I have learnt several valuable lessons over the past few days. First of which is that a rain forest is called such for a reason. Hmmm…

After arriving off the boat from Ko Phangan at Suri Thani I was shepherded onto 5 different buses / coaches / vans and eventually got to Khao Sok National Park at about 2:30. Wandered around the village for a bit feeling more and more despondent about the accommodation available (its now low season / monsoon season) and eventually settled on a place that would have been quite nice about 10 years ago. Anyway, it had the least ants’ nests in the room of the places in my budget, and no sign of a cockroach anywhere. Had a bit of a snoop around, but the place has a weird Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre feel to it and after a pizza to cheer me up I scuttled off to bed, hoping to fall asleep quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, its very pretty and the next morning I resolved to do some proper exploring. As soon as I left the ant and aphid nest I was staying in, it started to POUR with rain. I can’t remember the last time I was ever that wet – so wet that my hands turned wrinkly like when you’ve been in the bath for 3 hours! It was a little tricky going along the path to get to the waterfalls, but I managed to stay vertical the whole time, until I got to a dry bit and fell over of course. It turns out that the waterfalls are actually closed from 1st June, so that was fruitless. I sat and chatted with a Dutch couple for 2 hours or so and then made my way back, noticing i had 4 leeches and a worm wiggling around under my skin. I managed to get it out, but I took it as an omen that rain forests and I do not get on, so I booked a ticket to Krabi for the next morning for some sun and relaxing. Aaah, haven’t had quite enough of that!

bamboo in khao sok