Khao Sok, Thailand: Floating lakehouses, cave trekking and a jungle safari
- Esther
- Dec 8, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
Khao Sok is one of prettiest and most peaceful places we've been in Thailand so far. After staying in some more built-up holiday and party areas down south, it's been really nice to spend the last couple of days surrounded by mountains, lakes and jungles that have been left almost completely untouched.
Spending the night on Cheow Lan lake
After reading a few travel blogs about the best things to see in Khao Sok, Ben and I decided that the thing we most wanted to do was an overnight trip to Cheow Lan lake.
We actually only got round to booking the trip (through a company called Smiley) at midnight on the night before! But six hours later, we were meeting the rest of the group at Smiley's campsite for pancakes before taking a speedboat across Cheow Lan to the lakehouses where we'd be staying that night.
Cheow Lan lake is pretty different from Thailand's other major landmarks down here in that it's actually all manmade! The artificial lake was built in the eighties as a hydroelectric dam to generate electricity for the south of Thailand - but you'd never guess that it's not natural just by looking at it.
With its jungle-covered islands, limestone cliffs and bright turquoise water, Cheow Lan lake actually reminded me a lot of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. It was beautiful!
When we arrived at the floating lakehouses, we had the whole afternoon free to kayak, swim and chill with the rest of our group.
The floating lakehouses we stayed in were very basic - but I mean that in the best way possible! There weren't any locks on the doors, the windows didn't all close and - other than around the toilet and shower - there were no walls in the bathroom to separate us from the lake and jungle outside. But this made the whole experience amazing because we felt so close to nature the whole night. I loved it!
Exploring Khao Sok's jungle islands
In the afternoon, we went on a boat safari around some of the lake’s islands. From our boat, we couldn't see any of the tigers and elephants that live deeper inside the jungle, but our guides pointed out loads of rare lizards, monkeys and gibbons that were hanging around in the trees.
Back at the lakehouses, we spent the rest of the evening drinking and chatting with the other backpackers. But the next morning, we still had to be up bright and early to go on a mini trek through one of Khao Sok’s wild jungles.
It was really cool walking through all the tropical trees, streams and bamboo forests, but the real challenge came at the end of the trek when we arrived at Nam Talu cave.
Cave trekking through Nam Talu
This was my first time caving and even though it was a really cool experience it was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be!
Nam Talu was really narrow, cold and dark inside (even with the head torches our guides gave us) and the water inside it came up to our necks - meaning my caving experience mostly just involved a lot of clinging desperately onto the rocks and trying not to fall down!
Luckily, it was only after we'd finished the caving that I found out Nam Talu is home to loads of King Cobra snakes at this time of year!
Afterwards, we all made our way back to the campsite to shower and eat some delicious vegetable curry before getting back on the boat to begin our journey home (if I can use that word to describe our hostel here!)
All in all, Khao Sok isn’t a place I’d even heard of before this week, but it's been one of the highlights of my trip to Thailand so far. It felt like we'd found a bit of a hidden gem in Cheow Lan lake, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes amazing natural scenery and wants to see a quieter side of Thailand (or a less touristy version of Ha Long Bay!)
The only thing I regretted was not exploring the deeper jungle outside of the lake, where you can see elephants and other jungle animals up close in their natural habitat. I'm hoping we’ll be able to do a little more of that later on in Thailand when we make our way up north to Chiang Mai.
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