3 months ago
9
Carolyn Beasley
October 30, 2025 — 5:00am
Spray spatters my sunglasses as I lean out of the wooden boat, gawking at jungle-topped pillars of limestone karst. Aboard a noisy long-tail boat on iridescent, aquamarine waters, I could swear I’m at Thailand’s Phi Phi Islands, or Krabi on the southern coast. But the water splashing me now is freshwater, and I’m on a vast man-made lake inside Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park.
Aside from vertical mountains and ancient rainforest, Khao Sok National Park is also a wildlife hotspot. Visitors come here for monkeys, gibbons, hornbill birds and even elephants.
The park is often overlooked by Aussies for Phuket (the gateway to Phi Phi) or Koh Samui. In fact, Phuket received 13 million visitors in 2024, compared with Khao Sok’s 420,000. It is only the 10th most visited national park in Thailand.
To really dodge the crowds, I’ve checked into sleepy Anurak Lodge, a 19-room eco-lodge just outside the park. The simple bungalows are raised on stilts, and the open-air Hornbill Restaurant overlooks a karst formation known as King Kong. This limestone gorilla sits in a tangle of rattan palms and giant fig trees operating as high-rise bird cities.
Lodge manager George Newling-Ward shows me through his newly planted vegetable garden, bursting with snake gourd, papaya and taro, some destined for my dinner. But the most notable plants here are towering oil palms, a native of Africa. Newling-Ward says that like many farmers in South-East Asia, the previous owner turned his fruit orchard over to lucrative oil palms about 30 years ago.
In a full-circle moment, that previous owner, a man known as Pi Aor, now works here, helping with the lodge’s reforestation program, Rainforest Rising. Gradually, these palms are being replaced with original rainforest species. In a small way, I’m helping too, and as Pi Aor hands me a baby golden teak tree, I pat it into the earth, willing it into a rainforest goliath.
Pi Aor laughs shyly when asked about what he thinks of this tree swap. With Newling-Ward translating, he tells me he can see the benefits, including the return of wild birds.
“I’ve seen the slow loris come back, too,” he says, referring to the nocturnal tree-dwelling mammals. “There’s even a baby one in the trees right now.”
My heart skips a beat, but I can’t spot the fur baby. At breakfast, I also can’t see the treetop vocalists, but it’s thrilling to hear the white-handed gibbons, hooting up a high-pitched crescendo nearby. What I can’t miss are the chunky squirrels, stampeding across my roof like a herd of elephants, cheeky faces peeping under the eaves.
Real elephants sometimes visit too, and on the lodge’s own nature trail, Newling-Ward points out trees that were nonchalantly flattened when the last pachyderm holidayed here. The trail is a wonderland, leading under a veil of aerial tree roots, through a dark limestone cave and into a natural amphitheatre where coffee, durian and rubber trees grow.
The joy of the nature trail is only eclipsed by my traditional bamboo raft excursion. Seated like royalty on a bamboo chair, I coast like flotsam down the Sok River, my expert boatman coaxing the vessel along with a pole. Sassy macaques squabble and snakes snooze on branches as we silently slide by.
The next morning I’m boarding a different boat, joining Anurak’s two-day trip to Cheow Lan Lake, the home of those mighty freshwater karsts. Our long-tail coasts into our overnight stay, PhuphaWaree Floating House, and I wobble along the walkway to my basic floating room with two double mattresses on the floor. There’s no reason to linger inside this paint-peeling room, so I step out my glass doors and into my waiting kayak, pottering around the jungle-lined lake.
Included in the program is a guided hike, and to my surprise, we’re scrambling up the watercourse of a rapidly cascading waterfall. With drenched, muddy feet, our group finds the hike sometimes perplexing but also hilarious, and definitely unforgettable.
The next day’s peachy, misty dawn is also unforgettable, as we embark on a watery wildlife safari. From our boat, we spot ancient-looking hornbill birds winging into treetops, water monitors swimming like baby crocodiles, and dusky langur monkeys with gorgeous white-rimmed eyes and spiky hairstyles, nailing their death-defying leaps.
We’re the only humans watching these langurs, and while I’m told the lake can get busy, it’s hard to imagine right now. But what is clear, is that Thailand has much more to offer than those places frequented by the masses. Beneath the gaze of the mountains, those limestone sentinels, we chug on through nature’s wonderland.
THE DETAILS
STAY
Anurak Lodge costs from THB3645 ($172) for two, including breakfast. An overnight trip to Cheow Lan Lake is THB4800 ($227) a person, twin share, including meals, hikes and boat trips. See anuraklodge.com
FLY
Jetstar flies direct from Sydney and Melbourne to Phuket, the transfer to Anurak Lodge takes about three hours. Or fly to Bangkok with Thai Airways from Sydney and Melbourne or Qantas from Sydney. Then fly with VietJet or Thai AirAsia to Surat Thani Airport and transfer one hour to the lodge. See thaiairways.com
The writer stayed as a guest of Anurak Lodge.
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