Where to stay in Khao Sok

Almost every guide to Khao Sok answers this question with a list of places to sleep. That is the second question. The first one is which half of Khao Sok you want to wake up in, and nobody tells you there are two.

We are not going to recommend a hotel. We do not take commission from any of them and we are not going to pretend to be neutral about a place we have never stayed in. What we can tell you is what each side actually gives you, because we run boats from one of them every morning of the year.

The two sides

Khao Sok is the river town. Rainforest at the door, limestone walls rising straight out of the treeline, cafes, a night market, people. You can walk somewhere in the evening. It is the side most travellers picture when they read the words "Khao Sok National Park", and it is where the trekking, the tubing and the elephants are.

Cheowlan is the lake — Cheow Lan, which you will also see written Chiew Larn or Cheow Larn, held behind the Ratchaprapha Dam. It is quieter, darker at night, and much smaller. There is no night market. What there is instead is the water: the pier, the longtail boats, and the emerald lake in every photograph that made you look this place up.

Forty-five minutes of road separates them. Not far on a map, and long enough to eat a morning.

The one thing the choice decides outright

Most of what we run reaches both sides. One thing does not.

The sunrise boat leaves the lake at 06:30, and it only collects guests already on the Cheowlan side. From Khao Sok town that would mean leaving at around a quarter to five in the morning, and we do not run it that way — not because it is impossible, but because arriving at the lake exhausted is not the experience, and the experience is the point.

People who have done both usually say the sunrise is the one they would come back for. If that matters to you, it is decided by where you book your room, weeks before you get here, and it cannot be fixed afterwards.

What runs from which side

What each side is actually like after dark

Khao Sok town has an evening. There is a road with places to eat on it, a night market, cold beer, other travellers, and the sound of the forest behind all of it. If you are travelling for a while and you want a night that feels like being somewhere, this is the side.

The Cheowlan side does not have an evening in that sense, and that is the reason to be there. It gets properly dark. You can hear the water. There is nowhere to go, and after a day on a boat that turns out not to be a problem. If the idea of a night market is what you want at seven o’clock, be honest about that now rather than at seven o’clock.

The third option: sleeping on the water

There is a version where you do not sleep on either side, but on a raft house on the lake itself. It gives you the lake at night and the lake at dawn, and it gives you nothing else, because you cannot leave.

We do not run raft-house nights, so we have nothing to sell you either way. It is a fair choice if the water is the whole reason you came and you have a single night. It is the wrong choice if you wanted the forest, the elephants or a second kind of day, because the boat back does not come until the morning. We have written the comparison out properly on day trip or overnight.

Getting to each side

Both sides are reached the same way — by road from Surat Thani, Phuket, Khao Lak or the ferry piers — and the last forty-five minutes is the part that differs. A transfer is priced per vehicle rather than per person, so it costs the same whether one of you gets in or four. The routes, times and real prices are on getting to Khao Sok.

What is worth planning: if you are arriving late and starting early, arriving on the side you are starting from saves you an hour you will want back.

Splitting your stay

With three nights or more, two hotels often beats one. The lake side first, while the early mornings are the reason you are here. Then the town side for the trek, the elephants and an evening that has something in it.

Moving once costs you an hour and a hotel change. Moving twice costs you a morning — and the mornings are the thing you came for. If you are building the days around the fixed weekly schedule, the plans are laid out on the Khao Sok itinerary.

If you only have one night

The Cheowlan side, if the lake is the reason you came. One night there gives you the full day on the water, and if it lands on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the sunrise boat the next morning before you go.

One night in Khao Sok town gives you an easier evening, a slower start, and a shorter drive out to almost anywhere. That is the right answer for some people. It is worth knowing which one you are.

What it does not change

Our prices are the same from either side, and so is the pick-up — every experience collects you from your hotel. What changes is how much of your day happens on the water or in the forest, and how much of it happens in a van. Every price is written out here, park fee separated.

If you tell us where you are thinking of staying and which days you have, we will tell you straight whether it works, including when the honest answer is that the other side would suit you better.