Our Jungle Camp, Khao Sok National Park – Our review

If you’re looking for a unique experience to add to your Thailand itinerary, take a trip to Our Jungle Camp in the Khao Sok National Park.

Not only will you see one of the most outstanding destinations in Thailand, but you can stay in a jungle treehouse.  Just imagine the thrill of waking to the sound of monkeys on your roof.  You can’t get much closer to nature than that!

In this review of Our Jungle Camp, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the amazing eco-resort and the best things to do in Khao Sok National Park.  You’ll get info on the accommodation, transport, itinerary, what to pack and all the best activities around Our Jungle Camp.

We visited Khao Sok as the last stretch of our 4-week Thailand itinerary.  To be honest, we hadn’t even heard of it until we were researching the best places to visit in Thailand.  However,  the minute we saw pictures, we knew it would be an unforgettable experience and the perfect end to our trip.

Read our guide to help plan your own trip to Khao Sok.  Once you see how stunning it is, I’m sure it will be top of your Thai bucket list.

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Our Jungle Camp is on the outskirts of Khao Sok village, in Surat Thani Province, Southern Thailand.  It’s in an enviable location by the entrance to Khao Sok National Park Headquarters.

Its proximity to Khao Sok National Park allows you to enjoy all the adventure activities the park has to offer.  We’re talking wildlife, waterfalls, hidden caves, bamboo rafting, and a breathtaking emerald lake.

Khao Sok National Park is one of the oldest rainforests in the world and one of Thailand’s most beautiful natural habitats.  It has the highest level of rainfall in Thailand, producing an evergreen forest with rich vegetation.

The region is extremely biodiverse, with a unique habitat that is home to many rare plants and wildlife.

One of the top attractions in khao Sok National Park is the enormous Cheow Lan Lake, which attracts many visitors each year.

Our Jungle Camp is an eco-resort, nestled in its own stretch of primary rainforest.  It offers a variety of accommodation, which have all been built to blend seamlessly with the surrounding jungle environment.

Visitors at Our Jungle Camp can choose from treehouses, earth houses or bamboo bungalows, made from natural, sustainable materials.  We couldn’t resist a tree house for our 3-night stay in Our Jungle Camp.  It was a two-storey house built on stilts to look out over the trees and river.

The resort is the brainchild of Dick Sandler, who is a pioneer of nature tourism in Thailand.  It is an extension of the sister camp, Our Jungle House, which is just next door.  Sandler created Our Jungle Camp to raise environmental awareness with local schools and people.

Read on to find more about our experience in a tree house at Our Jungle Camp and what we got up to!

Our trip to Khao Sok started from the island of Koh Samui.  We took a morning ferry back to the mainland, then a transfer by minivan organised by Our Jungle Camp.  The transfer from the port in Surat Thani to Our Jungle Camp took about 3 hours.

Once we’d checked in and drank our delicious butterfly pea flower welcome drink, we headed to our treehouse, Bent Tree.  All of the treehouses had exotic names, such as Bird of Paradise, Monkey etc, so Bent Tree was a bit disappointing.  Only later did we realise that the bent tree in front of our accommodation was one of the macaques’ prime resting points.

From the moment I saw the treehouse, I loved it.  On the first floor, the treehouse has a double bed with an en-suite bathroom.  We had most modern comforts, including a flushing toilet and hot shower.  It really is glamping at its finest!

Upstairs the treehouse has a further three beds for children.  We’d previously stayed in a treehouse in Snowdonia, but this was far more spacious.

Our Jungle Camp treehouse has a rustic charm, with thoughtful interior design, using wooden homemade furniture.  We had electric power, though we kept light usage to a minimum to avoid attracting insects.  We had several fans and mosquito nets, but no air-con or tv.  Just perfect for a weekend bonding with mother nature.

Our first activity at Our Jungle House was tubing on Sok River.  For those who don’t know, tubing is basically floating down the river on a tube.  It’s very much like a lazy river, but in a jungle with real snakes and puffer fish.  However, we didn’t see any and the views were spectacular.

