Khao Sok National Park, Thailand’s Off-the-Beaten-Track Jungle Holiday Escape

Tucked in the deep south of Thailand’s mainland between the popular western Andaman coast and Samui, Tao, Pa Ngan islands on the Gulf of Thailand, Khao Sok National Park is a patch of one of the world’s oldest evergreen rainforest, enclosing limestone karsts shooting up in the air, emerald-color lakes, rushing waterfalls, rivers running through lush valleys, glittering limestone caves, and diverse wildlife. Destination Thailand checked this jungle holiday destination out and found that to describe our travel experience as being ‘rewarding’ would truly be an understatement.

Khao Sok National Park covers an area of 739 square km², a part of the region’s natural heritage aging over 160 million years. The area has the highest level of rainfall in Thailand – 3,500 mm per year thanks to the high mountains and the fact that it is sided by sea, which means even in the driest season, it still receives enough rainfall for the forests to remain evergreen.  

Species diversity is high in Khao Sok. There are about 200 different floral species per hectare and over 415 fauna species. Among these are the rare ones of the smelly Rafflesia, the biggest flower in Thailand, animals on the country’s list of Wildlife Conservation and Protection Bill such as tapirs, marbled cats, the loud cicada, the poisonous tarantula, and many more.

The present threat rising among the pre-existing illegal logging and poaching is unregulated tourism in the last decade which burdens the park’s capacity itself. However, the local’s rising awareness has driven acts to keep it under control and in fact, visitors are crucial as the park fee goes to the maintenance and protection of the area.

Upon our arrival, we checked in at Our Jungle House, a nature resort on a piece of a privately owned rainforest 5 minutes from the national park itself. The resort is one of the most eco-friendly accommodations in Thailand. Their tree houses and cottages made from natural materials and built within the 25-acre property hardly had to cut any trees. Trails snaking through the land bring you to your rooms and also lead you to discover beautiful wild trees, lianas and flowers in the woods growing around the resort. The rooms without air conditioning, hot water, and TVs certainly reduce carbon emissions yet remain comfy. All waste is sorted into compost, glass, plastic, metal, and paper which are then reused, and recycled. Upon waking up on your bed, you’ll be greeted by the sound of wild gibbons and several types of monkeys while walking out of the room, what maybe waiting at your balcony is a hornbill. No need to say how quiet and peaceful it is here. You can never sleep in a well-maintenance guestroom closer to nature than this.  

Once you arrive at Our Jungle House, there are loads of outdoor and eco activities you can do. Choose among day and night treks, a rubber boat or tubing trip down a stream, elephant back riding, or the extended day trip to the nearby Chiew Larn Dam.

At the national park’s head quarter, you can get really useful information of trekking on the park’s 3 nature trails. Each, ranging from 2 to 9 kilometers, can be completed as a one-day trip but can as well be extended if you want to camp in the park’s forest. The trails pass through waterfalls, rafflesia bushes, bamboo forest, tall canopy trees, and all sorts of landscapes a rainforest can offer. While some visitors preferring guiding themselves on the well-marked trails, some hire local trekking guides from their resorts. We got ours from Our Jungle House and headed to the Bang Hua Raed – Tone Kloy Waterfalls Trail.    

We were told this was a 9-kilometer trail one-way but definitely could be shortened using shortcuts. It was a fairly easy hike while khun Kai engaged us with the stories of the forest, the fact about the area’s flora and fauna, and his excitement when he found something and pointed it out to us almost every 5 minutes or more frequent. If you’re with a guide, what you might be seeing the most depends on the subjects your guide is specialized in, some are insect lovers, some know so much about plants and herbs, and some, like our guide, are bird-watchers. Every moment was exciting and informative, just like khun Kai promised us, that if we kept our eyes, nose, and ears open to the surrounding, and were quick enough to follow his pointing fingers, we would discovered that every single square meter, there could always be something waiting to surprise us. 

To learn more about Our Jungle House, visit www.khaosokaccommodation.com and to get some insightful information about the park, go to www.khaosok.com.

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Chiew Larn Dam, Surat Thani’s Hideaway from the World

Ratchaprapa or Chiew Larn Dam of Thailand’s Surat Thani Province owns a breathtaking landscape of limestone karst hills shooting up above the emerald green water which has gained it a reputation rivaling China’s Guilin and Vietnam’s Halong Bay. But being much smaller in scale and more difficult to travel to has kept it off the tourist’s radar. The dam offers a few choices of secluded raft resorts, eco-activities, and is such a perfect holiday hideaway surrounded by nature and peace.  

