A Short Stay in Khao Lak
This beautiful region is an amazing escape from the big tourist spots of Phuket. The beaches in Khao Lak are utterly stunning, white sand with little crabs running around in stolen sea shells. We stayed slightly higher up than the main town area of Khao Lak, which meant we were lucky enough to experience the whole beach, totally empty.
We decided to travel from Phuket to Khao Lak by bus. We had booked this connection in one of the many tourist stands in Phuket.
We had two large suitcases, one hand luggage case and a rucksack with our camera equipment. We had to squeeze all of this into the van, whilst also finding some space for us.
Sweaty but ready for the journey, we overheard a group of German lads teasing at how much stuff we had with us. That is something cool about speaking two languages, Alex very gently informed them that we could in fact, understand what they were saying and they quickly went very quiet. Despite this, we did realise that we were taking around far too much luggage for the kind of trips we wanted to be doing.
In all honesty, this was a key point for us to consider an entire world trip with just one bag. Having less luggage makes these connections a lot simpler.
We eventually reached a newsagent on the side of a really busy road. There we were told we could catch the next bus to Khao Lak in about 45 minutes. We waited and waited in the hot sun on the side of the road when we suddenly saw a shop which sold ice cream. We made a dash and somehow survived crossing the busy road and enjoyed the sweet reward of ice cream – totally worth it. After a while (Definitely more than 45 minutes but hey seasoned travellers don’t complain) our bus did arrive and we excitedly hopped on this spacious, air-conditioned bus and travelled over dreamy landscapes to Khao Lak. The view on this journey was utterly fascinating, down windy roads and past people working their fields and elephants carrying the load. There is a lot of controversy about using elephants for these purposes in Thailand, something we had learned a great deal about on our trip to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary.
Are we Nearly There yet?
After around 3 hours, we arrived in Khao Lak. We nipped into our hotel and dropped the many bags, and we simply walked out the front to this incredible beach.
We were staying in the unbelievably beautiful Bangsak Village. This hotel was ideally situated right next to the beach and some of the most beautiful small restaurants.
We popped into the most wonderful restaurant, the staff were unbelievably friendly, the food was locally made and delicious. We sipped a cool, Thai Ice Tea on the beach, listened to the waves and felt the warm sand on our feet. This blissful feeling must be impossible to beat.
On the walk home across the beach, we looked into the sweet wooden hut where we were welcomed and got a wonderful Thai massage for around 200 Baht for 30 minutes. In all honesty, we had asked for a very gentle Thai massage as we were quite terrified of the authentic version. The evening air was very peaceful and this wonderful massage was exactly what we needed after a few hours of lugging around our heavy bags. The sound of the waves whilst laying back, relaxing and enjoying this wonderful massage together was just sensational.
Khao Sok National Park
No rest for the wicked, as we awoke at 6 am the next morning to travel to Khao Sok national park. We were lucky enough to find a guide who took us from Khao Lak to Khao Sok and gave us a tour of this infamously powerful national park. The boat trip through Khao Sok was incredibly scenic.
We saw cave openings at each turn with huge Stalactites hanging down. The lake itself, which spans across this national park, is huge.
After this boat connection to the area of the jungle we wanted to explore, we strapped on our leech socks (Yepp, definitely don’t want to get eaten by leeches) and headed out into the jungle. The jungle itself was utterly incredible, huge trees full of life, the sounds and smells of this place were unlike anything we had ever experience. We found the notion of being close to so many endangered species, so many beautiful plants and overwhelming landscapes to be humbling and magical.
It is impossible not to appreciate the enormity of this national park, the importance of this place and why the Thai government are working so hard to protect it. The variety of species to be found there is out of this world, including tigers, gibbons and all sorts of rare plant life.
The lake area is so breathtakingly beautiful. We also had this really cool opportunity to go into the Pra Kie Phet Cave, equipped with head torches we headed into this cave witnessing families of bats and spiders alike- possibly not for the faint-hearted but this was a seriously interesting look into another way of existence. After coming away from the park, we were browsing through trip advisor and we saw a large discussion regarding the safety of swimming in the caves. We read that bat faeces in the water could make you really poorly so always check before you swim! We were very relieved at the fact our tour did not include a cave swim!
