Tag Archives: Khao Sok National Park

Two nights at Cheow Lan Lake – lovely scenery and not much else

Our accommodations at Cheow Lan Lake were basic. I mean mattress-on-the-floor-no-wifi-not-even-power-outlets-in-the-room basic. The Keereewarin Chiewlarn Resort floated on the lake with raft houses linked together in two perpendicular rows, joined at a common dining area.

Our original itinerary said we would be hiking, so I assumed we would boat to some chunk of land a couple of times during our stay. With that in mind, I booked two nights at the lake. In fact, we didn’t do any hiking, and the only diversions were to play in the lake and head out twice daily for long-tail boat rides to look for wildlife. There’s only so much swimming two old, out-of-shape people can do, and the boat rides got a little tedious when the wildlife continued to stay hidden.

Fortunately, our guide took his time getting to this destination, and it turned out to be one of my favorite days of our vacation. Quite a few guests at the treehouse resort were heading to the lake, so we all piled into two vans for the trip. After a rest stop at a small family-owned campsite, we went for a glorious hike in the national park. We kept up a steady pace, pausing to appreciate a particularly incredible tree with buttress roots taller than Tony or slowing down to explore a couple of caves, where stalagmites and stalactites sparkled and tiny bats hung from the ceilings. It was exactly the hit of nature I needed.

We returned to the campsite for lunch and then took off for the lake, where we boarded a long-tail boat. Rather than going straight to our “resort,” the guide gave us a tour of some impressive karst formations in the lake. Thais call the area “Guilin, Thailand” because of its similarity to Guilin, China, where the landscape is littered with these towering rocks. Tony and I visited Guilin when we lived in China, but we had no idea that the two areas were once part of the same coral reef. Visit Khao Sok explains the fascinating geological history:

The history of Khao Sok national park starts 300 million years ago. Rising oceans created a shallow sea with conditions perfect for the growth of coral. The result was a massive reef which stretched from China to Borneo. Eventually, more sediment buried this reef deep below the surface, and the pressure compressed the coral into limestone. It is this limestone that forms the Karst mountains we see today!

About 60 million years ago, the Indian tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate and as a result formed the Himalayas. At the same time, Thailand was rotated clockwise and moved to the south-east as the Himalayas rose. The ancient, buried limestone was thrust up, folded, faulted, and then eroded into its current form.

The lake itself was created when Thailand dammed the Pasaeng River in 1987 for hydroelectric power and flood control. As the waters rose, efforts to rescue and relocate animals largely failed, and the five abandoned villages – including homes, schools, and temples – still sit at the bottom of the lake. Kind of sad.

Although two nights was one night too many at our primitive raft house, I can’t complain. I spent a lot of time sitting on our deck, reading a book, and enjoying the scenery.

Finally, we took a boat to the mainland and were happy to find the driver we had booked to take us to Phuket Town. Previous visits to Phuket were solely for the beaches, but this time we stayed in town and poked around the touristy neighborhood. We had hoped to visit the night market, but it was closed, dang it. The next morning, we boarded a speed boat for the 5-hour journey to Koh Lipe. Island time!

Khao Sok National Park – jungle time and elephant spa day

After six years of living just steps from the Andes foothills in Chile, I find I’m missing nature. My suburban Bangkok neighborhood is leafy enough, and I can walk along the canals to get away from the hustle and bustle. It’s surprisingly quiet and peaceful. As our semester break approached, though, I knew what I needed. I booked the “Explorer Lake Trip” package in Khao Sok National Park, which included two nights in a treehouse in the jungle and two nights in a raft house at the Cheow Lan Lake.

On Dec. 18, we arrived at Our Jungle House, an eco resort in the national park, where the lady at reception took one look at us and suggested we rethink our plan to go rafting with a cave exploration. Instead, she said, we should go tubing. Which we did. However, the river was quite low and slow, so we had to paddle the whole time to keep up the with guide, who had taken off his flip flops to use as oars. Yes, it was nice to be out in nature, but it also felt like a consolation prize.

Tony and I have trekked in jungles around the world: Costa Rica, Bolivia, Borneo, and many times in Thailand, to name a few. We really didn’t need a guide, even though that’s generally my jam. Unfortunately, our “explorer” package came with a guided tour, and the guide never showed up. By the time our eco resort found another guide, we were way behind schedule. We were joined by a mom and her two grown kids from the UK, who were way more excited than Tony and I were to pause at every sign of a tarantula burrow or an unusual leaf that curled when you touched it. Been there, done that.

