It's Asia - Chieow Laan Lake Edition

From Krabi we were personally escorted via minibus 1.5 hours away to Chieow Laan Lake, part of the Khao Sok National Park in Khao Sok, Thailand.  Then we took a 45-minute boat ride on the lake...

...in order to get to our accommodations for the next 2 days and 1 night, our very own floating rafthouse... 

There was a group of older raft houses, very basic, and there was a group of newer raft houses with rooms that rival some hotels.  At first we were sad that we would be staying in the newer raft houses because we wanted a kind of back-to-nature experience.  However, after being told that customers in the past complained of rats, mosquitoes, and valuables falling through the floor of the old raft houses we realized that the newer ones would be plenty of a back-to-nature experience for us.  (Our raft house was the third one on the right.)

This was the view from inside our raft house.  I don't think I need to say anything about that.  I forgot to take a picture of it, but you could also see through the floor of the house into the water, which seemed to glow a bright bluish green when the sun was shining, and if you were lucky enough you could possibly even see a fish swimming by.

If you look closely, you can see big blue drums underneath the boardwalk.  These are what kept the newly built area afloat.  The old area was supported by planks of wood and bamboo.

We were also taken on a guided jungle walk, the coolest part of which was our tour guide teasing scorpions and tarantulas out of holes in the side of the hills.  This one was a tarantula....

We even saw more macaque monkeys--in the wild this time.

The crazy thing about this lake is that it was all the result of a dam built in Khao Sok.  At first, knowing that the beautiful lake wasn't natural kind of took away from the splendor of the whole experience.  But the lake has made it possible to discover things like this....

This was a cave that no one knew about until roughly 10 years ago thanks to the dam and lake.  It was absolutely pitch black in there and had some pretty awesome formations (and sorry, but the flash on my camera is terrible, so that's the best in-cave pic I took).

From swimming 10 feet from our hotel room, to the scenic views and the sounds of gibbon in the jungle, it was an experience that we'll never forget.  And to make sure that I never do, I made sure to take a pic of my new all-time favorite reading spot....

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, vacation.