Khao Sok National Park

After a three hour delay on our overnight train and another two hours by bus, we finally made it to Khao Sok National Park and found out that we were staying in jungle huts. Haunted jungle huts. Apparently some of the guests hear voices and people moving about in empty huts and sometimes see ghosts too. I really didn't need to know this and had trouble sleeping, especially when I had a dream that I was lying in bed and there was a really heavy weight pushing down on me and I couldn't move, and worst of all a woman's voice started whispering above me. I snapped awake and I was lying in exactly the same position in the bed. It was horrible! The second night a man's voice spoke in my ear and woke me up and I couldn't sleep after that. It definitely wasn't Owen, and wasn't in English either. Spooky!

Everything was a lot better in the daylight, especially when we went for an elephant ride the first morning. Things took a turn for the worst in the afternoon however when our group went for a walk in the National Park, which turned out to be infested by leeches. I found one on my ankle, but luckily we were near a hut and one of the guides got rid of it for me. The experience was painless but pretty disturbing and I got a bit paranoid after that, especially when one of the other girls found a leech on her hip which had crawled under her clothes.

Some of us called it a day after that and got back to the huts as fast as we could for showers. Unfortunately I had to wait for mine since Owen had the key to our hut and didn't come back for another two hours. It was a very long two hours sitting around in wet underwear, obsessively checking my skin for leeches.

Once Owen was back we got to our hut only to find that something else had been there first. An animal, most likely a small monkey or a large rat, had crept into our room and raided our food. We opened the door to find food wrappers and chips strewn about the place, and worst of all my chocolate had been stolen! I did feel a lot better after a shower, especially when I found that I was in fact leech-free. My mood further improved when we went out to dinner to a restaurant with beautiful and tasty food.

We had a 5.00am start the next morning to travel to Koh Samui which involved two hours on the back of a truck, one hour by bus, one hour on a ferry and 40 minutes by mini van. It was definitely worth it to get away from the jungle!


If you would like to see more photos, check out my flickr page.