We Found a Side of Thailand Most Tourists Never See

Most people see rain in the forecast and they change their plans. But when we saw rain in the forecast, we decided to extend our road trip two more days to explore one of the most beautiful places in Thailand. Welcome to Khao Sok. Man, I love Thailand. Thailand is incredible. When the man boom, look at that. I see it. They look like rats. The rat will keep the mom eating. Oh, your mom ate the monkey before? Ate the lung. Enjoying the rain? Yes. It's a lot of rain. No doubt it's the start of rainy season, which is okay. We are at the end of our southern Thailand road trip. We are a couple hours away from hopping on the ferry to go back to our home in Khao Som Moi. We've always wanted to experience Khao Sok. In rainy season, because there's something magical about it. The mist, the mountains. So while we were on our way driving from Phuket back to Surat Thani, we decided to stop here in Khao Sok for just two days to enjoy the beautiful weather here. And also we found this really beautiful place to stay called Lost Horizon. So we thought we might as well do a little wedding anniversary day before we head back home. 11 years wedding anniver... Wait. Excuse me? 13 years. Oh my gosh. 13 years, 17 years together and still enjoying our adventures together. This place is so nice. We arrived around three yesterday in the afternoon in the rain and just spent most of the time in the hotel. The room was beautiful. The bed was so comfy. We both slept really well. It's just so nice that it is its own little community here. Like look how beautiful the individual houses that you get lake view, but you can also get river view on the other side. This whole area is surrounded by green lush jungle. So the plan today is we're going to have breakfast and then we're going to go tubing on the river. And then when we come back, we'll go check out the lake a little bit and go on a night safari in the area, which I'm a bit nervous for. We'll see. It'll be a fun day. The air is so fresh. We even have a living room downstairs. From our villa. But when will we have time to enjoy it? To look at how beautiful this place is. This is our unit and look at that backdrop. I think this is one of the most beautiful villas in the complex. I think they have almost 20 villas. So if you're coming here, stay at East Villa number 11. E11 or this one E12 looks really nice too. Yeah. One good thing about coming here during rainy season is that the prices are much cheaper. This place usually during high season is about $6,000, $7,000 a night. I thought we were already paying a lot. Yeah, but it's low season. So we paid $3,500 includes breakfast. Which is already up there on our budget. But wow, $6,000 something. Yeah. I guess we got a deal already. Can we check out the river first? Yeah, this is crazy. This is what we saw yesterday and that looks really high and really fast. But we're not doing the tubing from here though. No, we're going up river so the water will be more calm and clear. That looks scary. That looks like an anaconda gonna pop out next to us. Good breakfast choices. Hiker's breakfast. Look at that. Very good. There's ham, there's basil, there's baked beans. Okay, change of plans. It's raining too hard. So we called the tubing people and they said the water is just too high. It's going to be difficult to go tubing. Maybe potentially dangerous, I guess. So they postponed the trip until tomorrow. They canceled everyone today. So we're going to go tomorrow instead. Hopefully it works out. But we still want to explore Kaohsiung. So we're going to drive to Chaolan Lake to the dam which is about 25 minutes from here. And you know, enjoy the view. Enjoy the rain. Oh, it is so so wet. I wonder if the jungle night safari will be canceled today. No, the jungle safari will stay on schedule. But it will be wet. I just hope that we get to see some wild animals even if it rains. I feel like when it's like this, that's when the frogs and the snakes and all of the ugly... The pythons. Pythons like water. Not ugly, I mean they're beautiful. But scary things come out. The pretty things like the elephant, the gibbons, they're probably hiding. We made it to Ratchapapa Dam, also known as Chaolan Lake. How do you say it? Chaolan Lake is a man-made lake because of the dam, right? So it's almost like a reservoir, not really a lake. But I think because it's so big that they call it a lake. We've actually been here two times. The first time we stayed at the floating hotel during COVID. Yeah, so it was cheap. Yeah, back then it was like 2,000 a night. And we looked again, this trip ended. Starting from 7,000 to 12,000 a night if you want a decent place. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So if you come to Khao Sok, you should do it. Because aside from just the floating hotel, you also go on boat tours and you get to see, if you're lucky, wildlife in this area. I think it's one of the oldest rainforests in the world. There's a lot of incredible things to do as part of your stay on the lake. And the second time we came, we explored from the sky. We did paramotoring. You threw up. I threw up, but it was worth it. It was so beautiful. Yeah, that was really cool. Real quick. Once again, thank you to our longtime partner, Squarespace, for supporting our travels and for being the most user-friendly and intuitive platform out there for building a website. To keep things easy, you can pick from one of their award-winning templates or use a little AI to create a personalized website using Squarespace Blueprints. Squarespace also has all the tools you need to set up an online shop, booking appointments, and even creating and selling your online courses. And with the Squarespace app, you can edit your website, check your analytics, and make updates on the go. Just head over to squarespace.com for a free 14-day trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash floraandnote to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Now let's get back to the video. Chio Lan Good View Restaurant. It has a very good review on Google. Wow, this looks amazing. Not too bad. Very nice. You can get cocktails here too. There's mochito. No, no drinking for you. You have to be focused on your drive back. It's quite slippery and scary on the road. So hungry. Hot broth is perfect for this weather. So this bread looks so crispy. Because of the rain, everything is so lush. The flowers are so vibrant and beautiful. So is you. Because of the rain though? Because of the rain. The party boat. Why do they have to ruin it with music? Thai people like to do that. But it's just the captain by himself. There's no one on the party boat. He's just having a good time. Looks like we're in Jurassic World. We didn't like that movie. We walked out. But all these mountains that you see, it's actually older than the dinosaur age. Is it? Yeah, this is hundreds of millions of years ago. Okay, we have arrived and just met our guide. His name is Pee Pong. He has been a night safari guide for over 25 years. He's going to bring us into the jungle. I'm so nervous. Look, this is so cute. I'm so nervous. Don't be nervous. Yes, we want to see spiders. We want to see snakes. Oh my god. Where? Well, how did you even see? The reflection. Nobody do the cat for make some yellow curry. Yellow curry? It's so good. You know, the people have to pay 250 baht per kilo. 250 baht per kilo that frog? It's not poisonous? No, that kind they eat around here. He said yellow curry is very good. So the trick is far away, you will see a little bit of a reflection of their eyes. And then you slowly walk towards what you saw to try to see the body. But man, this is really hard. Maybe it's not going to be so scary after all because I'm probably going to walk by everything and not even see. His eyes are insanely sensitive to the surroundings. Yeah, come here. Also here have tiger. I know the way. Tiger? Tiger and elephant. Elephant a lot. Elephant here, you won't see for sure. You have to go to the lake. I see every time we go to the lake. We'll do our best to show you the animals we see because it's hard to show on this tiny camera. We need like zoom lens. What are we looking at? Underneath, you see? They live down here. They look like rats. The rats. Because normally they live inside the cave, right? In the daytime. You see that? Let's do another one. The black color with the white eye stick down. That bamboo. Oh yeah, it's monkey. Two monkeys. My father hunt that monkey to give to my mom eating. Oh, your mom ate the monkey before? Eat the lung. Because lung for medicine. Did you eat it too? I eat meat. It's food tour. Western tourists would be like, no, no, no, this is wrong. This is what it looks like without the flashlight. It's pitch black. We'll be lost without him. Well, unfortunately, we didn't get to see wild elephants or wild boars. Or tigers. What should I say? Fortunately, we didn't get to see them. Yeah, I was definitely excited in the beginning because I'm like, oh my god, what are we going to see? And then about an hour in, it started pouring rain. And my excitement level went down. And by like two hours, I was like, why am I here? But if you like spiders, if you like frogs, I think you will love this tour. And you can really feel his passion. He's so excited. He can see something from far away. He'll be like, oh my god. And then we'll be like, oh my god, what is it? And he's like, spiderweb. I think that's why your excitement went down. Because every time he