Although Our Jungle Camp can arrange tubing trips, we organised this independently, as it was cheaper.  If you head to Khao Sok town (about 20 minutes’ walk) you can book it with the café by the bridge in Khao Sok town.

We had a guide travel in a tube with us and at the end someone collects you and drives you back to town.  This involved sitting with your tyre in the back of a jeep, which the kids loved!

The tubing adventure cost 300 TBH each (about £6.75).  If you prefer, you can do kayaking instead.

In the evening we ate in the restaurant at Our Jungle Camp.  It is slightly more expensive than the restaurants in Khao Sok town, but it’s more convenient, as you don’t have to walk down the dark lane!

The restaurant at Our Jungle Camp offers a good choice of Thai and Western dishes.

To be honest, on our first night I was rather apprehensive about creepy-crawlies.  There are air vents around the top of the treehouse, so I’d imagined we would be bombarded by insects in the night.  Luckily, this was not the case.  In fact, we didn’t really see any in the treehouse.

However, you have to sleep a night in the jungle to fully appreciate how noisy the nocturnal chorus is!  The high pitch buzz of cicadas coupled with the whooping of apes makes quite a racket.

On the first full day in Khao Sok, we headed into back into town.  Khao Sok town has a good choice of restaurants, cafés, and shops selling trips and hiking essentials.   The accommodation is cheaper, but far more basic.

We had intended to book a jungle hike, but then the heavens opened.  And when it rains in the rainforest, it really rains.  It was such a downpour the road was soon flooded.

We took refuge in one of the cafés until it had subsided.  Then we hastily purchased new raincoats before returning to base.  Later we followed our own jungle hike on a short nature trail which starts at the neighbouring, Our Jungle House.

One of the highlights of our stay at Our Jungle Camp was watching monkeys from our balcony.

When we arrived, we were warned not to leave any food in the treehouse, as monkeys would seek it out.  However, after 24 hours at the resort, I was feeling disheartened, as despite my best efforts, we still hadn’t seen any.  But, then the magic happened!

It was just as dusk was arriving that I heard a lot of movement outside and rushed to see a couple of long-tailed macaque monkeys down below.  They were soon joined by a troop of monkeys who were jumping from tree to tree.  It was awesome, especially as we were at the same level.  We could also see bats flying to and fro.

At 6am the next morning, the clattering of the rooftop alerted us to the return of the monkeys.  It’s so thrilling to wake to the sound of nature and look out at a monkey from your bed!

You can book your own night hike with a guide in Khao Sok National Park.  We had planned to, but cancelled because of the torrential downpour.  However, we spent plenty of time in the grounds of Our Jungle Camp doing our own walks in the dark.

The kids love trying to spot night creatures with an Ultraviolet torch.  We would never have known the tree by our house was covered in millipedes!  You will also be able to look for scorpions.

One of the very best things to do in the Khao Sok National Park is a boat ride to Cheow Larn Lake (sometimes called Cheow Lan).

With its emerald green waters and huge limestone rock formations, Cheow Larn Lake is one of the natural highlights of Thailand.  It’s an enormous lake, covering 185-square kilometres and is simply stunning.

You may be surprised to learn that Cheow Larn is a man-made lake.  It was created in 1987 with the construction of the Ratchaprapha Dam, as a source of power generation and flood control for the area.

Many families and animals had to be relocated before the water could be rediverted.  From the boat, you can still see the tops of trees jutting out the water.

For our second day at Our Jungle Camp, we booked a 1-day group tour to Cheow Lan Lake. This day trip included a cave hike, waterfall, short jungle trek and lunch. In the afternoon, we had leisure time to go swimming and kayaking on the lake.

The drive from Khao Sok to the port takes about 1 hour.  Here you will have to pay National Park fees (220 TBH) and port fees (20TBH).  From the port, we headed out on a long-tail boat for about 45 minutes.

We stopped for a photo at the famous Instagram spot of Hin Sam Glur rocks, also known as the Guilin viewpoint.