A view from the dam's wall

Ratchaprapa Dam, built in a part of Khao Sok National Park, which is one of the world’s oldest rainforest, closes off the Pasaeng river, creating a 185 square kilometre lake. It has been a main source of power generating in the south of Thailand for nearly 30 years. The emerald green color of the water is the result of the sunlight reflecting off the algae underneath it. The surrounding 165 karsts hills were the tips of the mountains themselves before the dam was built. The limestone karsts are the deposits from 280 million years ago which began to form as the marine life established a long coral reef that stretches from China, passing Halong Bay via the south of Thailand to Sarawak State of Borneo Island. Hidden in these hills are beautiful caves, wild animals such as hogs, gaurs and various types of birds, all foraging at dawn and twilight.  

A sightseeing boat ride on the lake can be done as a day trip or extended to overnights at one of the 16 raft resorts available in ranges of prices and levels of facilities. On the way to our stay tonight, we soaked in the beautiful landscape and stopped at one of the dam’s highlight: Sam Kler Hills. And less than 15 minutes after that, appeared our 500 Rai Raft House. 

 

The peaceful raft house is a destination in itself, offering accommodation and boat trips to trek and watch wildlife in the nearby hills. Their 11 houses offer 3 luxurious room types: Deluxe, Family, and Villa, with full amenities with fans or air-conditioning, perfect choices for families, friends, and couples. Ours was a Deluxe room, good for 4 persons.   

500 Rai Raft House

There is neither phone signal nor internet connection here. When there is no phone call to worry about, it is so easy to hear the sound of nature and gaze lazily onto the rippling water. But for the more active ones, there are kayaks. The food served here tasted fabulous and the atmosphere only elevated it.

On the next day, we woke up to the misty morning. Today, lined up for us was wildlife watching and the Coral Cave, 2 out of the several activities in the area our raft house offers.  

The first place we stopped was where we could spot hornbills. Next was the gibbons. According to the guide, the species inhabiting this place is the white-handed gibbons which have white faces, hands and feet, with the fur ranging from cream to black. We didn’t see one. But we could hear there were plenty in the canopy. 

Then we left the wildlife watching area and headed to the Coral Cave. On the way, we stopped by a fishermen’s raft house. Their fish farm nurtures various kinds of species caught from the lake, to be delivered to the nearby raft resorts and markets on the shore. The man said they only caught medium sized fish, allowing the young ones to grow and the old ones to breed in nature.   

The trip to the cave was a little more adventurous. Coral Cave is located in a lagoon, and the only way to reach it is by foot, taking 45 minutes, then by  a bamboo raft. 

There are 2 things that give it the name ‘Coral Cave. This cave, like other limestone karsts in the area, is the result of deposits of marine life established on a coral reef over 250 million years ago, leaving various types of fossils, such as of giant clams, which can be seen on the cave walls today. Then, it is the shapes of the stalagmite and stalactite themselves that look that corals. The cave is not lit and a guiding service from a raft driver is essential.

Passing one hall to another, we had a great time guessing what the stalagmites and stalactites looked like. We had an owl, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a potter, women faces, elephant heads, among others. One important thing to keep in mind when visiting a cave is not to touch the stalagmites and stalactites. The damages can not be repaired.  

Ratchaprapa Dam is an amazing place of unrivaled landscapes and a prefect holiday hideaway. It is 20 kilometers away from Surat Thani Airport which connects to Bangkok by Nok Air 5 flights a day. 

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Behind the Foggy Curtain of Kalinga

“It’s a bit disingenuous of Filipino tourism companies to advertise the Cordillera with pictures of half-naked, tattooed tribespeople, but if you’re going to see that cliché in person, likely it will be in Kalinga… a place where weekends aren’t even a concept, let alone a reality,” describes the 2009-edition Lonely Planet on the secluded province tucked in the savage mountainous area of Cordillera in North Luzon. The primitive traditions of the Kalinga tribe include the recently ceased head-hunting practice, the elaborate tattoo patterns engraved on bodies with the most basic tools by the last remaining tattoo shaman lady in Buscalan Village and all sorts of superstitions that govern their daily life in the rugged valleys of green rice terraces rivaling the much advertised Banaue in Ifugao Province. These faraway places hold enough mystery and adventure to attract trekkers; yet, remain so little known and visited. Intrigued by the Kalinga’s unspoiled ways of life, curious to meet the shaman, and fueled to explore the area’s pristine nature and stunning landscapes, I and a friend headed to Tinglayen, the gateway village to Buscalan. 