After a long but incredible day in Khao Sok, we headed back to Khao Lak feeling completely inspired by what we had seen. The scale of the park is remarkable. We took a much-needed dip in the pool and then got into bed which felt like heaven after all the walking of the day.
Khao Lak on a Scooter
The next day was one of our favourites on the trip. Wanting to experience Khao Lak for ourselves, we hired a scooter and travelled around this amazing place. Our first stop was the turtle sanctuary, although small this place is doing some fantastic work in protecting the baby turtles that they have a fighting chance of entering into adulthood.
This place is so cute, seeing these tiny little turtles swimming around in the pools, knowing that they now have a much higher chance of survival, what’s not to love? They also take care of some sweet older turtles who are disabled and missing fins or have trouble swimming. It was a really positive feeling to see how much the local people care about their wildlife.
Entering into the Turtle Sanctuary is a bit of mission though. We were very unsure about entering this Thai Royal Navy site which was heavily guarded by personnel, you have to give your driving license or some form of identification upon entering and everything is very serious, but for very good reason. This site is also a very sombre place as a result of the memorial ship which has been left after it was washed up by the Tsunami in 2004. Many people died in this event including the naval personnel on board the boat and many local people and tourists. This monument is a very touching display and we both came away with a restored awareness of the power of nature and the damage it can cause.
Chasing Waterfalls
Taking ourselves away from this fascinating site, we decided to try to go down and take a look at some of the national parks and waterfalls around it. This was such a brilliant thing, although we went looking for these waterfalls, we actually entered the national park at the wrong side.
We were, however, greeted by the most beautiful forested walk down to the Small Sandy Beach- the clue is in the name, it was truly stunning. We lay here and swam in the ocean. It was the most surreal place as it was almost completely empty and utterly tranquil.
After a couple of hours, we hopped back on our scooter and travelled to our initial intended destination of the Ton Chong Fa Waterfall. As we had already entered the national park for the Small Sandy Beach and paid 200 Baht for entry, we did not need to pay anything extra to go over to these beautiful waterfalls. (Almost like we planned our extra beach excursion- as if we would ever get lost…).
The Ton Chong Fa Waterfalls are such a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We took a very gentle walk up to the waterfalls. We eventually came to a sign which said Mahseer Fish Spa and Therapy.
We were both intrigued and walked over to the water to see the small fish that eat the dead skin from your feet and hands in their natural habitat. This was very interesting and everything, but there was absolutely no way we were having our feet eaten by little fish.
It was really fun to watch them all swim over to us as we erm.. bravely dipped a toe in the water for a whole second and rushed to pull it out before the fish reached us. After this, we headed further up this waterfall. We found a spot in which you can shower under the waterfall and swim in the pool below. These waterfalls really make you feel connected with nature, the vivid greens of the trees surrounding you, the sound of the birds and the refreshing chill of the water on a warm day was just sensational.
The evening came on our wonderful day of adventure, and we decided to enjoy using our scooter a little longer. We hopped on the scooter despite the dark and we headed into Khao Lak itself.
We visited the Khao Lak night market and we had an absolutely brilliant time. This market takes place on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. We ate some great food, we started off by snacking on some Thai Style Takoyaki which are small pancake style discs filled with meats and seafood. After finishing these, we headed around the market.
There was just about everything you could imagine on offer at this vibrant market, from home remedies to handbags. We wandered around the stalls and bought some fun souvenirs and Singha Beer T-shirts before we were hungry again and we sat and ate some Pad Thai. We just sat at this stall watching the people shopping and enjoying themselves and listening to the music for a really long time. This market just felt like a really happy, relaxed and fun place.
Final Thoughts of Khao Lak
As you can probably tell from this post, we absolutely fell in love with Khao Lak. The beautiful scenery, stunning national parks and the hustle and bustle of everyday life utterly charmed us. This place was just full of little treasures and travelling around by scooter was the most fun and efficient way to reach the national parks and cultural sights.