For the ultimate adventure, you can do a multi-day tour, which includes an overnight stay in a floating bungalow on the lake.

One of the stops on our day trip at Cheow Lan Lake was at Pra Kai Petch Cave (Diamond Cave)  You can only access the cave by boat and we had to wade through knee-height water to get to it.

It’s a beautiful cave (about 100 metres deep) with an immense collection of stalagmites and stalactites.  We could also see some bats, though these were sleeping.

Our boat trip on the Cheow Larn Lake included lunch on a floating restaurant.  We ate a tasty selection of fish, Thai curry, rice and fruit.

Afterwards we had leisure time to swim and kayak in the lake.  The kids had a lot of fun jumping off the balancing board in the centre.

The last activity on our day trip to Cheow Lan Lake was a short jungle hike near a waterfall.  Our guide stopped along the way to point out various trees, plants and wildlife.

One of the most popular trips in Khao Sok National Park includes an overnight stay in one of the floating bungalows.  There are several to choose from, but Panvaree the Greenery and 500 Rai are both popular choices.

As you’d imagine, the floating bungalows are not cheap.  However, they are one of the most unique accommodations in Thailand.

On our final morning at Our Jungle Camp we had a short tour of its organic farm.  They use the farm to grow a range of produce for the on-site restaurant.  They offer short tours of the farm three times a week.   Tours are free and really interesting.

There are so many amazing activities to try in Khao Sok National Park.  Here are some of the best that we didn’t get the chance to try (or had done in Chiang Mai):-

• Thai Cooking or Bamboo cooking
• A visit to the ethical elephant sanctuary
• A hot springs visit
• Visit to the Rafflesia Flower (at limited times)
• An overnight stay in a floating bungalow

Yes!  Our Jungle Camp gets a big thumbs up from us.  We loved everything about it – the treehouse, the location and of course, the monkeys.  There really is something special about going to bed and waking up to the sound of the jungle.

If you love spotting wildlife or adventure activities, we would highly recommend Our Jungle Camp.  It’s very family-friendly and exceeded our expectations.  Plus, it’s in the ideal location for a day trip to Cheow Lan Lake.

The only negative was sometimes the staff in the restaurant were a little overzealous and we felt a bit rushed.  But, that’s really not the worst thing in the world!

The closest airport to Khao Sok National Park is Surat Thani International.  You can fly from Bangkok, Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai.  From here it is only a couple of hours’ drive.  Our Jungle Camp will arrange a transfer for you.

You could get a bus or car from Krabi in about 3 hours, or Phuket in 4 hours.

As you’re staying in the jungle, you will need comfortable clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty.  Khao Sok has the highest level of rainfall in Thailand, so there’s a high chance it will rain.  You should definitely take a waterproof.

• A waterproof coat or poncho
• Sturdy shoes or trekking sandals for hiking
• Water shoes (for the boat trip/tubing)
• Long trousers or shorts and tops
• Swimsuit
• A dry bag
• Sun cream
• Insect repellent (with deet)
• Mosquito bands
• UV light (optional, but useful for night hikes)
• A torch
• Reusable water bottle
• Day bag
• Universal travel adapator

You won’t need a jumper, as although it may be wet, it is still warm.

We booked our accommodation at Our Jungle Camp in advance, but organised many of our activities on arrival.   However, it is easy to book your activities in advance too.

The accommodation at Our Jungle Camp was amazing and I’m so glad we stayed.  However, if you are looking for cheaper, more basic alternatives in Khao Sok town, you could try:-

• Khao Sok River & Jungle Resort
• Khao Sok Nature Resort
• Khao Sok Palmview Resort

• The ultimate 4-week Thailand itinerary
• Chiang Mai Travel Itinerary: 5 days
• Best things to do in Chiang Rai in 2 days
• A visit to Pig Island, Koh Samui
• 18 best things to do in Koh Samui with kids

Let us know if you have any questions about our stay in Our Jungle Camp or visit to Khao Sok National Park.

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