This post is mostly photos from our time in Khao Sok National Park and Bangkok from about a month ago. 

 

Khao Sok is one of those places where the landscape is so amazing that it's impossible to stop taking photos. This makes it hard to narrow down a selection to share. The landscape is comprised of the same limestone mountains that are common throughout parts of Southeast Asia but here the combination of the bright blue lake and the thick jungle makes things extra special. 

Ice cream sold by Spiderman

Lake, jungle, and mountains

The park has a huge diversity of life, supposed moreso than the Amazon, containing as many as 5% of the world's species. Tigers, Bears, Elephants and more all live here although we weren't lucky enough to see any of those (probably for the best with Tigers...). We did see a big family of Dusky Leaf monkeys right behind the floating bungalow that we were staying in. A hike through the forest also had a lot of lizard sightings but not much else.

The guide called these Chameleons but I don't think they really are.

We did see more monkeys while travelling on a boat in the lake in the evening and again the next morning. They were high up in the trees so were quite difficult to get good photos of. You definitely need patience to be a wildlife photography I think. It took ages before we spotted any. I'm sure there were probably a lot more that we starred right at without noticing. 

A Dusky Leaf moneky half way up the pale tree trunk

And another 

The lake we stayed on is huge so it never really felt too busy here. The park is much more than just the lake too so I think most of the wildlife probably avoids the areas where people are. 

 

 

 

 

After Khao Sok we were back in Bangkok for five more nights. We were both surprised by how much we liked Bangkok. It's hot and a bit dirty but it's also a very easy city to visit. Getting around is very cheap, either by public transport or by Grab (Uber equivalent), and there are so many really nice shopping malls around that it's easy to get some respite from the heat when you need to. I also found it far less busy than London. I always imagined Asia to be a really crowded place but so far nowhere that we've been has felt as busy or as cramped as the UK does. I guess that's what you get when buildings are actually designed to be spacious.

Bangkok train tracks

 

Khao San road is an exception to this, being absolutely packed with people. We went just to see what the fuss was about and it was pretty unpleasant. Each bar is blasting its own music at excessive volume and because there are so many in a tiny area it means that all you can hear is dischordant noise. Bars also have several staff each trying to coax you inside so walking from one end of the street to the other (only 400 metres) requires saying no constantly. At one point there was a bar who literally had about 20 staff and we basically had to run a gauntlet with them on both sides with big menus. Luckily one street over is less busy and a bit quieter so that's where we ended up. A bar across from where we sat had a Thai Beatles cover band who were amazing.

 

 

 

 

We'll be back in Bangkok one more time at the end of May so it's starting to fell very familiar!