On the Tourist Trail Part 1

Tuesday 28th April 2009 we headed south on Highway 4, The Petchakasem Highway as we know it and after a brief stop to meet with friends in Hua Hin we continued the drive south with an intended destination of Khao Sok National Park, in Surat Thani Province.

It is kind of funny to think that the Petchkasem virtually runs past our front door in Ratchaburi, where it is essentially a bypass, but once you get down into the deep south it turns into an Alpine style road with high climbs, hairpin bends, great views and low gears being the order of the day. Reminiscent of Pacific Highway One, which in LA has six lanes going in both directions but which reduces to an amazing ocean hugging single track as it crosses the spectacular coastal scenery between LA and San Francisco.

An uneventful drive brought us to Chumphon, the gateway to Thailand’s south, to Tungka Gardens Hotel on the highway, cheap and cheerful at 500b a night! What more could we ask for?!

So we had a comfortable night apart from the rats scrambling around above the ceiling and we hit the trail early and made it to Art’s River Lodge on the edge of Khao Sok National Park and I must say I was initially very impressed by this place. A first step into the park was disappointing in terms of bird sightings but the sounds suggested there could be much to be seen.

After a night at Art’s it became clear that from a human/service perspective that the Lodge and the village around Khao Sok National Park suck!

Art's accommodation is wonderful, stylish bungalows with great views over the river and finished in wood, beautiful big beds with white muslin mosquito nets draped down from the ceiling, no windows but wooden shutters instead and a lovely verandah. The site extends over a considerable amount of land too which is beautifully landscaped in parts and in others grows wild like the jungle. But for me it ends there.

The service was poor, let us say disinterested, the food mediocre and ridiculously overpriced. Luna is quite visibly pregnant, in fact she looks as though she might burst if you pricked her belly with a pin. No assistance offered carrying our bags though we saw others being helped….and we are tippers!!!! Maybe because we asked for a discount!

The rooms are only cleaned on request and our room lacked drinking water and a fridge. The toilet lacked a window curtain. I can live without these things, I can also live happily without a TV, clean towels, a telephone to reception, drinking water, breakfast…but surely not providing these services should be reflected in a lower price? I thought 950 baht was too high simply for location.

Elsewhere in a little café I was charged 75 baht for a plate of fried chicken over rice with a fried egg and a cup of coffee…. I would expect to pay less than 30 baht for this in Ratchaburi. The internet cafes were also in on the act too.

The reason for this of course is that Khao Sok is roughly equidistant between Koh Samui and Krabi/ Phuket, between Thailand’s east and west coast playgrounds. So it is used as a sort of staging post for backpacker types, an alternative to the sea, offering a bit of real outdoor jungle stuff. The real business is however to fleece these travellers who are already conditioned into accepting over-inflated pricing in the absence of knowing any better.

At Art’s there were guides offering escorted walks into the jungle. I think these were just “free lances” that preyed on unsuspecting guests at Art’s and payed a percentage to Art’s. I did not establish how much these “guides” were charging; they left us well alone after they had established we could speak Thai and were reasonably knowledgeable about birds.

The trails in the park are by no means a cake walk, or cat walk for that matter…. the higher part of the main trail as I learned is a genuine jungle trek uphill to waterfalls with leeches , flying squirrel, lizards and God knows what else. At times I felt quite scared as I was under the jungle canopy the whole time and was aware of significant noise and movement…..is that a snake coming to spray into my eyes and then poison me with its venom! No shit!

At times the path is fairly exposed to the river below, it is usually wet and slippy and requires a fair amount of scrambling to get up and down its various pitches. Much as there are some decent spots to swim not exactly a place to be in flip flop sandals and short strides. I made it to the top waterfall, a real hard finish with a bit of waist deep wading. I duly got the kit off and plunged into a beautifully cool pool between the cascades for a very welcome lunch break.

We took our business to the smaller outlets in the village where we ate and watered ourselves, still expensive but not anywhere near as much as in Art’s. In fact I grew to like the Thai Herb Garden restaurant which served a wonderful variety of drinks and juices and where we sat and watched the flower peckers and sunbirds in the adjacent trees. We probably saw more species in the restaurant than in the park!

When we moved on I said to Luna I would happily revisit Khao Sok but would prefer to stay away from the park and drive in.

The park itself was hard work. I suspect I saw more birds in the first section of the main trail than anywhere else in the park. This first part has the advantage of being a land rover trail and at worst it gets muddy when it is wet. It leads to a welcome cafe where cold drinks can be bought. After that the track becomes a real jungle experience so be warned!

I caught a brief glimpse of a hornbill high in the sky but otherwise only heard them and other birds. Yes it was a time for hearing as opposed to seeing. The highlight was undoubtedly a first encounter with rufous backed kingfisher, ceyx rufidorsa, spotted by Luna, the Queen of the Kingfishers herself with the naked eye, perched on a broken bamboo branch overhanging a small stream. In fact it was so small it would have been easy to miss it but it is a fist of bright dazzling orange and red and it didn’t hang around for our benefit! I got the glasses on the same bird early the following morning on wire fencing near the same spot. What a real beauty, but tiny.

The rest of the birding was very challenging… plenty of bulbuls, stripe-throated & white-throated, making plenty of noise and an abundance of very sociable white-rumped shamas. What a beautiful sound they make! But maybe I saw a female banded pita, but maybe not, only had a moment to look and saw a brown body with some barring. And what flowerpeckers, flycatchers and sunbirds did I see? We did see a very protective blue and white flycatcher sitting on a nest hanging over the path. We saw some brahminy and black kites high up as well as one solitary hornbill, possibly helmeted, but I cannot be sure, soaring high in the sky, a groovy green-billed malkoha in the cliffs opposite Art’s Lodge. In general the birds were far too fast and unco-operative for my liking. But I will be back! After all I am just a raw novice at this game with little craft and much to learn!

Having got home and carried out some further research I have learned that the park can be approached by water and some of the best birding locations can be accessed by canoe/boat. That makes sense! So maybe next time we will take that approach.

So we headed for Krabi Saturday morning and we were pleased to be away from the village and on the road. We stopped for a beautiful breakfast about 20 minutes into our trip where we paid something like 65 baht including drinks. In fact it was a very entertaining stop as the restaurant was selling tickets for one of Thailand's illegal lotteries and the locals were arriving in droves to get their numbers for the Saturday night draw. Once more people very friendly and curious, real Thailand! A beautiful drive which about 3 hours later took us to Krabi.