Khao Sok National Park | Chaos roaming the world

Waking up to this cool but eerie view.

Getting up in the Khao Sok National Park, we got a taste of why it is the wettest region in Thailand. It didn’t rain as such but thick clouds were hanging so low that everything was covered in fog and thus also quite damp. Though Silver Cliff had been an awesome accommodation with really good food last night, it was slightly too expensive to stay for breakfast. Instead, we hit the road early looking out for a roadside food stall.

The second one we tried had at least coffee so we decided that it would do. Food-wise, only curries were served: Big pots with fish, chicken, pork and beef curries. But nothing vegetarian. Given that I wasn’t that keen on curry for breakfast anyway, I found some sweet buns in a nearby shop. Flo dug into the pork curry in the meantime and was rewarded with a plate full of cucumber and beans as a side and a bunch of bananas as dessert.

The moment when the fog broke … wow

After breakfast, the sky started to clear which made for some great shots of the National Park. The road was fun as well so our spirits were high. Leaving the National Park behind, we had to come up with a plan of where to next. A great dam was advertised as a tourist attraction so we went there to have a look. Leaving the dam, we saw that we missed the iconic “55555” on Rocinante’s display by 4 kilometers and then realized that we have made more than 20.000 kilometers on this trip alone now. Continue reading →

All packed up and ready to go! The pool did look nice and cool in all our gear

As comfortable as it was, time has come to say our final farewell to the Krabi Discovery Resort that is totally not in Krabi. Not least because we could not afford more than this one night anyway 🙂

Our next destination was the Khao Sok National Park not far away at all, so we decided to take the scenic route there, bagging two more national parks along the way. We decidedly left Phuket to its own, after our experiences of Bali and Lombok, we were all touristed out for now.

There was only one little flaw in my cunning plan: It turned out that I forgot to check the maps on our GPS and it just so happened that we only had another 50 km or so more left before the big blank green of the no map generic land started up. We were little worried though. With less than 200 km to go, a mobile phone with heaps of data and a paper map, we were more than prepared. Plus, the Garmin does not need an installed map to record the track for later.

Limestone caves turned temple are a thing

We followed the main road through the hills and stopped at one of the many signposted roadside attractions for a brief break. Limestone cave pimped by temple-y bits seems to be a theme of the region.

The roads through the hills were nice, but once again the following coastal areas utterly failed to tickle our fancy. We had a horrible and overpriced lunch in one of the touristy roadside places and moved on quickly to forget about it.

The next national park had little to hold us for long, either. The road was nice and curvy, but the beaches were mostly blocked off by the high walls of massive beach side resort complexes or “developed” little towns in between.

We got our reward after all though, when we reached the higher ground of the Khao Sok National Park.

And then we came across this view

The air got cooler, the road curvy again and the views got up to fantastic at some points. Did I mention that I love limestone formations?

We concluded the day with some needed map updates and a good dinner in our lovely (and cheap) riverside retreat. Tucked away behind a palm tree plantation, it felt a lot like an Indonesian home stay – the good kind.