I had a pretty long drive south from Hua Hin, about seven hours. It was pouring rain again when I left and it rained pretty much all day. Getting a break from the heat is nice, but exploring in the rain is much more difficult. A little over half way on my drive I made a quick stop at Ngao Waterfall, near Ranong.

It was still raining quite a bit, but it wasn’t a very long walk so I grabbed the umbrella and went for it. The waterfall was more impressive in person than the pic suggests. I also had it all to myself. I guess nobody wants to chase waterfalls in the rain. The orchids along the trail made it even better.

Almost to my destination I stopped at another waterfall right on the side of the road, Mae Yai Waterfall.

And just down the road from Mae Yai was this amazing viewpoint. The drive into Khao Sok was really beautiful. Thankfully the rain stopped for the last part of the journey and I got a nice sunset before checking in.

Just outside the entrance to Khao Sok National Park is a handy little tourist village. Lots of resorts, lots of restaurants, lots of bars, and lots of tourists. This must be a really popular place because suddenly I was surrounded by mostly Europeans for the first time on this trip.

The biggest reason to come here is to explore Cheow Lan Lake. It’s actually a reservoir, but whatever, it’s beautiful. Crystal clear water with limestone mountains poking their peaks up all over the place. The only way to explore it is by long tail boat, so I booked a tour through my hotel.

You can book a private boat to explore, but in this case it sounded like the tour would be much easier. I should’ve gone with the private boat. Ha! They crammed 24 of us into that small boat like sardines and then we all had to figure out how to enjoy the views and take pictures without being able to use our arms, turn our bodies or even adjust to keep our legs from cramping. The first leg of the trip was about an hour. A very long hour.

Finally we stopped at a collection of little floating bungalows in a nice lagoon clear on the other end of the lake where we had lunch. Then our guide decided we should take the boat further and go for a two hour hike which was not part of the original program. He mentioned wading to shore, then walking to a viewpoint, and that there were a lot of leaches along the way. And, when we arrived it had started pouring rain again. Only a very brave few opted to go on that hike. Most of us stayed on the boat and relaxed. I wasn’t super happy with myself at first, but in the end I’m glad I opted not to go because when they got back they were all a mess and picking leaches off of each other. Gross!

After the “hike”, we were sort of back on track. We started making our way back and towards the Pra Kai Petch Cave. We had to make our way through an army of other boats and then were smooshed and herded up some stairs and through this cave like cattle. It was so difficult to even see the cave, let alone take pictures with so many people in there. Also, they gave every single person their own headlamp so lights were dancing around everywhere like strobes in a disco the whole time. I got only a few pics and I felt very lucky to have gotten those.

We left the cave and were back on our way, but it was still pouring rain and because we were so far behind schedule it was just starting to get dark. We had one more stop to make though.

We made it to THE most iconic view on the whole Cheow Lan Lake, just as it was getting too dark to see it. I’m not sure the exact name of these three limestone pillars, but this is a great viewpoint. It was pretty dark though. I had to brighten and over expose the hell out of this pic to make it look like daytime. It came out better than I expected. Next, we cruised through the three pillars and made our way back to the pier in the dark and the rain. I finally made it back to the hotel at about 8:30pm, three hours later than planned, and this officially became the most unorganized tour I’ve ever been on. I hit the pizza place down the street, inhaled a whole pizza, cleaned up and went to bed.

After my chaotic day on the lake I was hoping this next day would go better. It wasn’t raining so that was a good start. I was off to do the big long waterfall hike in the national park. It’s only allowed with a guide, so I set off with the guide that I arranged with the hotel and a nice German couple also staying there.

This part of the national park is also really beautiful. The trail was a bit muddy, but not too bad, and we saw lots of cool and unusual wildlife. Right at the start we spotted the chameleon seen above. And hidden away all along the beginning of the trail were lots of spiders, including these two tarantulas. I’ve never seen a tarantula in the wild so I was pretty excited about it.

The first waterfall we came to was Wing Hin Waterfall. A perfect spot for a break

Just as we were leaving the waterfall we spotted some dusky langurs in the tree right next to the trail. Awesome! We saw a lot of macaques this day too, but they were usually way high up in the trees.

The rest of the hike was pretty rugged. Walking a really narrow trail traversing a steep slope, climbing up and down using tree roots and branches, it was really fun. I felt really lucky that we spotted this tree frog. The guide said they hide too well and you never see them. This guy wasn’t hiding at all.

We finally made it to the end of the line, Bang Liap Nam Waterfall. It’s really more like rapids, but ok. I really wanted to go to Ton Kloi Waterfall a little further away, it’s why I booked the hike in the first place, but apparently it wasn’t possible thanks to all the rain. Oh well! We went for a swim, had lunch, and drank coffee out of bamboo cups that our guide made right there on the spot. That swim felt really good!

Now it was time for the long hike back. I had set my shirt on a rock to dry out. It turned out to be near a small swarm of bees that then claimed my shirt for themselves. They were apparently loving the salt from me sweating so much. When it was time to leave, I got all ready, shoes, daypack, camera, then grabbed my shirt last and ran like hell for a few hundred feet before putting it back on. They chased me for a bit, but luckily I didn’t get stung. Anyway, back on the trail, we walked relatively slowly looking for wildlife the whole way back. All we saw were lots of lizards. They stole the show so I’ll let them have the limelight for a minute.

The whole hike round trip was around seven and a half miles. It was a really good day and I made it back to the hotel before dark this time. Yay! My hotel room has a small porch and I was just sort of hanging out and drinking some water before heading in to clean myself up when my neighbor came up and asked if I knew that there was a giant gecko right above my head. What?! I’ve been seeing little tiny geckos everywhere, all over Thailand, the whole trip, but this footlong gecko was the biggest I think I’ve ever seen. Wow!

Khao Sok National Park turned out to be a pretty fun stop. Even though my lake tour was disorganized and not the ideal way I would have liked to have done it, I did enjoy it overall. And the hike was really fun. Now it’s time to continue my way south to explore more of this beautiful country. See you in the next post…