So this tour. Wow. We first drove into town to catch the bus. But it was early and left already! The awesome owner, Mr Tawee called the bus company and raced to catch up to it.

On the bus, I met my crew for the day: Our guide was A (just the letter), 2 Americans, 2 Polish, 2 Germans, and 2 Dutch. Quite the multi-national group. So we drive for about an hour and get to the dock. Then we pile into a boat to go across the lake. I use the word "lake" loosely because it take almost an hour. "Lake" like, "Lake Michigan". Along the way... wow. Sheer cliff faces going down into crystal clear water that looked like the surface of a mirror. I've never been in a place that looked more untouched by modern life. That continued when we arrived at our jumping off point. A village that's just floating on the edge of the lake. They prepped lunch, and we were invited to swim. I mean, I can't swim, but they also said 20-30 minutes. Seems kind of like a waste, so ah well. The Dutch guy and I chatted, and he told me about Holland and his opinion of the country. Interesting stuff, I learned a lot.

Lunch was fish that was caught 30 minutes ago. Scary looking thing with lots of spines and teeth. Tasty, though. Also some chicken, vegetables, and fruit with rice. Awesome meal. After a rest it was in the boat for 10 minutes, then a trek to the cave. At first I took off my shoes to cross the streams. I would soon realize how futile this was. When we got to the cave we put our cameras in our guides waterproof bag. Turns out that was much needed. We had to wade through this cave, and at times the water was up to our necks. I'm glad that I was taller than the water line or that would've been interesting. I made sure someone at least at my height went first to see if they suddenly disappeared. The cave was unreal though. So many curious rock formations and strange looking walls. Since we were in water most of the time, no photos - so you'll just need to come yourself. But it was an amazing adventure, and the highlight of my trip. After that we just went back to the village, had a snack, and made our way back home. To help alleviate boredom, we searched for songs that we all knew. Turns out amongst Americans and Dutch, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song is universal.

That evening, the UK girls and I headed into town to see what was up. We went to a local market, and we shared some sweet potato donut things, and some nougat taco things. I also had some fried chicken and stopped to pick up snacks for my hike tomorrow. We stopped off at a bar, and who should show up but Beer! Our guide. I mean, beer also showed up. We all played Snakes and Ladders, which was new for Beer. He won, lucky bastard. I turned in early for my morning hike.

I slept like a baby, because The Green Mountain View Bungalow in Kaoh Sok is just amazing. (Hello Google!) After breakfast, Mr. Tawee took me to the park entrance. I set off on my 14km hike (7 there, 7 back). About 2km in I ran into Trevor. An American from Minnesota, Trevor is a simple guy. He lives in the middle of nowhere, has no electricity or plumbing, and bikes 14 miles in the Minnesota winter to work at his family's saw mill. We had a nice hike and chat together, but he didn't feel up to going all 7km. He turned back around 4.5, to return tomorrow. I went on, and man that trail was rough at times. At one point I broke a spider web, and looked down to see a yellow spider the size of my hand on my arm. I screamed like a girl... I mean, I screamed like manly man and thrashed around until I was sure it was off. Unfortunately, I don't have many pics from the trail because it's not that interesting. There's a lot of marked waterfalls, but being dry season they're quite unimpressive.

Anyway, that's it! Back to Surat Thani for the train to Bangkok. Originally they didn't have anything til 9, but I ran into Juan on the platform (What are the odds?) He had a 630 one, and I asked the staff if there was any way I could get on that one. They said it was full, but 10 minutes later they sent someone to find me and let me know of an opening. God, southern Thailand is so much nicer than the north. Anyway, back to Bangkok!