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The village of Tinglayen is a few hundred meter strips of houses on the road snaking along mountain base, linking Bontoc Town with Tabuk, the capital of Kalinga Province. Very little is said about it on Google searches and in the Lonely Planet which only names 3 -4 possible trekking routes. Filipino travelers themselves don’t even stop here, so there are no tourist facilities or information center. Luckily, we got a copy of a hand-written map, likely from a village municipality, showing villages around Tinglayen and which included Buscalan. While trying to figure out the directions, an old granny, arms heavily tattooed, jogged past us, hurrying to somewhere. Seeing that, we folded the map. We had found our perfect compass.        

A roofless pickup truck was waiting for her and it took off as soon as the last passengers arrived. We found out the truck was going to Proper But But Village, an hour away, as we were seated amidst other passengers, household items, and live chickens. We had no idea where Proper But But was, we let the truck carry us on a dirt road going up the mountain which rose straight up right next to Tinglayen.    

A toilet stop

  

The poor bumpy road wound through the sparse forest. Soon we arrived on the mountain top and continued along the road that linked one mountain ridge to another. We were thrilled to see the panoramic view of the surrounding rugged mountains, some green, and others brown with knee-high grasslands. Reaching Proper But But, which would have taken about 3 hours if we had walked, we started studying the map seriously, spotted Proper But But. We then saw a dashed line linking the village to Buscalan, via another village called Loccong. We were told the only way to reach Buscalan from here was by a walking trail.      

We gave the village a tour. Low-rise wooden houses, with roofs rubbing one another’s, sitting on poles and with the underneath space serving as pig stables. Sacrificed animals’ skulls hung from walls. Blacksmiths were making knives, women were making brooms, while the elders were just hanging out at the houses’ doorways or balconies. Most of them, mainly the women, had one typical tattoo pattern on their arms, but our inability to communicate kept us from getting further information about their tattoos. 

The villagers’ reactions when they saw us varied, some just stared at us with puzzled eyes, some, likely to be younger ones, smiled and said hi. A few greeted us and carried out basic conversations, the result of half a century American colonization which made English an official language as well as the visiting  the missionaries who spoke English to them. Those who spoke English would repeat questions in a familiar pattern, “Where are you from? You don’t have a guide?” but never left out “Are you husband and wife? Or Are you a couple?” And the answer that we were just friends would always launch giggling among our audience. Gossiping seemed like a passionate activity here and we knew the presence of ‘the Italian husband and Thai wife travelers’ would fill the talk of the village at least for the next 3 days. 

We came to a house where 2 girls drying clothes in the sun started conversing with us, asking “where are you from?” Our set answers “Thailand and Italy, no guide, not husband and wife, just friends,” sent the girls into a burst of laughing. Whether that was what they wanted to hear or not, we got invited for lunch. 

The meal was simple, steamed rice and a soup of boiled green beans, the type of food plentiful in the mountain. As soon as they heard we were heading to Loccong, they suggested we stay at her brother’s who married a woman in Loccong and moved there. We got his name, Baco, feeling relieved we got a roof for the night, prepared to leave, and offered them pesos enough for lunch which they returned and insisted we put back in our pockets.   

The trail towards Loccong went through mountain slopes covered with green savanna fields alternating with rice terraces. The rugged hills, both bald and dotted with solo pine trees, were endless. The same cool breeze that blew through the rice fields, sending their soft stems swaying, caressed our faces. We stopped a million times, clicking the shutter, and simply took it all in. 

The watch said 2 o’clock when we saw a village on a mountain top. That must be Loccong, but also didn’t matter if it wasn’t. We were pretty certain one of the houses wouldn’t mind if we asked for their kitchen’s floor for a night. 

We arrived at Baco’s, following a lady we met at the village’s entrance and who happened to be his neighbor. A woman with a baby hesitantly climbed down the stilt house’s stairway to greet us. Looking puzzled, she introduced herself as Irene and said that she was Baco’s wife. We understood from her broken English that Baco had been gone for a few days to run errands. Nevertheless, we were urged to go up the house. 

The space of probably 45 square meters was divided into a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen, and sparsely furnished but clean. An old lady who was working in the kitchen was said to be her mother. Behind the house, there was a small wooden hut with a cross on top, no wonder where such a Christian name came from.         

