Surviving the Jungles of Thailand 🇹🇭 Sa Nang Manora Forest of Phang Nga

Well, we're back here at Songnam Manora here in Phang Nga, Thailand. And the other night we were here it was getting dark so we decided to come back and explore with a little more daylight. Although I will say it's a bit more crowded now in the middle of the day as opposed to five o'clock right before sunset the other night. But in terms of major tourist attractions, it's relatively not that crowded. A couple mini buses out in the parking lot when we got here but they're packing up and leaving. So we're going to dive in and explore these waterfalls. There's also supposed to be several caves here in this park. And let's see what we can find. Songnam Manora Park here, much like the rest of Phang Nga, pretty chill and laid back. And I have to say, I know I keep saying it, but I love Phang Nga town. Phang Nga Bay is beautiful. It gets a lot of tourist traffic. But Phang Nga town, very little people come here and there's tons of hidden gems like this park and other waterfalls and temples and caves and and good food night markets. And I'm just blown away by the amount of people who just come to Phang Nga Bay but don't explore the town here because it is right in between Phuket and Krabi. Those two big tourism centers that most people just blow right through here, don't stop at all. And I gotta say that is a mistake. If you get a chance definitely spend a couple days, a week, maybe even a month here because Phang Nga is awesome. So there's a sign at the trailhead that says the trail is two kilometers and it has several landmarks on there, a couple caves, some bridges. But it looks like most of the people hang out by those several swimming holes down by the parking lot because the signage and the overall trail maintenance as you get further up really starts to degrade. There's not much trail maintenance or signage so not sure if we're gonna be able to find these caves but still, I mean, enjoying an epic little hike through the jungle of Thailand here. This is, I feel like the jungle might be my element because this is when I feel just so enthusiastic about nature. Just everything's popping, the leaves, the vegetation is alive, the possible leeches. So far I haven't seen any leeches which is cool. But man I love being in the jungle. The water's crystal clear too so moving further up from those popular swimming holes you get clearer water, possibly more waterfalls up here, possibly some caves. I don't know, we're just going to check it out and see what we get into. I mean at least we're on, we know we're on kind of the right track with these old bridges, the remnants of these old bridges. More and more dense. Oh that water is nice and cool. Maybe you can go to the left a little bit I think before that tree. Oh okay. I thought this was a trail but I don't think this is a trail. Maybe somebody just came over here to go to the bathroom. Hopefully they packed their paper out like a responsible person. Another day waist deep in a jungle stream here in Thailand. This is what I'm talking about. Huh? How could it end? Well the creek doesn't end. What? Something just jumped in the water? Like a crocodile or something? Oh this looks pretty deep. Does that look like a trail? We're kind of near this big limestone karst here so I would imagine if there were caves it would be into the karst. So not sure but we'll see. Okay so just bushwhacked through this dense stuff that Sam is bushwhacking through now. Made it over this karst and looks like we located a trail. Somehow lost the trail back there but now we are definitely on the trail because there's some signage here although it is in bad shape. So the cave is what two? So it's back there or should we keep going this way and then go back? So there's supposedly four caves here but this trail maintenance is non-existent. Apparently most people just come to those swimming holes and don't bother looking for the caves. So somewhere, oops, somewhere like around here we lost the trail and just bushwhacked in the creek and now we're back on the trail so we can hit at least these other caves. Who knows if we'll find that initial cave or not. So we found a cave. Pretty tight squeeze down here. We're not going to be going in that today. Just don't feel like doing a lot of muddy squeezes. I'm soaked in sweat right now from from bushwhacking around the jungle. If you want to watch me squeezing through some caves check out my Horn Lakes Caves video on Vancouver Island. A couple good caving videos on Vancouver Island. For now we're going to keep pushing on. Try to dodge the biting ants and the mosquitoes and the crazy looking spiders. I haven't seen any snakes yet but still keeping an eye out for those. This is a beautiful untouched part of this park back here. Like hardly anyone comes back here. Saw some footprints but the trail is totally overgrown. I love it. Footprints in here. Feathers though. Small feathers. I don't see any footprints. I think it might be a dead end though. We found another sign that said there was a cave although we didn't see a cave near the sign so slight trail up the limestone here. So we're just kind of trekking. Oh here we go. Whoa this is a big one. So we found this giant cave. They call it the shell cave and I'm guessing the reason why is the ground is covered with these cool nautilus shells. I have no idea how old they are, where they come from, but this is super cool. It's a giant opening. Don't think it actually goes back too far but part of this big limestone karst that we've hiked through the jungle to get up and explore the little nooks and crannies. This is awesome. Okay so I think we're found the fishes cave and this looks like an underwater cave and also pretty stagnant water going into that cave. We're not going to be going in the fishes cave. This looks a little too stagnant for my liking right now but I think we have one more cave and then we're going to boogie out of here before it gets too dark and we get lost. Well this last stop we're supposed to try to get to and I think we just hit is the bat cave and actually it really smells like bat guano really strongly and we're like outside of this cave so it just it just goes to show how many bats must live in there that you can smell it 50 feet 75 feet outside of the cave. Sanang menorah park here just outside of Pungna. Wow. Tremendous adventure today if you get a chance. Highly recommend you explore this place. You got those easy to get to swimming holes, little waterfalls, although it looks like that area gets crowded because it's pretty popular but if you can find this trail these caves and this whole back side of this area next to this giant limestone karst. Truly spectacular. Very little people come back here. Probably just locals. Once in a blue moon. Tons of nooks and crannies to explore. Some nice little swimming holes back here as well. If you like getting in the jungle I would start earlier than we did. We started at noon. I would start like nine eight or nine because we're probably going to be hiking out part of this in the dark. Wear pants, long sleeves if you come. Ideally don't hike out in the dark because that's when the jungle snakes come out so that's what we're trying to avoid now. We're going to be booking out of here. Once again Pungna town. Absolutely love it. One of my favorite places in Thailand so far is this beautiful hidden gem tucked away between Krabi and Phuket. Get out there find your adventure and be infamous. So on the way out we decided to try and follow this trail instead of bushwhacking and came to the water cave here. So this is an underground river and this looks like the main source for the creek that flows all the way out to the parking lot. Look at that. Infamous.