Koa Sok National Park

Our second stop on the tour was Kao Sok National Park. This is a main Thailand stop mostly due to its beautiful lake but also for its preserved forest which is home to many animals including wild elephants. Thaddeus is pictured below, excited with his new tree house accomodation. 

Arwyn and I opted for a bungalow like this one. The place was situated on a river and was run by a really nice family. It was just the women running the place as the husband was in Bangkok taking part in the protests there. 

We went on a hike on our first day. It was nice. We came across the Banderlog and scooted off when the started to get a little uppity with us. Thank god my sister Kim wasn't with us. 

I was really hoping to find wild elephants; Arwyn was perfectly happy to find the one stray dog roaming the forest and gave him all of our Pringles. 

We stopped for a swim which was refreshing and a little scary too. We had seen the biggest snake I have ever seen outside a zoo only hours earlier nearby. It was black and about 6-8' long. 

The big event of our stay was our day long boat tour of the lake. The longtail boat had serious air leaks in its fuel line and the driver nursed it along the whole time. It only died like three times, which places it in the "acceptable" category for Thailand. 

We stopped midway at a floating station of bungalows. Our guide ordered us lunch and we went for a swim and a kayak. The whole place was "mostly floating" on bamboo rafting. It was a really cool spot. 

We headed up a river to go hiking and caving. We came across some monkeys swimming across. 

After hiking for a while, we came to the main event, which was to go under a mountain through a 2 km cave which followed a river. The water got up to chest deep at times. It was a really great experience. There were bats overhead almost the entire time. Here is Thaddeus preparing to enter. 

A fun boat ride home!

A really special note is that made friends with a German man and his Thai wife. She was a fine chef and ran the best restaurant in town. We went there lost meals and she took us on as her students in her kitchen. She runs a cooking school as well but refused to let us pay. We helped her prepare the curries for the night and helped prepare other dishes too.  Gotta run.