How to Survive Khao Sok National Park Spiders Snakes Leeches Monkeys Lizards

Khao Sok National Park is one of Thailand’s biggest jungles, situated in the heart of Thailand between the popular beaches of Phuket and Koh Samui. It’s probably the best place in the whole of Thailand to catch a glimpse of some of the country’s rare wildlife, and today I’m going to give you my top tips for how to survive Khao Sok National Park.

Table of Contents

Preparing for the Trek

First of all, I’m going to talk about some things to prepare for the trek. If you want to skip ahead to the actual hike, you can see the timestamps below. But first of all, let’s talk a little bit about what to wear.

It’s definitely worth bringing some sturdy shoes. I did this in trainers and that was just okay; it was a little bit slippery, but you definitely don’t want to be doing this in flip-flops. If you’ve got hiking boots, even better. Up top, a light T-shirt will do. It’s obviously going to be hot and sweaty in the jungle, so you want to keep cool.

Down below, though, you have a choice to make. Obviously, to keep cool you’ll want to wear some shorts. However, you are trekking in the heart of the jungle. There’s plenty of creepy crawlies about in Khao Sok National Park, so you might want to wear something that covers your whole body. You’ll see a bit more about that later on.

Now what to pack? Well, you’ll 100% need a big old bottle of water. Between the heat, humidity and the hiking, you’re going to need plenty of water, and you’re going to sweat a lot during this day. You’ll also need something to eat, either a meal or a snack. On top of that, you need some bug spray.

However, for me, all of that was covered by my next tip, which is: hire a guide. I’ve seen some videos where people try and do this without a guide, but actually you’re just kind of walking around the path around Khao Sok. The beauty of coming to Khao Sok is that you go trekking into the jungle, and there’s no better way to do that than with a guide from the local area.

They’re going to have the best stories, they’re going to know more about the wildlife, and they’re going to take you to places you’d never be able to go by yourself. This is my top tip of the day: hire a guide. You won’t regret it.

Wildlife to Watch For

Okay, now let’s start the hike. It wasn’t long before we bumped into some of Khao Sok’s most famous wildlife. So now this brings me to my next tip: beware of monkeys.

Monkeys might look cute, but they can be vicious. I’ve heard stories of people getting bitten and attacked by monkeys in Thailand, so you want to be careful. On top of that, they’ve learned that tourists might have food in their bags, so don’t leave your stuff lying around because the monkeys will steal it.

This brings me onto my next point, and this goes for outside of Khao Sok National Park too: don’t put your bits in holes that don’t belong to you. And this is why. See tarantulas? We saw plenty of holes lying around like this, so really be careful when you go near things. Again, this is why you might want to wear something that’s going to cover your legs.

He’s smelling it.

My next tip, and this is a big one, is beware of leeches. Now, if you don’t know what a leech is, a leech is kind of like you pick your nose, flick your bogey away, and then this bogey has come back to life and has decided to exact revenge on you by trying to suck your blood. That’s exactly what a leech is.

Now you have to be especially careful of these during rainy season. They seem to like the wet. Luckily for us, it was dry season, so there wasn’t loads, but there was still enough. Some of them even managed to get through my socks and go in between my toes. At one point I even had to pull one out of my ass crack, so you really gotta be careful of them.

My advice is check often for them. If this is really going to ruin your day, you can invest in some leech socks before you go, and these things will stop them getting inside and attacking you.

Reaching Ton Kloi Waterfall

So now after about four hours of trekking, we finally made it to our destination, Ton Kloi Waterfall. Here we had lunch and had a bit of time to swim.

No way. Go away. Thank you.

You should definitely bring something to swim in when you visit Khao Sok. You can see here we had time spent in the waterfall, but we also had to cross rivers to get there, so you’re definitely going to get wet at some point.

After about an hour at the waterfall, it was time to head back. Trekking through the jungle could be quite stressful and definitely exhausting.

What to Do When You Get Tired

My next tip is, if you’re feeling tired, just take a second to recoup and take in your surroundings. It’s quite easy to get overwhelmed with the difficulty of the trek and begin to miss some of the wildlife around you.

Again, this is why it’s good to have a guide, because he will notice things that you would never have noticed. You can see here some of the animals he found and pointed out to us.

Look, he’s got a little face. He’s got like a mouse.

Jordan, you’re missing out. Dragon? Yeah, Game of Thrones. Could you just catch him?

Yeah, on that tree. Wow, that’s crazy. He seems to be scared. Wow, so he glides. And now he could be free. Where’d he go? Oh yeah.

At this point we finished the trek and headed back for a well-deserved beer. Bonus tip: make sure you know where the closest place to get beer is, because you’ll definitely need one after this.

Staying Near Khao Sok

Now I know at this point you’ll probably want to check into a five-star hotel and get pampered, but my advice is to take advantage of the accommodation near Khao Sok. You have the opportunity to basically stay in the jungle still.

We stayed at Our Jungle House, which I highly recommend. The beauty of this is when you wake up, you can see monkeys swinging, you can hear the river, and you’ve got just as much wildlife around you as you wake up. For more ideas, you can also read about exploring the Khao Sok jungle.

And in fact, without this, I would have missed the highlight of my day, which brings me on to one final tip: if you’re there at night, bring a torch.