Thailand #3: A-Night Stay on Lake – Khao Sok Lake

By
Sin Yee
-
36
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
One of the reasons people want to go for vacation is to recharge yourself. We want holiday, for calm down our nerve from busy life; especially from work. If you do want to completely relieve yourself from stress, I recommend you to visit Khao Sok Lake, Thailand.

If you have been following my trip at Thailand, I have introduced some places at Bangkok. Now, we were going down to the Southern Thailand. Well, I guess I didn’t tell my itinerary in the first post of my Thailand trip. FYI, our trip lasted 9D8N. We visited Bangkok > Khao Sok > Hua Hin > Krabi. Hence, after city trip, we were going to embrace the nature!

Khao Sok Lake, also known as Ratchaprapha Dam or Cheow Lan Dam. This dam serves as the hydroelectric power generator, it was completed in 1987. Khao Sok Lake is actually located at Khao Sok National Park, which is the largest tropical rain forest in Southern Thailand. Visitors can find a lot of wild animals here, the biggest flower in the world – Rafflesia. And also, you can have a lot of adventurous activities here such as rafting, elephant trekking etc. However, we were not joining this Khao Sok Safari tour, we went for a-night stay on the beautiful Khao Sok Lake.

When our Thai friend told us we were going to stay on lake, which needs boat riding, I was thinking those riding like Kinabatangan River in Sabah has. I was worried whether leeches will “welcome” me there. However, the beauty of the Khao Sok Lake has totally blown my mind! It was totally different from what I was thinking. The lake water is in emerald green, surrounded with towering limestone mountains and islands!


Getting in
Since we were in a group of 8, we rent a minivan, drove ourselves from Bangkok to Khao Sok National Park. If you are going there yourself, you are recommended to go to Surat Thani or Phuket. Tour package can be purchased from these places. If you are going into Khao Sok Lake, you will be taking long-tailed boat.

Note: Khao Sok is located in Surat Thani Province, it is the nearest place to get in Khao Sok National Park.

More details, please refer here

Accommodation
There are a lot of floating raft houses on Khao Sok Lake. They are categorised into three types: Bamboo, Modern and Deluxe. Apparently Bamboo is more budgeted raft house while Deluxe is more luxurious. Full list can be checked here.

Our raft house was Phupa Waree Deluxe Floating Bungalows. It was an hour boat riding from the pier. (No kidding, this dam is super big! Searched on Google Maps, this dam is bigger than Selangor state!)

During the boat riding, you won’t feel bored but you can’t stop yourself to look at the amazing view of Khao Sok Lake. 



Here is our resort on Khao Sok Lake.


The room has two king-sized bed, one bathroom with free toiletries. The front view is the borderless lake view! If you know how to swim, you can directly jump into the lake from your room! 


Breakfast, lunch and dinner were included. Breakfast was in buffet style, while lunch and dinner were four Thai dishes. You can order more if you still feel hungry, unlimited ordering. Or if you want some snacks, you can grab it at the counter. 


Activities
Generally, every raft house on Khao Sok Lake offers the similar activities:

1. Swim & Rope Swing
FYI, there has no network coverage within the Khao Sok Lake. So, put aside your phone and enjoy the relaxing moment here! You can swim and play rope swing anytime. The water was cold, at that time, it was raining too. Therefore, it was even colder!

2. Kayak
You can kayak anytime too. A deposit of 500THB was required in order to get the paddle. You can tie the kayak in front of your room if you want to go for kayaking later on. 

Danny and I are playing kayak for the first time! It was really exciting! Look at our smile~

Group kayaking photo with our friends. It was a great experience.

Note: Must wear life jacket if you don’t know how to swim! Kayak may capsize due to imbalance. It is lake water, unlike sea water, the buoyancy is very weak.

3. Nature sight-seeing
Nature sight-seeing was after lunch. We were told that we can watch wild animals around. However, the captain seems getting lost. We only saw one wild boar for the 4-hour sight-seeing trip, it was totally boring. The next day we were told that there was miscommunication between the captain with the PIC at pier, we got refunded for the sight-seeing tour. Hence, if you are offered for the similar tour, make sure you confirm with the PIC! 

Selfie during the nature sight-seeing

4. Morning safari (before leaving)
Morning safari was a tour to watch the Guilin of Thailand. Three beautiful gigantic reservoirs were towered on the lake, which is similar to the Guilin in China; thus, these reservoirs were given this name.

Price
You can get as low as 1000THB or as high as 9000THB per person depending on the quality of accommodation. Price included long-tailed boat overnight and accommodation. As said, there are three categories of floating raft house. Ours are Deluxe type. Hence, our price was around 4000THB – 5000THB per person. 

Things to take note
  1. Bring backpack! Do not bring the whole luggage if you are going to travel somewhere else like us. Bring sufficient clothes and your daily skincare for 2D1N.
  2. Bring mosquito repellent and fan. Electricity supply only from 6pm to 11pm. Mosquitoes might bite you when you are sleeping. (However, they didn’t cut off the power supply during our stay.)
  3. Bring binoculars for sight-seeing tour. But, make sure you confirm again with the PIC!

In short, Khao Sok Lake is an impressive and beautiful natural scenery for people to get away from the busy city life. If you are a person who loves nature, you will definitely fall in love with Khao Sok Lake. If you got the chance, do join the jungle trekking too. 

Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Share

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

36 COMMENTS

  4. Wow.. I am in love…. it is so pretty there… I want to go there next…. but wait… I want to go Chiang Mai also.. and Ayutthaya… aiyoyo…. so many places to go so little time and now so little money…. =(

  6. The last selfie looks intense!!! aren't you scared you might drop the camera into the water?? My heart skipped a beat when I saw the photo (lost a phone to the sea once, never recovered from the experience)

  7. I need to steal this itinerary of yours! 😛 Never knew the existence of this place, so pretty! The water is crystal clear and I bet you must have had a very relaxed yet fun time there. 🙂

  23. Thanks. Erm…. It's gopro. If it drops into water, still can use. And got friend will jump into water as fast as possible.. >< And also, the monopod we using was not those with grip, is those with nut to lock the camera. We also tie in on hand. So, the chance of drop inside water was quite low.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here