We finally left Ko Toa on 30th September to head for Khao Sok National Park where we had booked a two day trek. The last couple of days in Ko Toa were pretty chilled; we sunbathed a bit, had another Muay Thai boxing session and got pissed. We also ate at 'Hippo' restaurant for about the 234th time running - chicken skewers were top notch and we kind of built up a bit of rapore with the lady boy waiter which kept drawing Kev back.
So we checked out and headed to Mae Head pier to catch a fast boat to Ko Samui, then the 6pm ferry to Surat Thani where we'd be staying the night before getting picked up the following morning for the trek. All of the travel agents were trying to get up to take a longer route but we'd worked out the quickest way ourselves and bough the ferry ticket separately. Everyone is on the take, even the bloody travel agents!
On arrival at Surat Thani, we jumped in a taxi and asked for the 100 Islands Resort with a few others heading for the centre. There was an old Thai guy sitting behind us and he just wouldn't stop coughing which was really starting to wind Kev up. Kev asked how far it was to our resort and the driver said 84k! We thought it would be about 5 mins so were a bit pissed that we'd have to endure 84k with the coughing cock end!
Anyway, we arrived at the National Park at about 10.30am and were greeted by a nice Dutch chap called William. The drive into the park was amazing, when we weren't asleep, with superb scenery pretty much all of the way. There were huge limestone hills similar to the ones found at Railey Beach and around a lot of Thailand. Apparently, according to William, about 25 million years ago they were all coral reefs, pushed up in later years by tectonic shifts (every day's a school day). Anyway, limestone cliffs are common throughout Thailand, Vietnam and China so we'll hopefully see some more sights before we leave South East Asia.
After we met up with another few people to join the trek, we were frog marched off down to the river which was about 5 minutes walk. The resort looked pretty basic with rustic bungalows but we'd have to wait a bit to check in. At the river we were greeted by our guide, a tiny Thai chap who was charged with paddling the canoe with Kev and I in the front. The river was pretty cool with loads of overhanging trees and fairly quick currents. We didn't see a lot of wildlife, except a frog and some fish, and we couldn't feel our legs after about 10 minutes with pins and needles, but all in all it was a good experience. Took loads of photos but looking back they all look exactly the same so I'll only post a couple on facebook.
After the canooing we stopped off for a bit of lunch close to the river and where the next trek would start, an elephant trek. After some nice Thai fodder, the elephants started to roll back into the resort after completing an earlier trek. There must have been about 20 elephants and everyone was in awe taking photos and feeding them. After a bit of spiel from William about the history of these particular elephants and the tribes people that look after them we were ready to get onto our elephant. To cut a long story short, the tribesmen have looked after elephants for generations, they used to be used for logging but as that's not allowed anymore in Thailand they cart rich westerners round the jungle for an hour or so, blah blah blah!
So we finally mounted our elephant with the little Thai man riding on the elephant's head with his legs behind his ears, and Kev and I got on a seat tied to the elephants back. The driver had a sort of stick with a hook to keep the elephant on course and to hit him with if he's being naughty. You might think that sounds a bit cruel, and I guess we did too, but surely it's no worse than strapping a massive seat onto his back and making him carry about 40 stone in weight around the jungle. So after a bit of a moral tangle, we were carted round the jungle by Nellie and his assistant. It really was an awesome experience, although we didn't see a lot of wildlife, just being so close to such beautiful animals.
After the elephant ride we were greeted by our guide for the rest of the trip, a young Thai girl called Kong, probably about 25 years old. That afternoon we were taken to a nice waterfall and to 'monkey temple' where, as you might guess, there were a lot of monkeys at a temple. They were wild monkeys, scores of them in fact, and we fed them bananas, the little twats were just taking them out of our hands, pretty cool I say. We have loads of photos of all of this so I'll post some on facebook to piss you all off, hahaha.
After the trek, I had to ask Kong if it would be possible for the chef not to feed us as the quantity of the food being served was ridiculous and all we were after was some fruit. She was ok about that but I think the chef was a little offended but we're trying to eat healthily and fried food every day is kind of off the menu. After a bite to eat we were taken to our next destination, Ao Nang which is very near to where we started at Railey Beach. We stayed in a pretty low key hotel with basic mod cons and after checking in we took a long boat to Tonsai Beach which is the exact same place that we visited straight after Bangkok.
We'd both forgotten how awesome the boat ride into Tonsai was with it's massive limestone cliffs covered in greenery, crystal clear green waters and white beaches. We only had a couple of hours to spend on Tonsai as the last long boat departs at 6pm but we wanted to go back and see some of the local guys that we met at The Kasbah. Even though we'd only been away from Tonsai for about 3 weeks we were both shocked at how much it has changed. New bars were being built everywhere and Kasbah had closed - unbelievable how things are developing so fast. We met up with a couple of the guys for a few hours then headed back to Ao Nang for the evening. We had a pretty quiet night and caught the ferry to Phi Phi the next day.
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