Khao Sok, Thailand

We caught an early cab to an early ferry back to Surat Thani. From there we all boarded a bus and headed off to Khao Sok. There are seven of us: Berry, Lars, Laura, Carlos, Florian, Patrick, and me. It's really fun traveling in a group and we all get along really well.

We finally show up to Khao Sok and find our accommodations, Monkey Mansion Resort, for the night. I found Monkey Mansions online and I was super excited about it. We stayed in little bungalows which they call "jungalows". Because we're in the jungle. Get it???

Anyways, we split up into a boys and girls jungalow and then we all discussed with the owner what there was to do. We all settled on booking a 2 day lake tour where we get to stay the night in cute little floating bamboo huts. We would leave for that tomorrow and for today the owner told us about a rope swing in the river about a 10 minute walk from the jungalows.

The river was SO pretty. It curved through tall grass and little huts on stilts all with the backdrop of giant limestone cliffs jutting out of the riverside. We found the rope swing and all the guys turned into kids again and went crazy having fun jumping off the swing and seeing who could get the highest. Laura and I also jumped off the rope swing and it was really fun/slightly scary. The jungalow owner also warned us that "the puffer fish in the river bite". We didn't really think anything of it unless Laura screamed and jumped out of the water to find her foot bleeding from a little fish bite! Pretty soon at least 3 out of the 7 of us had been bitten and a storm was rolling through - we took that as cue to head back to the jungalows.

We got back just as the skies opened and it started POURING. And thundering. It was a proper thunderstorm and the power was out which made it even more fun. We all ended up sitting around in hammocks and on pillows and played uno while drinking beer for the rest of the night. It kind of felt like camping. It was really fun. One of my favorite nights while traveling so far.

We all packed a tiny backpack for our one-nights stay in the floating huts and headed off for the lake! After an hour drive and another hour by longtail boat, we finally made it to the floating huts. There was also a floating restaurant/main area and a sketchy floating path to sketchy bathrooms. So it was more like a whole sketchy floating compound. I would describe everything as "ramshackled". But it worked and somehow floated and I loved it. After we checked into our huts and took a quick swim we were served lunch. After lunch we set out for our cave hike.

The hike to the cave was so so muddy. I just kind of embraced it and it was really gross. But we finally made it to the cave! I have no pictures inside of the cave because I didn't bring my GoPro and the cave was filled with water. We went from walking in a decently open space with water just halfway up our caves to swimming through narrow crevasses because we couldn't even touch the bottom. The best part was that we got to climb up (and then back down) a waterfall. Obviously, caves are extremely dark and we only had the light from our headlamps to light our way. It was probably one of the coolest things I've ever done

After the cave we got more free time back at our floating village. We had a group of us talking: two Swiss guys, three American guys, a Dutch girl (Berry), an Austrian (Florian) and me. We started discussing college and everyone was extremely horrified/surprised at how much we Americans pay for college. I was baffled at the fact that not only do most of them get college for free, but some of them even get an allowance basically while they are in school from the government.

Our evening safari we saw a bunch of monkeys. Afterwards we had a really delicious dinner. After dinner our group of seven hung out at the table and played games until the power was cut off at 11pm. Another top favorite night. This group is fun.

The next day we had a morning safari where we saw some monkeys but I don't really think it was worth waking up at 6am for. After breakfast we had a boat tour around to see all the pretty limestone rocks in the lake and went to another cave. This cave was a dry cave so we could walk around and take pictures. Then we headed back to the jungalows.

We had a few hours to shower, eat, and rest before we caught our ~private~ minibus to Krabi. When you are traveling with a solid group of 7 people you can do things like hire a private minibus.

This is our last night all together. Carlos and Lars are headed up to Chiang Mai. Berry and Patrick are staying one more night in Krabi. Laura, Florian, and I are headed to Ko Phi Phi. So we all had one last fun night in the hostel bar and said our sad goodbyes at the end of the night. And it was sad, but only because we all had so much fun.