Khao Sok National Park

Yesterday we left northern thailand to fly to the south for the rest of our trip. We arrived in Surat Thani and were picked up at the airport and headed to our guest house. The resort we booked is half a mile outside the national park and set in the jungle.

Immediately when we stepped out of the car, we knew this was going to be a great place. Friendly staff and a gorgeous garden set among forested mountains.... It is really nice here. We were shown to our room, which has an outdoor shower that you can see the forest and mountains from.

From Khao Sok

The room is a basic bungalow with lots of windows, and a nice big bed with a mosquito net over it (no screens). We had some fried noodles for lunch in the restaurant on site, and it was fantastic. After that, we took a tubing trip down the river this place is built on, and saw snakes, birds, and monkeys. On the way back we stopped at a temple to feed the monkeys a big bunch of bananas. They were so cute! The brave ones would come right up to you and then we handed them a half a banana and they scurried off up a tree with it. It was really fun for me, since I had never seen a monkey in the wild before. Christie saw tons of them in India, but this was my first time. Unfortunately, we forgot our waterproof camera bag so we couldn't bring the camera tubing or with to feed the monkeys. Sorry!!

After dinner we had a couple of drinks and chatted with some of the staff. This morning we woke up and it was really rainy (it is a rainforest in monsoon season after all). Not ones to be put off by a sprinkle, we struck out to hike in the park anyways. It was really beautiful inside, with tons of birds all around. About half an hour in to the hike, it really started to come down, and we both got soaked to the bone. We kept at it until we got too hungry and then turned back. After stripping off our wet clothes, we both found out we were basically covered in leeches. I had an extremely large one on my leg and it is still bleeding, 3 hours later.

From Khao Sok

We had some really tasty curry for lunch and a couple of mango lassi's. Yum!

From Khao Sok

Tomorrow we head to an island for some beach bumming... We can't wait to lay around in the sun :)