sees something, he's like, oh my god. And we got so excited. Oh, it's a spider. Oh my god, what is it? It's a frog. Oh my god, I see the frog. I mean, what was the coolest thing? The coolest thing, I think, were the bats. The bats were very cool. And the monkey we could see. Like not really great on camera, but we could see it. It's like it was looking at us at the same time. And then the chameleon. Yeah. That was cool too, because you can be really close. I was nervous if we were to see a snake. But I realized it's not so easy to spot wildlife. It takes a lot of skill for him to find the places. But also a lot of luck for us to actually be there at the right time to see them. And I think maybe the sudden rain pour affected things as well. Because all the animals went away. And I also wanted to go away. I'm just happy we're back. I need a shower. Oh, this one. India. We were in India. You collect the currency? Oh, okay. Also, I collect coins. Coins. Wow, he has a lot. Even have Canadian. Yeah. You have a hundred dollars Canadian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also have the coins from the Canadian. Where? Malaysia. Ah, this one. How do you call the two dollars? This one, we call it a toonie. Toonie, this loonie, right? Toonie and loonie, yeah. Toonie and loonie. Do you have any more Canadian money? I have this coin and also 100. Where is my 100? Country. What country are you missing now? So right now we are at Woodland Whisper, which is a hostel and bar and restaurant, I believe. This place we found online, but because they have direct access to the river just in the back here, so I believe that's why we're just gonna walk down from here, go down the river, float down the river for about an hour, and then we get picked up to come back here. We're just really glad that even though it's been raining this morning, the water is not too high. We can actually still go and do tubing today because it would suck if we came all the way I forgot to tell you, the water is still high, but not as high as yesterday morning. She, the lady who organized the tour, came to me and asked me if I want to purchase insurance. Extra insurance. She said she only offers that when the water is a bit, you know, risky. That makes it so scary. We actually have insurance. It's 40 baht extra and it covers 500,000 baht worth of injuries and a million if you die. I'm confused because we also have insurance. I know. Will our insurance cover? Is this a high-risk? This is not a high-risk activity, is it? I don't even know. I don't know. I think we're okay. I bought it anyway. It's 40 baht. Okay, okay. Extra coverage. We got our tube. We got our life jacket. Cougar style. So it's just gonna be the two of us. Is there like a guide or anything like that? No, they drop us off and they just tell us to float down the river. Just the two of us. And then we pay extra 40 each for insurance? No, we have a guide. You know what to do? Float? Just float down the river. This one's mine. That one's yours. Okay, turn around and just sit. Is it cold? Oh, okay. I'm holding on your tube. Oh, she just hooked her feet under my tube. Look at how fast the water is. Maybe we need to hold each other. Maybe we need to... Watch out for the bridge! Whoa! Yeah, we need to um... We can interlock feet. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. You put your feet on mine. Yeah, like that. Go like that. Yay! Nice, very nice. Now we're just chill. Just snakes and monkeys. Do they come in the water? Oh, they sleep on the tree there. Oh, okay, good. Look, look! Hi, monkey! I enjoyed this more than jungle night safari. We even saw a monkey already. I think we need to make some more friends for next rainy season. That would be so much fun. We have like 10 friends. Yeah. Interlock your feet together floating down this river. It would be so cool. And with rainy season, it's just much more quiet. So it's very enjoyable. And when you're dressed for the rain, it honestly doesn't matter anymore. It makes it even more exciting when it starts pouring. And see, it just stopped now. You feel free. Yeah, this and bamboo rafting I think are my favorite things. I prefer this. You prefer this? I feel like I'm connected with the nature more. I'm touching it. I'm in the water. Your bum is literally in the water, in the river. So if you want to poo or pee, just go ahead. Man, I love Thailand. Thailand is incredible. We have beautiful mountains. We have beautiful beaches. Not only do you have beautiful beaches, mountains. One of oldest rainforests in the world. Just for what, 350 baht? You just float right through. It's so easy. We're here. That was so nice. That was so lovely. Highlight of this trip. I think it was worth it. I'm so glad. I'm so glad we got to do this.