There was uncomfortable silence between us and Irene for a few minutes. She, not sure of our visiting purpose, was probably wondering when her husband had made friends with foreign travelers while we were searching for the simplest way to explain why and how we got here. We didn’t want to bother her since Baco wasn’t home but as soon as we asked her where in the village we could crash, she hurriedly said “no, please don’t go nowhere else.”

And before we could say anything, a girl popped up at the stairway. She greeted Irene and turned to us, speaking nearly perfect English. Sharon, Irene’s cousin, was a university student in Baguio and came home for a school holiday. After a few minutes of chatting and translation for Irene why we aimed for Buscalan, Sharon offered to show us around the village. 

Sharon, Paolo, and Irene's baby

With Irene's mother

Irene's mother's friend (?)

We followed her with our cameras, passing roofs after roofs where Sharon greeted other villagers in her dialect and probably talked about us, her guests. We spotted an old lady sitting at a house’s doorway in a position perfect for a portrait. Her arms were covered with tattoos. Sharon, translating for us, said a lady named Kwang Ud in Buscalan had done it for her. Asking who Kwang Ud was, we were sure this was the shaman lady we were looking for. We asked for the granny’s permission to take her portraits and as soon as we put the cameras down, she cupped her hands up and said something.    

“Matches, she asked if you have matches,” Sharon said. 

What a strange request, we thought, but not for too long before a chapter in Lonely Planet appeared in my head, “gifts go a long way in Kalinga, so stock up on matches, gin, and if you really want to be popular, live chickens.” 

Apologizing to the granny we didn’t have matches and saying goodbye, I felt consoled it wasn’t money she asked for but couldn’t help wondering how long it would take for the villagers to begin to beg for money from foreigners, just like in some other corners of the world that are spoiled by tourism and where tourists are considered walking dollar bills. 

By the time we walked back to Irene's house, the sun was only a little bit above the mountain lines. The orange rim of the sun was peaking out from behind the cloud sending its rays like spotlights into the valleys below. On the slopes, farmers marched with their cows and buffalos, heading home. Laughter of the children running around broke the twilight’s silence. We helped the family make dinner, washed off at what looked like the village’s public fountain of clean water, and tucked ourselves onto the mattress prepared by Irene as soon as the solar cells’ electricity cut off about 8pm.

We woke up the next morning to dense fog, had breakfast, washed the dishes, and packed to leave. After asking Sharon for the address to which we could send developed photos of the family, we offered Irene money for the food and the bed. And if we had not insisted that she keep the money for her baby, she wouldn’t have accepted it. 

By this time, I learned  a lesson: returning the local’s generosity to help with bills wasn’t the way to do it here, and I would never do that again since it could easily offend them.  

Leaving Loccong, we could see Buscalan nestled amidst rice terraces at the end of the trail zigzagging down the mountain slope. Taken in by the surrounding green, the cool breeze, and the sound of nature, we forgot the urge to see Kwang Ud for a moment.   

Buscalan was a bit bigger than Proper But But and Loccong. Passing under roofs, I didn’t feel curious eyes on us as it happened in the last 2 villages. In fact, they all seemed to know our purpose since each of them said  “Kwang Ud?” and pointed to the same direction even before we asked.  

Kwang Ud’s house sat at one edge of the village. The 2-story wooden house had a sign colorfully painted with “Tattoo Artist’s House” hanging from the balcony. A girl seeing us from the second floor came merrily downstairs to meet us. She turned out to be Kwang Ud’s granddaughter, who spoke great English. She said Kwang Ud would be down in a minute.    

A lady in her 90s appeared in the doorway. Her silver hair was tied up with colorful beads that matched with her necklace. With her very straight spine, she followed her granddaughter down the stairway to greet us. Kwang Ud didn’t speak a word of English but she had a beautiful smile. She certainly didn’t possess the typical shaman’s intimidating look, and was instead lovely and kind. However, she looked tired. I couldn’t help feeling guilty thinking our arrival may have woken her up from a nap.          

“Would you like to get tattoos? It’s not expensive.”

The granddaughter asked us politely, yet, something in that sentence bothered me though I didn’t know what it was.   

“No, thank you. We were just curious how it is done,” I replied.

The girl disappeared into the house and returned with the equipment Kwang Ud used to make tattoos. She expertly explained that Kwang Ud used a coconut bowl to mix a pigment of soot and water. An orange thorn attached to the end of a small bamboo stick was then used as a needle while another short stick would tap the thorn into the skin. Like modern tattooing, the patterns needed to be repeated so they remained sharp and permanently. She then placed a huge book in front of us and said “you can read more about it here.”

