We arrived in Bangkok and it was the first western style place since our trip started so decided to stop up on medication, suncream and mosquito spray. After a day filling our bags and making sure we had enough stock for the road over Christmas it was time to visit Jeab.
Jeab studied with Tamara during her MBA. We had a day of temple hopping and trying out incredible Thai food visiting the Emerald Buddha, Grand Palace, Four Pagodas and Wat Arun. The Emerald Buddha is Thailand’s most sacred temple housing the tiny emerald buddha which is strongly believed to bring prosperity and good fortune to Thailand.
Our favourite temple was Wat Arun on the other side of the river. Its design is very different from the others temples, made up of colourfully decorated spires and stands majestically over the water.
After spending a day visiting temples we decided to visit the MBK shopping centre. It had lots of wholesale tech stalls where you could buy the latest stuff at a discounted price. We decided to get a GoPro as soon it would be time to get our Open Water PADI qualification. Nick decided to treat himself as well to a Ninetendo Switch. We then boarded an overnight train to Khao Sok.
We then arrived in Khao Sok, Thailand’s largest national park famous for its jungle. We liked the vibe in Khao Sok as it was not so developed and not so many tourists it did have a charm to it. We started the day with bathing an elephant. We washed the elephant for 30 minutes it was something I will remember for ever as I have never been so up close to an elephant before. It felt like the centre did a good job of looking after the elephants. We then had a short nap and got ready for our night safari.
We heard the jungle in Khao Sok comes alive at night with monkeys, spiders, snakes, civets, loris so were hoping we would catch a few on our adventure. We met our local guide and followed the beam of his headlamp to point out the animals to us. Within the first 20 minutes we spotted stick insects, a lot of large spiders (including a tarantula)and lizards and then suddenly in the distance we saw a langur monkey.
Finally on the narrow path at the end of night safari trail we saw the glowing eyes of a civet, which is exceptionally rare to see! We left the forest with our headlamps off and looking up into the tress rather than at our feet. We had seen a civet, monkey and a lot of creepy crawlies. Best of all, we had entered the world’s oldest rainforest at night and survived.
The next morning we decided to do an all day jungle trail and see the forest in the day time. We had a local guide take us round and were hoping we would see the monkeys much closer in the day. Throughout the jungle trail we swung on the tree branches, looked out for the wildlife and it was when we decided to stop for a swim in the lake that something spectacular happened. A troop of monkeys were heading into the lake to swim just metres from us. It then got even better when a few hundred metres later we saw a troop of bizarre-looking Langur monkeys. These langur monkeys were our favourite animal that we saw in the jungle.
On our last day in Khao Sok we decided to visit the famous lake called the Cheow Lan Lake and did a jungle trail through a cave.
Overall, Thailand is a very easy place to travel round. For us it had everything we needed from lovely locals, beautiful nature and delicious food.