So, I started my research: tours, blog posts, vlogs etc., but I wasn’t finding what I wanted. Then out of the blue I thought ‘hey! What about a national park to get my jungle fix?’— That’s when I found Khao Sok and boy oh boy did it look incredible! It was everything I had dreamed of and more! I thought it’d all be easy from then on out, that was until I started looking into tours. I couldn’t find a day trip ANYWHERE! There was plenty of two-day tours and tons of three-day+ tours but one-day tours— nope, nothing, zilch!
But just as the disappointment and irritation was kicking in, I stumbled upon this tour! Thank the stars! At this point, I had already booked our Phi Phi Islands tour with Simba Sea Trips so I had already done all of my research on the company. The tour itself hadn’t even started running when I stumbled across it (the day that we did it, it had only been in action for a handful of days) so we were a bit hesitant to book it but after lots of umming and ahhing we decided to take a gamble. Spoiler alert, I’m very glad that we did.
We got picked up from our hotel at 5:40am then headed off to pick up the rest of the group and our tour guide, M (who was also our tour guide for the Phi Phi Islands tour a few days prior). He was a fantastic tour guide and just an all round brilliant person. We spent a good couple of hours in the mini bus, and having M there to give us an insight into everything that we saw along the way (from animals, to people and their jobs and even down to the plants and trees that we saw) made the trip a lot more knowledgeable ad entertaining.
Our first stop was to Wat Suwan Kuha (Cave Temple). When I stepped out from the mini bus, it was like I had arrived in heaven— there were dogs everywhere. I was surrounding by scrappy and scooby doos and I’m not going to lie, that was my favourite part of this stop. What can I say? I love dogs.
Anyway, dog talk over, Wat Suwan Kuha is a natural limestone cave that was turned into a place of worship by humans. Inside you’ll find the impressive reclining golden buddha, as well as other shrines and images. Past the reclining buddha, there are steps that take you into another part of the cave which has a stunning open view of the surrounding forest.
Me and Alex were last to leave, as always, and join the rest of the group for a pre-breakfast snack. I can’t remember for the life of me what it is that we had. I didn’t really eat much as the dogs from earlier had made a reappearance which meant that I got slightly distracted. Once everyone had finished eating and we had to given what was left to the pups, we headed off to our next stop.
The next stop was the incredible Wat Bang Riang. Like the same for every stop, we were there well before the bus loads of tourists came pouring in. When I got out of the mini bus, my jaw dropped to the ground. No number of pictures could show just how surreal this place was. Boy, I don’t even know where to start. The surrounding jungle, the peaceful silence, the temple and the large statues of Kuan Yin and Phra Nak Prok. It was everything I had ever dreamed of for my first trip to Thailand. And guess what, we were greeted my two dogs as we arrived- even better!
We had about 20/30 minutes to have a look around the grounds and inside the temple itself. I wish we had a little bit longer as I was hoping to go down the staircase that lead down to where the Kuan Yin statue was. The temple, and the grounds even, were beautiful. My favourite part about this stop was how tranquil it was- I could’ve laid down to take a nap. Unlike at the last stop, you have to dress respectfully to get into the temple but I believe you can rent clothes if you’re dressed inappropriately.
After we had a look around we sat down to eat some breakfast. Which was delicious I might add. We had sticky rice and chicken legs, there was a vegetarian option as well but I didn’t see what that was. Once we had finished and gave what we didn’t to the pups, we took one last look at the view then headed off at Cheow Lan Lake.
After a long car ride, we arrived to Cheow Lan Lake. When you arrive there, you go through a small building with a couple of shops and a toilet. A quick side not: if you can help it, don’t use the toilets! Try to hold on until you get to the restaurant, just trust me on that one.
We went down to our longtail boat, then we headed off to explore the lake and go to the floating restaurant for lunch. For once, I won’t go into too much detail about the lake because I could be here for hours, but there are no words to describe how epic and beautiful this place is. Just book this tour and see it for yourself! We stopped at one point because M wanted us to get pictures by these three rock formations (I feel like they had a specific name or a nickname at least, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was). It was so nice to stop and just float so we could fully take in the beauty of where we were.
After a fairly long but breathtaking boat ride, we arrived at the restaurant. We put down our bags and had 20 minutes to relax and take in the view. Me and Alex decided to go swimming in the lake because, well, how could we not?
I just… I mean… ah, I can’t describe how surreal this was. Everything was so quiet and the view- oh my gosh, the view was just incredible. It was one of them moments where you just sigh and smile because you can’t believe what you’re seeing with your own eyes. All I could think of was ‘I know the planet we live on was beautiful but I never knew it could be this beautiful, damn!’.
After one of the best experiences of my life, we went upstairs to have lunch with one of the most amazing views. If you haven’t already been able to tell, this place was incredible. The lunch we had was really nice and there was so much that it was close to impossible for 7 of us to eat it all! Plus, I spent most of my time taking a thousand pictures that all turned out to look pretty much identical, because I just couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
Unfortunately, an hour after arriving, we were leaving. As we pulled away, I couldn’t take my eyes off of where we were. I wanted to make the most of it until it was completely out of my sight! The view remained to be pretty spectacular on the way back. The journey back zoomed by and before I knew it, we were back in the mini bus on our way to the last stop.
The final stop was Bamboo Rafting. Which, strangely enough, they’ve taken off of this tour now so I guess there’s no point going into too much detail about it. It was a pretty cool experience though. I was waiting to see Mowgli laying on Baloo’s belly as they floated down the river singing bare necessities. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but I really felt like I was in the middle of the jungle- it was an incredible experience and one that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Mainly down to the bug bites that I still have on my ankles. Another thing, make sure you bring bug spray because we did, yet we still got bitten quite a bit.
One thing that I do want to mention, even though this last stop has been taken off of the tour, is that when we got back to where the mini bus was parked and where the toilets and refreshments were, this was a little monkey; we all got excited because, well, it’s a monkey! Then, when I came out of the toilet and we got onto the mini bus, I noticed that he had been chained up to a post and the chain wasn’t long at all. It broke my heart as we drove away, I wish I could’ve done something rather than just crying for the first hour of the journey back. Animal Rights is something I am very passionate about but let’s save that for another post as this one is long enough already. I did, however, see an elephant free in the wild on the way back; so that temporarily put a smile on my face.
If you have any questions feel free to ask me and I hope that wherever life takes you next, it’s somewhere the makes you smile.
See you next post,
Meghan x
