Sarah and I have reached our first national park of Thailand - Khao Sok National Park. Yesterday we rode to the city of Takua Pa and were surprised to learn when we arrived that no one knew of any guesthouses within 30 kilometers of the city! It was already 1pm and scorching hot out and the thought of riding any further was absolutely dreadful, so we hunted around and asked half a dozen people before we were finally directed to a room for rent about one kilometer outside outside of town. When we found the place, our hearts sank as the caretaker told us the room was already booked for the night. But then his eyes lit up and he told us we could sleep in his open-air hut for free! We quickly agreed and spent the next hour or so hanging out with the caretaker, Mr. Jut, and his friend Mr. Lek as they avoided the hot afternoon sun. Mr. Jut was an extremely gracious host, supplying us with cold drinking water, peanut crackers, juice drinks, and even Thai whiskey and soda water! 

After our socializing, we decided to let Mr. Jut get some work done so we headed back to the city to have dinner and kill some time before retiring for the night. We found an open air market in the town and dined on fresh fruit, fried noodles, and murthabak. Here I am using our phrase book to attempt to order some fried noodles.

When we arrived back at Mr. Jut’s place, we realized he had invited the neighbors over and was cooking up some fresh crab with homemade chili sauce for us! We couldn’t believe how generous he was. The dinner of crab and Thai beer was delicious and we spent the night listening to the Thai conversation and trying to use our phrase book to join in. It was pouring down rain at the time, so we were able to say, “My what dreadful weather we are having!” and “Do you think it will rain tomorrow?” with success.

We woke up very early to avoid the heat today and were glad we did because the rode to Khao Sok from Takua Pa is very steep. It was only a 50 kilometer ride, but climbing hills in this heat and humidity is like doing aerobics in a steam room. The park itself is beautiful rainforest and steep limestone cliffs. Gibbons, tigers, and elephants live here!

When we arrived at our bungalow, we cooled off with some fresh watermelon and pineapple shakes. Delicious!

We’ll spend the afternoon resting in our bungalow and then tonight and tomorrow exploring the park.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Southeast Asia, Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.