Southern Stunners

So, we arrived back in Bangkok and met up with some more people who would be travelling South with us. Stefan was unfortunately leaving us today so we all went out for a meal at a nice restaurant to say goodbye as he was a top lad. After the meal we went for a couple of drinks back at the Rooftop bar before heading to Gullivers. Whilst in here we were having a few drinks when a couple of Thai girls came talking to us. One of them took quite a fancy to George and when she walked off a guy told us to watch out as he thinks she could be a lady boy! With fear in his eyes George wasn't quite sure what to do with himself when he/she came back, she was cuddling him, making him put his arms around her and we were all looking for the tell tale signs...hands, breasts, legs the lot....nothing! Right we thought, take a picture and analyse it, the picture was taken, zoom in, look around, uh oh.......adams apple!!!! Leg it George leg it. We promptly moved to another side of the bar and although George looked pale and scared we all had a good laugh about it.

The next morning we woke and had a look around some of the temples in Bangkok. We visited Wat Pho temple which has a 20 acre section that houses a huge 46 metres long and 18 metre high reclining Buddha, the scale is immense!!



Next we crossed the Chao Phraya river on a short boat ride and visited the Wat Arun Temple, also known as the Temple of Dawn. This temple is one of the best known landmarks in Bangkok and although it is still a Buddhist temple it seemed to have a darker feel to it and could easily be in something like Lord of the Rings!




It has four surrounding towers and one huge one in the middle that gave us slight vertigo as the steps were so steep to get up it. After a little more site seeing we headed to the train station to get another overnight train to Pun Pin.

We were woke around 6am and grabbed breakfast before grabbing a bus for 2.5 hours Khao Sok National Park where we would be staying in Jungle Huts for a couple of days. The journey was quite spectacular and the scenery was exactly what the picture I had in my head of Thailand was before we arrived; sharp, steep, jagged, tree covered peaks and mountains surrounded by low lying dense forest.



Although it was a long journey it was worth it as the scenery was stunning. We arrived at Arts Jungle Lodge which was a small complex of huts smack in the middle of the rain forest, the humidity was so intense we all instantly started to pour with sweat. After lunch we had a walk around and a few hundred yards from the restaurant was a small opening onto a flowing river and little stony 'beach area'. Shirts off, deckchairs out, we just relaxed and swam in the river for the afternoon. After a busy schedule it was nice to relax and chill out for an afternoon.






The next morning we woke early as we were doing a lake tour of the Chieow Laan Lake in the National Park. We arrived at the edge of the lake and took a boat for around 45 minutes across the lake to a small island. The lake covers 165 sq km and is retained by several dams and the surrounding rock formations that are overgrown with jungle. The limestone outcrops are again stunning and can reach heights of up to 960m and without sounding cheesy can only be described as immense. The water is emerald blue and about 70 metres deep, awesome!







When we arrived on the island we had a short 30 minute trek through the rain forest to a small lagoon surrounded by the limestone mountains. We boarded a bamboo raft for a short journey across to a cave on the other side. It was a limestone cave and was absolutely huge, the stalactites and stalagmites were massive and all different shapes and sizes. Very impressive and one of the guides found it amusing to keep pointing out ones that look like penises!





It was absolutely baking in the cave so we headed back to the bamboo raft and trekked back to the boat. A short journey back we stopped at a small floating 'village' of about 30 huts and a restaurant all floating on 70 metre deep water. We had our lunch and dived straight into the water, the lake was so warm it was unbelievable so we just stayed swimming and kayaking for the next 2 hours. The whole place was superb and was a surreal experience swimming in water so deep and warm, surrounded by such amazing scenery.






One of the moments where we wanted to stay forever. We started heading back in the boat and although it was still really hot the boat driver stopped and chucked us waterproof ponchos...a little dubious we all put them on slowly and within minutes it was absolutely tipping it down. The next 30 minutes on the boat back were interesting but highly amusing!



Back at the lodge we dried off and went for dinner before an early night as we were up at 4.30AM the next day to get a bus and ferry as we were heading to Ko Samui, a little island of the east coast. As soon as the bus came out of the rain forest the sky cleared to a bright blue with not a cloud in the sky, we got to the port and boarded the boat and it was just getting hotter and hotter. We were getting closer to Ko Samui and when we arrived the scenery was so beautiful.







White sandy beaches, clear, bright blue sea and it was red hot, instantly sweating we got to the hotel and dived into the sea.......we had been waiting almost 3 full weeks for this moment. We spent 2 days here before heading to Ko Tao. An even smaller, even more beautiful island where we chilled for 3 days including an awesome snorkeling trip where we swam with sharks and went to the most picturesque private island we have ever seen called Ko Nangyuan. We were in the warm shallow waters and stuck our heads under the water, it wasn't until this moment that we realised we were surrounded by thousands and thousands of multi coloured fish of all shapes and sizes, quality!










Not much to say about this part of the trip, we think the pictures tell there own story.



















Nuff Said!!!!!!!