park, we saw a few more monkeys, quite close up.  It seemed that the best action was closest to the Khao Sok village which was odd.

The hike was alright, but not really worth the price of admission.  Bowie was a good guide though and I thanked him for his service and gave him a decent tip.

The "David Bowie Team":

ATVing in Khao Sok

October 26^th, 2024

In the morning, I took a minivan taxi from Krabi to Khao Sok village, a small enclave near the Khao Sok National Park.  In my limited research that I did online before coming to this country, I’d read a few blogs that stated that this was their favourite place in Thailand…so why not check it out?  The main highlight is Cheow Lan Lake, which is interestingly about an hour away from the little village, but this village is where most of tourists stay.

 

After checking in at the Palmview Resort where I booked a little hut raised up about 12 feet above the ground, I wandered into the village for a late lunch.  Later I tried to figure out what my plan for activities was for the next three days.  I found a small tour company and the lady there named Mook was super helpful.  I ended up planning five different activities:  ATVing, a night trek, a half day morning hike, canoeing in the afternoon and a full day at Cheow Lan Lake…in that order.

My hut:

The next morning at 10:30, I was picked up by a young woman and even younger man and driven about 4 kilometres outside of Khao Sok to an ATV place.  The woman in her early 20s, Maia, was to be my guide and I was the only one on the tour as it is still the tail end of the rainy season, so business is slow everywhere.

 

Maia asked me about my experience with ATVs and I told her “Not a lot” but my last ride was in November in Uganda, so I was relatively current.  These ATVs were automatic, so they were easier than the ones in Uganda, but not quite as fun.  After a few laps around the practice area, I was good to go.

 

On one of the first little hills that was covered in hard packed red mud, Maia climbed it easily, but I could not get more than halfway up before spinning out.  The young man who had driven the truck was nearby and helped push me up the little incline.  I felt like I was a rookie, which granted I was, but throughout the rest of the ride my tail end seemed to be slipping side to side whereas Maia’s ATV drove straight.  I checked out our respective tires and hers were definitely better than mine.  All that being said, I actually enjoyed having to counter steer a lot.

 

Our first stop was a viewpoint of a “heart shaped hill”.  It kinda looked like a heart, and I played along with the tourist gimmick and held my hands in a heart-shape as Maia tried to capture it with my phone.

The heart shaped hill...hard to see but it's in the middle of the photo:

Yeah, not quite getting it...

Even this is questionable.

My guide Maia:

Live to Ride...Ride to Live...

Later we stopped by a small forest of rubber trees that were planted in a grid-like pattern.  Each tree had a little plastic bucket hanging by a wire about 4-5 feet above the ground, it reminded me of maple syrup trees in Canada.  Maia explained to me how the farmers would use a special knife to cut a strip of the bark at an angle, just 5-6 millimetres deep, which caused the latex resin to seep into the bucket…if done correctly.  This is known as rubber tapping.  Usually this was done at night as the heat as the latex would coagulate the resin and would not run into the bucket.  Supposedly, it would take a couple of farmers 4-5 hours to work their way around this plantation.

The rubber trees:

Next, she taught me a bit about the oil palms which were planted nearby.  Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil from the fruit of these palms, which is not technically a tree.  The oil is used in food manufacturing, beauty products and as a biofuel.  Unfortunately, the lure of this cash crop has caused the burning of natural jungles in order to plant oil palms in places like Borneo, which is endangering many animal species like orangutans.

Parking by the trees:

The oil palms:

I asked Maia if she grew up in the area, but she was originally from Bangkok and had been here for two years.  She liked Khao Sok but occasionally missed big city things like going to the movie cinema.  I queried where she learned her English, which was decent, and her answer was not what I expected: “From video games.”  I guess she plays a lot of online games and from chatting with other gamers, she’s picked up a lot of her English.  Good on you girl!  In a lot of her explanations, she frequently used the phrase “By the way…”  It was cute.

 

Following Maia through the puddles:

Reaching the far end of our tour, we walked up a small slope to see a nice view.  There was a small man-made pond there that the local farmer installed in order to irrigate the crops.  I was surprised to see koi fish in the water and Maia explained that they help to keep the mosquitos from spawning in the water.

Walking up to the view:

Very lush...

The pond with the koi fish:

We drove back the same way that we came and did a few laps around some trails near the ATV centre.  Once again, I got slightly stuck on an incline of slippery mud and Maia came back and helped push me up the hill.

I was impressed how well Maia filmed this while driving her ATV!

 

Crossing a small river:

It was a super fun couple of hours on the ATV.  Maybe not as good as my ATVing in Uganda where the vehicle had more power, the terrain was a bit more challenging and it was fun having to wave to all the little kids screaming “Mzungu, mzungu!” (which means white guy…in a nice way).  You felt a bit like a celebrity.