I felt so jaded during the whole hike. Really, I just wanted to keep moving and enjoy the Seusstastic landscape of wildly tangled vines, unbelievably huge leaves, the occasional rustle (monkey? monitor lizard?), and the woop-woop call of gibbons. At one point, we came to a lovely waterhole fed by a rushing stream, and the others stripped off their hiking gear to take a dip in their swimsuits. Nobody had informed us that we might be swimming, so we were unprepared. Being unprepared makes me cranky. 

I tried to brush off my irritability to appreciate the jungle. I couldn’t get enough of the fig trees’ wild root systems and the towering bamboo arches that created a tunnel along parts of the trail. At the waterhole, we spotted a 5-foot-long monitor lizard (so maybe I wasn’t too sad about not swimming). Our guide pointed out a pit viper sleeping high in a tree, which got him talking about different types of snakes. He said the most venomous snake in the region was the king cobra. “He bite you, one minute bye-bye!” he said with a laugh.

Because of our late start, we returned to the eco resort with just barely enough time to wolf down some lunch before our scheduled “elephant experience.” Despite living and traveling in Asia for so many years, we’ve never had a first-hand encounter with elephants.

Although many tourists still hope for a photo opp atop an elephant, a friend in India helped me understand the cruelty and abuse elephants suffer in order to be domesticated. I knew I didn’t want to contribute to that type of tourism. Instead, we visited the Khaosok Elephant Conservation Centre, which is committed to elephant welfare. This article from the Travel & Leisure website explains why you shouldn’t ever ride an elephant.

At the conservation center, the guide, Chalee, explained that elephants had been used in Thailand since ancient times when they were trained to carry soldiers into battle. Later, the logging industry took advantage of their size and strength, and of course, tourists eagerly pay to interact with and ride an elephant. As welfare organizations have worked to raise awareness, tourists can now find more opportunities for an ethical encounter with Thailand’s national animal.

All of the elephants at the conservation center had been in the family for generations but were now retired from any type of labor or service, Chalee said. We were assigned to Boonsong, an elderly elephant they called “the grandmother.”

During our visit, Boonsong was never tied up or controlled with a sharp hook as I’ve seen in other places, including India. Her handler, called a mahout, simply called out commands. I realize that she was most likely abused in her training at some point to behave so compliantly, which is heartbreaking, but I want to believe her life now is all about indulgence and peace.

Our first task involved mashing up bananas and powdered elephant food to make a cookie dough-ish paste that we rolled into balls. Then we fed the balls, along with some mini bananas and pineapple, to our elephant. Chalee had demonstrated how we could hand off the food to Boonsong’s trunk, or we could put it directly into her mouth.

After her snack, we walked with Boonsong to a mud pit. Chalee noted that elephants love mud because it acts as a natural coolant. Elephants can only sweat from their feet near the toenails, she said. Their big, flapping ears serve as another cooling method in Thailand’s tropical heat.

Tony and I climbed into the mud pit with Boonsong and her mahout. We used a coconut shell to scoop mud from the floor, and then we rubbed mud all over the elephant’s body. I had expected her skin to feel leathery, but I was surprised at how thick and rigid it was. However, Chalee pointed out that elephants are very sensitive to touch and can detect insects or changes in temperature. She encouraged us to stroke, but not to slap, as we applied the mud.

From the mud pit, Boonsong walked to a huge shower, where her mahout washed off most of the mud before leading her to the river for her full-body scrub. We splashed into the river with stiff brushes and coconut buckets, scouring her legs and lower body. When the mahout gave the signal, she dropped down to her knees so we could wash her upper half. Elephants here are prone to illness caused by a biting fly that deposits its egg in the wound, which is one reason a daily bath helps to keep the elephants healthy.

Stepping from the river, squeaky clean, Boonsong immediately used her trunk to blow sand over her body, the equivalent of applying insect repellent and sunscreen.

Overall, the experience was a bit contrived, but I didn’t care. When I try to describe how it felt to spend time with Boonsong, I can only think of cliches: She was majestic, gentle, intelligent, and endearing.

Although the jungle wasn’t exactly meeting my nature needs, my first elephant encounter was everything I hoped it would be.