Khao Sok National Park Thailand Holidays...

Beautiful Lakes, almost every Thailand national park lake, either a small one at the lowest level or the waterfall, or just a other, bigger one. Some NP wildlife are wild elephants and some big cats like leopards and a few tigers.

- Floating Raft houses
Since almost every NP has some kind of a lake it also means floating raft houses on the lakes, a nice experience.
 
- Various Flora & Fauna can be experienced plus a variety of bigger animals like barking deer, tapir, Asiatic black bear, but they are hard to find, maybe they heard to many riffle shots over the years.

- Some NP like the Khao Sok NP offer tree house accommodation high up in the green trees.

- Marine national parks Thailand offer a great tropical island world and scuba diving adventure.

- Adventure a go go means elephant trekking canoeing and kayaking, river rafting -includes white water rafting- or maybe play “caveman” and find some Neolithic cave paintings. Thailand is full of limestone caves, like a emmentaler cheese is filled with air bubbles.

is a huge piece of tropical nature around with an integrated artificial lake formed by the Rajjaphapa Dam for electricity generation. Over time floating villages were built on the lake plus floating accommodations and cottages. The Khao Sok National Park is a major sightseeing and tour spot in southern Thailand about 3 hours drive north of Phuket along the road from Takuapa to Surat Thani. There are several other interesting destinations in along the road from Phuket to Takuapa such as Khao Lak and the Similan Archipelago, a prime scuba diving destination.

There are two entrances to the park at the the first entrance, when coming from Takuapa, are plenty of accommodation, including a tree house. The other Khao Sok accommodations are small cottages and Thai style bungalows. The small rivers around are ideal for kayaking with a beautiful scenery of calm jungle river squeezed through deep ravines and limestone formations. Combined with the wildlife sanctuaries of Khlong Saeng, Khlong Nakha and Sri Phang Nga National Park, it’s the largest National park area in southern Thailand and the main watershed of the region. Plenty of Khao Sok hotels and other accommodations are around.

Exploring Khao Sok National Park is not as easy since trek sings are only around the park HQ after about an hour hike almost all treks end in nowhere, they say there are several waterfalls around etc. but no one knows actually how to go there. The people at the park HQ are too busy with eating, mobile phone chattering, playing guitars and doing other things, instead of making sure that the tourist find the waterfalls etc. indicated, but in any case its great southern Thailand holidays.

Khao Sok functions as a wildlife habitat

especially for large mammals such as wild elephants and plenty of other wild animals, but they are hardly to see. Khao Sok Park is one of the most interesting day trips out of Phuket and Khao Lak and since there are enough suitable accommodations it could be extended to several days. Aside of the rivers, the bamboo and other tropical jungle also limestone caves. Thailand is full of caves see some other here at Krabi and the Coffin Cave at Soppong in the north of Thailand plus the marvelous emerald cave in the Trang Archipelago.

Khao Sok Thailand

Khao Sok Thailand Hills
 

Khao Sok Thailand Jungle
 

Erawan National Park is in Kanchanaburi Province Thailand near to some other spectacular National Parks Thailand and close to the road to the Three Pagoda Pass at the border of Myanmar Thailand. The waterfall in the Erawan National Park is probably the most spectacular waterfall in Thailand.

Since the ride from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi and the Erawan National Park is only about 3 hours it can become very busy at weekends and holidays , means around the Park it’s like Bangkok at rush hour late afternoon.

Behind the entrance to the park and the cashier plus a short walk the waterfall becomes visible. The water with a beautiful emerald shade splash down limestone formations over seven levels, about 1.5 kilometers water trail in the tropical Thai hill jungle with seven great waterfalls of different size.

If you are in very good physical condition you can try the trail up to the first level have a problem to do the climb up the trail. There are even very steep stairs between the limestone boulders. On the trek up you are passing limestone boulders, jungle tree giants and bamboo thickets.

On the upper level the water runs over a huge limestone formation, giving the impression of a three-headed elephant, this is why the waterfall’s name is Erawan National Park Thailand, the Hindu elephant god.

Each tier of the falls has a pool, ideal for a rest and a short swim, the entrance is closed at 5pm. In this Kanchanaburi area are several more great National Parks Thailand and you probably have heard about the “River Kwai Bridge” which is directly in Kanchanaburi City.

Ko Tarutao National Park

is a archipelago of 51 islands is close to the Thai - Malaysian border in the so called deep south of Thailand off Satun province at the

south west coast. This is not the area where Islam insurgent are terrorizing the people, the insurgency is operating at the south west side of Thailand in a relatively small zone.

The gateway to the Tarutao National Park Archipelago is Ban Pak Bara a small village with some jetties at the end of highway 4052, this highway comes down from Trang Thailand, there are excellent bus connection from Trang, Krabi and Phuket for Satun.

After leaving the pier the ferry first stops at Ko Tarutao and after proceeds to Ko Lipe. The ship leaves Pak Bara every day early afternoon, during high season another ships starts in the morning, since departure times are changing from time to time we don’t indicate them here.