 

I had planned to go on a jungle trek but in the late after the skies opened up and just dumped rain.  It continued to rain on and off into the evening so I postponed for the following evening.

The downpour in the afternoon:

Kayaking at Railay Beach

October 24^th, 2024 

After a quick shower at my hotel, as I did sweat a bit climbing the 1260 steps of the Tiger Cave Temple, I ordered a Grab ride to head to the supposedly gorgeous Railay Beach.  My Grab driver was the most entertaining one I’ve had (granted that’s only out of four rides).  His name was Jambo, and he was a big, jovial dude who didn’t speak much English but had embraced a translation app.  His phone was mounted on his windshield, and we’d take turns saying something and allowing the other to understand what was said and respond.  It was a stark difference from my first three rides with Grab where there was very little spoken between me and the driver, although sometimes that is nice too.

A cool stoplight on our drive over to Ao Nang:

Jambo dropped me off in Ao Nang, a little resort town west of Krabi, where I hopped on a long-tailed boat for the 15 minute ride to Railay Beach, well the east side of it which is mostly resorts and it doesn’t have much of a beach.  Long-tailed boats are interesting.  This one could seat about 12 people, and the engine is like a big exposed V8 with a super long drive shaft to the propeller.  The captain simply rotated his wrist for gas and then pushed the long shaft opposite to where he wanted to propel the boat.  A couple of European guys questioned why they needed such a long shaft.  I pondered that as I plugged my ear closest to the engine since I was near the back of the boat and it was super noisy.  It made sense in that if it was a shorter shaft, the prop would be shooting the water down more than behind us so it wouldn’t be as efficient.  Needless to say, these kinds of boats would not be allowed in Canada.

The pier at Ao Nang:

The engine of the long-tailed boat:

Getting closer to Railay Beach:

We arrived at the floating pier on the east side of the isthmus where there wasn’t much of a beach, but instead some resorts, a few restaurants, a mini-mart and a drug store.  I was shocked that the last two businesses were allowed to occupy such prime real estate.  I followed the general flow of travellers on the path over to the main beach, which passed by some tall cliffs where some tourists were rock climbing.

The pier on the east side of Railay Beach:

The wasted real estate:

Rock climbers:

Some overhanging rock on the path over to the west beach:

Definitely some interesting rock formations:

Reaching the main beach, I was gobsmacked.  A beautiful sandy beach with tall, precipitous mountains on either side with a couple of similar looking islands a few hundred meters offshore and many more in the distance.  I can see why this place is an attraction for foreigners and locals alike.

The north end of the beach:

Railay Beach:

After wandering up and down the beach under the overcast sky, I decided to rent a kayak to paddle around the small peninsula on the south side of the beach after first exploring the two islands right in front of the beach.  I was a little wary taking my phone with me in a dry bag and found it difficult to unlock it and take photos at times with my slightly wet and salty fingers, but I was able to capture some memories of this lovely kayaking session. 

Ready to go:

Between the two islands in front of the beach:

Rounding the point:

Stopping at the only little beach around the peninsula.  The water temperature was lovely.

A nice catamaran anchored offshore:

Overhanging rock from the tall cliff.  There was a small natural tunnel in this area but the tide was high enough that it would have been questionable to paddle through it.

From my research online, I had read about a “Princess Cave” that happens to be filled with wooden penises…yup, you read that right.  I thought you had to access it by boat, but it turns out I had pretty much walked by it on the way to rent the kayak.  The legend has it that fishermen used to bring their wishes and prayers to the Phra Nang princess in order to keep them safe on the seas.  However,  people with fertility problems started to bring these wooden penises as an offering to hopefully help them out with their issues too, and judging by the number of phalluses in the cave, she must be doing her job well!

The Princess Cave...interestingly you can spell penis from the word princess...

A monitor lizard was wandering towards the cave:

A fancy resort on the main beach.  What a great place that would be to have dinner...the views would be amazing.

The power of water...one drip at a time:

After the morning of climbing 1260 stairs to the top of the Tiger Cave Temple and now a paddling session, I was ready for a late afternoon snack and a drink before heading back to Krabi.  I was actually surprised how difficult it was to find a beachside restaurant as there was only one fancy looking one on the main beach which was now closed for a private wedding reception and on the east side it was primarily resorts.  I eventually found a place and then caught the long-tailed boat ferry back.

Back on the east side of Railay:

One of the nice resorts:

After the restaurant, I asked the waiter where the bathrooms were.  He led me about 40 meters from the restaurant and told me they were around the backside of a building...well, this is what I found.  I guess it ain's all paradise here.  Needless to say I found a bush out side instead!

On the way back:

Going out for dinner I saw this beauty shop...and liked the name.

That was definitely an active day…I should sleep well tonight!