I certainly didn’t expect that someone would discover what would be a totally savage village years ago, where he couldn’t even tell it was safe to visit, but who was so enthralled by the local’s ways of life that he decided to stay, did research, and composed a thick completely detailed book on the place. Lars Krutak, an American, has documented Kalinga’s vanishing traditions and beliefs and revealed the mystery of their sacred traditions. I had never really thought of the source from where I heard about the Kalinga’s intriguing information. It became obvious to me now this book, distributed all over the world, was what has brought us to the small remote village of Buscalan.

According to Lars, head hunting which was believed to capture and control the soul of the enemy, thought to be in the head, lasted until WWII when the Kalinga warriors captured Japanese’s soldiers’ heads. Nevertheless, it still happens and is seen as right as a revenge if a tribe's member was killed by the victim's tribe in the past.

Kalinga’s traditional tattoo patterns are done both on men and women to serve different purposes. A head hunting male warrior receives tattoos to protect him from injuries in battles and as a token of victory if he killed an enemy and cut off his head. For women, tattoos are believed to bring fertility and prosperity, support men’s power and are also seen as beauty marks. Most of their designs come from nature, like rice bundles, ferns, snake scales, and centipedes which are powerful spiritual guides and friends of the warrior. Some of the women also have tattooed necklaces. 

I looked up from the book and, to my surprise, I saw a Caucasian man walking past Kwang Ud’s house. From his very brief self-introduction, Brian was an American photographer who had lived in Buscalan for nearly a year working on a documentary project. And before I could even acknowledge the presence of another visitor after not seeing any in the area for the last 2 days, he was too far  down the trail to pick up his car.  

Kwang Ud’s granddaughter invited us to eat. We did as requested while Kwang Ud, who was unable to communicate and not eating, sat with us. We asked the old lady to go back to what she was doing before we had arrived but it seemed like she didn’t want to leave her guests alone. I felt another wave of guilt.   

Kwang Ud then had another group of guests. Another Caucasian couple showed up with a Filipino man, saying they aimed for Buscalan to meet the famous tattoo maker, got lucky enough to be approached by this local who offered to guide them here for some compensation. They didn’t have much time and would have to leave soon. The couple sat Kwang Ud on her house’s stairway and shot her with their cameras. Her face was expressionless. I couldn’t tell if she was just shy to smile or she wasn’t happy having a camera pointing at her face without asking for her consent first. At one moment, I wanted to shoot her as well since she was the main reason we were here. But at the second thought, I decided not to. All I did was steal one click of her and it’s the only photo I have of her now. 

Kwang Ud

The couple was invited for lunch and we ourselves hanging out with the family and her neighbors for a while longer. Kwang Ud, again unable to join this English language conversation, sat quietly and soon started dozing. When we saw that, we knew it was time to go.

We thanked Kwang Ud, her grand-daughter, and the neighbors for hosting us and expressed our appreciation though it was only for a few hours. When we got up to leave, there came an unexpected request: we were asked if we wanted to contribute some money for the lunch. So we did. 

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The trail we were on now would lead us to a truck stop that would bring us down to the main road connecting to Tinglayen. The landscape was beautiful but I was too detached from it, too bothered by some of the scenes we encountered in Buscalan... 

The obvious rising number of visitors, as the family confirmed they had seen more and more guests in the last few years, and the money talk we had just had somewhat foretold the future of the village as tourism had eventually arrived.  No one can ever stop curious visitors from exploring the area and the rule of globalization will happen here just like what many other far-flung corners of the world which are experiencing it now. I could only hope for the best for Buscalan, and other villages in the area, as they struggle to find the right way to embrace development brought by tourism with ability to preserve their hospitable mentality, unique and precious cultural identity in the same time. And meanwhile, I hoped Kwang Ud find more peace and privacy in the last period of her life. But that was just me thinking as if I were her. Who knows exactly what she wanted?   

The trail was connected to a small dirt road prepared to be paved with concrete. A few hundred meters away where the new concrete road eventually began, a truck was waiting for passengers. We knew our next ride would be very smooth, unlike the way we took to Proper But But. As we hopped on the truck, a Caucasian man in a brand new white car drove past us. It was Brian who waved to us and we waved back. He continued on the dirt road towards Buscalan, probably to the point the car couldn’t pass, and soon disappeared into the dust.  

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