At Pak Bara is also a ferry connection to Langkawi Island in Malaysia and from there another ferry leaves for Penang Malaysia. To visit Langkawi with a car is only possible via the car Penang Ferry.
 

There are a few bungalow cluster at the other beaches like Ao Molae beach, but to go there is a problem, the park headquarter controls the long tail boats to go there, they charge the foreigner 800 baht for a 20 minute ride. The usual price elsewhere in Thailand is about 300 baht.

If one complain they tell, their engine is a car engine and this consumes much more petrol than the usual diesel engine, their problem is they think unfortunately all others have a similar peculiar thinking pattern like they have. I really hope that someone on Bangkok brings this people under control before they can do more damage by running wild.

On Ko Tarutao the adventure hungry can explore caves - crocodile cave on Ko Tarutao -, waterfalls - Lu Du waterfall is about 1 hour walk and Lo Po waterfall about 1 hour and a half - from the park HQ. Isolated beaches and jungle treks through virgin rain forest are a great experience. It is one of the few places in Thailand without human intervention.

From the 51 islands of the archipelago only a few are inhabited, two of them are Ko Tarutao and Ko Lipe. Ko Lipe has a sea gypsies community who are renting huts to the foreigners, actually plenty of backpacker are around since they island is really a ideal back to nature destination and not expensive.

There are constant quarrels between the sea sea gypsies and other Thai who come there trying to make all kind of business since the sea gypsies community are the only group having permission to do some business there since this is a Thailand National Park where no people are usually allowed to stay, but also as usual there are ways around that limitations. National park vacation could be just the right for nature lover who want quiet vacations. 

A calm morning at the Khao Laem Reservoir and National Park. Raft houses of the fishing communities are floating on the calm water of the reservoir. It’s extremely silent out here the only sound is the chirping of birds and low level whisper of the mountain wind. The reservoir is integrated into the national park to protect the environment and the mountain forest around is ideal for quiet vacation. A symphony in blue and green with only a few people around. Its quite a poor countryside where the people don’t have much possibility to produce income, it’s pure agriculture environment, around Kanchanaburi towards west it’s sugarcane and towards east, to the Myanmar border its a great water, mountain and jungle world. Most of the jungle is from bamboo. This National Park Thailand is made for the visitors from Bangkok and a ever growing number of foreign tourists.

Similan Islands are accessible either by boat tours (live aboard) mainly out of Phuket or by speed boats from the opposite coast at Tap Lamu pier, very easy to reach via coastal highway 4. The Similan Islands Thailand have been declared a national park years ago to make sure not to have the usual encroaching and souvenirs shops everywhere.

Huge granite boulders are somehow landmarks of this National Park in Thailand's Andaman Sea. They form a dramatic environment Beaches are plenty and you probably will easily find one for you only.

It is very exiting to snorkel or just swim around the smooth rocks and use the currents to drift through the shallow water in the gaps between the boulders.

You can explore the Similan Islands either by a live aboard tour, with the speedboat on a one day trip, leaving Tap Lamu pier at 8.30 in the morning and coming back to the pier by around 5 pm. One could also leave the speedboat at island no.4 and

and stay a night or 2 in the bungalows there, for booking use Mee Sin travel agency at the pier, south of Khao Lak. Accommodation etc. is very basic, only available on the main island -picture above- that means most of the time no electricity and also no supply for diving, only snorkeling. If you want to dive the only way is -as mentioned above- using the live aboard version, either 1 or more days from Phuket, the Lam Ruh pier or Khao Lak.

Its a clean, pristine environment full of beauty above and under the water surface, unfortunately there are still many locals -not foreigner, it is possible to determine this by the nature of the junk-who just throw their trash, oil container, plastic bottles and everything one can think about just into the sea or on the beach.

The beach shown in the top photos is one of the most famous in southern Thailand at the time we wrote this text it was littered with around more than 100 objects of plastic trash, the people in the National Park Headquarter who's job it is  to keep this area nice and clean do mainly mobile phone bla bla, chattering and try to beat the time.

Try do avoid the National Park Headquarter before the pier. This is a disaster zone extremely infested with mosquitoes and unreliable and ignorant employees.

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Met Sine Travel before the pier can do booking for speedboats and accommodation on the island  Tel: 076 443276, 443340 fax: 595164

The Ang Thong Marine Park is a small archipelago north of Ko Samui on the west side of the Gulf of Thailand, a cluster of beautiful tropical islands with the emerald sea around and great beaches. Since there are no accommodations to visit the islands is usually via a day trip from Ko Samui.

The tour to the islands is normally a daytrip be speedboat or a bigger slower vessel. The speedboats have a capacity for around 20 people and 3 outboard engines each with 200hp means 600hp all together at the back. The 

Ang Thong National Marine Park Tour is no problem for families with children. Ang Thong weather is similar to Koh Samui weather, dry from around November to March, the other time occasionally rain and clouds but even during the rainy season the sun comes out for several hours every day.