Coco Hostel Tour Review – Khao Sok National Park – TREKwithBECK

Khao Sok is an incredible national park located 4 hours north of Phuket. This national park contains dense jungle, limestone formations and a man-made Cheow Lan Lake. It is home to some rare wildlife species, and you have the opportunity to stay on one of the floating bungalows! 

This national park has grown in popularity amongst travellers in the past years and has become one of the must-see destinations while in Thailand. There are a lot of tours with different companies on offer, but I decided to book my tour through Coco hostel. This tour is well known in the backpacking community, and it seemed decent, so I gave it a shot. 

This blog is going to contain information and my full honest review about my experience booking the raft house and rainforest 3D/2N tour. This is a completely unbiased review, I was not working with Coco Hostel in anyway, shape or form.

Organisation and Booking 

It was very easy to book this tour, you can either do it online through the Coco hostel website or in person once you arrive. They seem to have more tours available on arrival than on their website. This tour cost me 3400 Baht, excluding the national park fee. 

The organisation of this tour was a hit and a miss. Getting to the national park took a lot longer than needed as there was a bit of disorganisation. It should of only taken about 2.5 hours to get to the bungalows but ended up taking nearly 4 hours. I am not really sure what happened for the journey getting there, but there was a lot of waiting around. The organisation for getting back was much quicker and efficient. 

Accommodation 

You have two types of accommodation during this tour, 1 night in the hostel – which is very clean and comfortable and another on the floating bungalows. 

When booking this tour, I knew it was a backpacker tour and the accommodation was going to be basic. It was BASIC. There were 2 size bamboo houses, one fits 2 people, the other 3 people. These were floating bungalows only a few steps from the water which was very nice. The huts themselves had 2 mattresses, an itchy blanket, 1 pillow per person and a mosquito net. I was under the impression that these huts had fan in them, only to find out that is an upgrade you must purchase. It wasn’t hot at night, so they were quite comfortable to sleep in. If you like comforts, you would not of enjoyed these bungalows. 

The bathrooms were adequate. There were two-bathroom blocks, each had showers and toilets. The showers were a light drizzle, but this is fine for one day (plus the lake is fresh water so you don’t feel dirty after swimming). The lady’s bathroom didn’t have hand soap or toilet paper for the duration we were there. 

The eating/common area was completely fine and a good place to socialise. There was also power which only ran for a few hours during the night, where you could charge your phone if needed. 

The place was really run down, and there was a funny smell coming from the water from all the algae. It is a budget tour, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I know there are better budget tours out there with better accommodation.  

Activities 

There are several activities included in the raft house and rainforest tour with Coco Hostel.  I didn’t actually end up doing 2/3 of these activities, for reasons which I will give below. 

One the first night there is a night safari, which goes for about 2.5-3hours. This includes walking though through the jungle of Khao Sok National Park, with a guide, where you try to spot different species of wildlife. One this safari you will spot several species of insects, bats, birds, reptiles and possibly a jungle cat. Spotting a jungle cat is extremely rare, so don’t get your hopes up! I didn’t complete this activity for a few reasons. 

• I didn’t know it was included in this tour, which Is my fault for not looking at the itinerary. 
• I wasn’t interested in the wildlife you could possibly see, coming from Australia I have seen enough insects and reptiles in my time. I have also done enough of these tours in my lifetime, that I knew this was just a ‘filler’ for the time. 

Even though I didn’t complete this activity, I spoke to others who had, and they said it really was unnecessary and not worth the money. 

The second activity was a hike to either a waterfall, cave or viewpoint. At first, I was very interested in doing this activity as I love hiking, but when I found out we didn’t have an option and the cave was the only place we were going to, I lost interest. I didn’t complete this activity, and there were mixed reviews about it from other travellers. I didn’t complete this for the following reasons. 

• We arrived 2 hours later than expected at the floating bungalows, which meant we would have no time to actually enjoy the scenery of this epic location. The hike was 4 hours long, which meant you were coming back in the dark. 
• We had to buy our own head torch, or we couldn’t do the caves. I didn’t have a head torch with me (like most backpackers) and I didn’t want to spend unnecessary money on one and carry it around with me for the rest of my travels. For the price of the tour, this should have been included and I find it a bit ridiculous it isn’t – especially how popular this tour is amongst backpackers. 

The third activity was an early morning boat safari, this is the activity I participated in. I didn’t have many expectations for this, as I know the likeliness of seeing elephants or bears on these types of safaris is minimal. We saw monkeys and a toucan during our 1.5hr boat safari. Although we didn’t see much, it was nice to be out on the boat during sunrise, the calm waters made for a very tranquil experience. But again, this is a time filler. 

We then had 2 hours of spare time to enjoy the floating bungalows before we set off back to Coco hostel. You could rent kayaks or paddle boards for a deposit of 1000 Baht, however majority of these were broken, with holes and were a sinking hazard. You would lose your deposit too if one of these were to sink while you were out on the water. They had rings which you could float in the water with and use for free. 

Transport 

Transport to and from Coco Hostel is included in this tour, which was a bus. You could also organise transport to other places with Coco hostel after the tour had finished (Koh Tao, Phuket etc). You will be transported in minivan for these routes. The bus was comfortable and had air-conditioning.

The boats into the national park are your basic long tail boats, which are always a nice experience. I would sit at the front or in the middle if you don’t want to get wet though!  

Food 

You received 5 meals during this tour; 2 breakfasts, 2 lunch and 1 dinner. The 1 lunch and dinner were buffet style, with Thai cuisine. We had massaman curry, rice, noodles, stir fried veg and fried fish. I quite liked these meals and found there was enough food to go around to the 50+ people on this tour. The second lunch was a simple fried rice.

One breakfast was at the hostel, where you could pick any of the meals listed on the menu. Coco hostel does good food, so this was delicious. The second breakfast was at the raft house which was bananas and pancakes. This was a good breakfast, but they almost ran out of pancakes for everyone. They do also cater to dietary needs. 

The only thing I don’t like about these tours is your scheduled mealtimes. There was a lot of time between lunch and dinner, which meant we were all starving by the time dinner was served. I also don’t like having my mealtimes set, as I always find this makes me hangry (and I like an early dinner). The people who went on the hike too, also came back starving as they weren’t given anything but 3 Oreos after about a 5km trek. 

You can help this by bringing snacks along with you, which I would recommend. There was also free drinking water – soft drink cost 40 baht.

Conclusion 

Do I think it’s worth doing this tour with Coco Hostel? Honestly, if you have a bit more of a budget, book a more upmarket tour. This is great if you are on a budget and want to sleep in the floating bungalows. However, I wouldn’t book the 3D/2N tour like I did, I would just book the overnight tour in the bungalows. 

There are a lot of filler activities on this tour, but they are optional so that is a plus. The food was fine, and the accommodation was adequate for one night. If I were to go back, I would book nice accommodation in the National Park as I know these types of accommodation offer day trips and activities. In the end, I don’t think this was worth the cost of the tour.  

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