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Adventure travel is one of the fastest growing areas
of the travel industry. It appeals to discriminating people who
want to do something different, something involving more participation
and activity. Nature tours in Khao Sok National Park
are our speciality. Our goal is to show you the wonders of the natural
world without impacting the eco-systems we visit.
We
use traditional touring canoes which are suitable for both beginners
and experienced paddlers for our nature tours. All of our leaders
take beginners through the principles of proper technique. Guests
then apply these techniques for paddling in beautiful, safe vacation
destinations.
Our favorite
canoeing destination is Khao
Sok National Park. Khao Sok is a short drive
from Phuket. Khao Sok is part of a protected area of 4,400 square
kilometers of mountains and jungle, with a 165 square kilometer
reservoir. being part of the largest area of old growth
jungle in Southern Thailand, Khao Sok hosts many large
mammals including wild elephants, Gaur,
Tapir, deer,
cats, wild pigs and more. White-handed
Gibbons are also common in the park. 
Contrary
to popular belief, Khao Sok is not a true rainforest,
but a tropical evergreen forest or tropical
monsoonal forest. There is a definite dry season and more
importantly, the entire mass of jungle is surrounded by non-indigeonous
deciduous forests. It is certainly an impressive remnant
of the former rain forest that covered Thailand before
the arrival of rubber plantations and oil palm plantations.
Staying
in remote floating
bungalows in Khao Sok National park, we paddle
out to quiet coves and witness the movement of birds and wildlife
in their natural environment. You create a bond with nature when
you sit still. You absorb the rhytmn of life itself. The floating
bungalows are owned and operated by the national park system. These
are not PaddleAsia's bungalows.
If you
like fishing, especially fly fishing, you can add
that to your Khao Sok adventure. We are avid fly fishermen and Khao
Sok is a wonderful place for this soothing activity.
When
planning your vacation in Thailand, consider our goal: to share
our enjoyment of southern Thailand's fascinating natural environment
in small intimate groups, traveling at our own
pace in areas where we see few other visitors. We take you to our
favorite places, and you will experience for yourselves why we love
to return to them, time after time. We have minimal impact
on the areas we visit. We go to appreciate what nature has given,
not to alter it. Our trips are not suitable for people who like
to see new places through tour bus windows.
We prefer human-powered
kayaks to lessen our impact on the environment and to get closer
to nature. We find paddling our own craft to be the most practical
balance between exposing our guests to a new environment and not
interfering with existing ecosystems.
Jungle
Survival Training
You
can participate in a jungle
survival course in Khao Sok. Budget-minded
survival training is available in Phang Nga
Province. To round out your survival skills, you can take a coastal
survival course in Phang Nga Bay. We offer a
introduction to wilderness survival
day trip on Phuket for those who do not have
the time or perhaps the budget to go to Khao Sok.
Biking
and Hiking
We extend
our love of human-powered travel to including mountain
biking. Rural Thailand offers plenty of opportunities
to ride a mountain bike. Besides encountering friendly villagers,
the backroads often harbor birds and other animals.
We also
offer hiking to special locations. Overall, however, our ability
to see birds and wildlife is much greater when we are paddling our
mobile viewing platforms (a.k.a. canoes). It is not so easy to look
around for wildlife
while walking through the jungle. Unlike trekking, we don not have
to look out for roots, thorns, rocks or leeches.
Photography
- Wildlife and scenery
If you are
into wildlife or scenery photography, Khao Sok is going to make
you very happy. With each hour of the day, the changing light brings
forth opportunities for amazing photos. Be it on foot or on the
water, the variety and abundance of wildlife also presents incredible
wildlife photography opportunities. Here is some more info on Khao
Sok's hornbills. Here are some general images
from Khao Sok. To see some professional photos of Khao Sok, check
out our friend Frit's
site.
We
believe that the enjoyment level of any outdoor experience is
directly related to the size of the group.
Larger groups don't allow personal attention. |
Each
trip is important to us. Your contentment is very important to us.
Extra care and attention is given to every trip. A sizeable number
of our guests come to us through word of mouth. We pride ourselves
on this fact and intend on it happening more in the future.
Contact
Us
Guest
comment - Deb Cliburn:
"It was incredible. Our first trip out on
Saturday evening we saw 2 elephants and another two showed up and
got in the water for a swim. We had to back up the kayak. It was
incredible. Anyway, on the different trips over the 4 days, we also
saw a barking deer, (and heard it bark.) We saw at least 3 different
hornbills including a group of 5 or so great hornbills.. We saw
sun bears 3 times and I have great video of those. And we saw dusky
Langurs, macaques and gibbons. We saw a pair of woodpeckers. I forget
their exact names but they are beautiful. The male has a red crest
and is black and white and the female is more yellow colored. And
if I remember right there is a great whatever woodpecker and a common
whatever woodpecker and we saw the common ones. We saw osprey, gray-headed
fish eagles, asian fairy bluebirds and an owl. And yesterday we
saw, although not very clearly, a wild boar. At the bathhouse I
saw a 4 foot monitor lizard and I am unsure who jumped further."

This
cute little guy landed on my kayak one day. What a treat!
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We see
wild elephants on many of our trips. Here is a photo of two elephants,
an adult and a youngster playing in the water. They didn't seem
to mind that we were watching them. We kept our distance, because
we didn't want to disturb their playtime. It was a show that we
will never forget.
Click here to see a YouTube video of elephants
playing in Khao Sok. Click here to see more
elephant
images.

We
don't waste any time or money chasing after meaningless tourism
awards. We are ethically opposed to accepting awards from organizations
that have little
or nothing to do with environmentally-responsible tourism. Our focus
has been and always will be on furthering our education,
learning the latest safety methods and honing our outdoor skills.
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