5 Kao Sok – Rain, Tubes and Monkey business

The next morning in our tree house, we awoke to various sounds from outside. The pleasant chatter of monkeys, the playful song of birds, and the thunder of a torrential downpour on the roof. It honestly sounded like there was a god-sized bucket of water being emptied on top of us.

We had no idea if we would be able to leave without getting drenched, but when I looked out, the canopy of the rainforest provided adequate cover for us to get to the restaurant for breakfast. In the light I could see the tree house we were staying in, or really a house on stilts, with stairs that led down to the dirt path that ran alongside the river Sok. The river was very full – about 10 metres across with a strong current.

In the afternoon, after riding an elephant, Harriet and I got to try out the current. We joined Liam and Lindsay, a couple from Liverpool on a tube ride down the river. Tube ride? Well, take a car tube, fill it up with air, put in on the river, whack a human on top and hey presto! The current does the rest. Helped by the little Thai guides that come and push you off your tube while you scream blue murder like a big girl, only to find that the river is less than waist deep and there is no danger at all. It is much fun!

Though its not nearly as much fun as watching monkeys ransack the next-door neighbours place. Harriet and I were in our tree house getting changed after our tube ride when we heard a kafuffle going on outside. We went outside and saw lots of movement in the trees, and the odd monkey sound. We looked up at the branches of the trees and monkeys just seemed to appear out of the foliage, swinging forward and landing the balcony of the hut next door.

Our neighbour had left his balcony door and windows open. It seemed that monkeys had sniffed a chance at naughtiness and come running from neighbouring countries. More and more of them came out of the trees and headed straight for the open room to join the party. The sound of thuds and glass breaking intermingled with shrieks of delight from the monkeys came from within, with Harriet and I doing our best to document the event on our cameras.

I must say that it was a little bit naughty of Harriet and I to spend 15- 20 minutes taking photos of the fun before raising the alarm, but we did get a couple of good photos, and when we did eventually spread the word, we managed to meet some other travellers! So we spent an evening drinking beer with some British girls and an American called Dave, whose room was ransacked by monkeys.

During the evening, we were visited by lots of bugs, and a nice toad. The girls were so happy to have such visitors! Liam and Lindsay joined us a little later in the evening, and we kicked on until they shut the bar, and even after then we convinced them to let us stay and keep boozing.

In Kao Sok it rained almost consistently from the moment that we got there to the moment that we decided to cut short our stay in the south of Thailand to escape the relentless donwpour. Harriet booked us Business class tickets on a plane back to Bangkok from Surithani for the meagre sum of £40 each.