Khao Sok and Cheow Lan Lake from Krabi: a day or a night?

Cheow Lan Lake is the day out of Krabi that takes you furthest from the sea: a reservoir in the Khao Sok national park, with limestone peaks standing in the water. It is also the longest day trip we list, and most of the length is road.

This page is about the choice: a day trip, a night on the lake, or neither. For the tour itself, what is included and how to book it, see our page on the Cheow Lan day trip.

The short answer

Go on the day trip if you have a week or more in Krabi, you want one day that looks nothing like the coast, and a long road does not bother you. If you can give it two days, sleep on the lake: you spend the same hours on the road, but they are split, and you get the lake at first light and at dusk, which a day trip never sees. If you have only three or four days in Krabi, skip it and keep those days for the sea.

Where Khao Sok is, and why the day is so long

Khao Sok is a national park in Surat Thani province, north of Krabi. Cheow Lan Lake, the part people come for, is not a natural lake but the reservoir behind the Ratchaprapha Dam, built in the 1980s. Limestone peaks that once stood above a valley now rise straight out of the water, and that is the landscape you are paying for.

Two things make the day long. First, the drive: tour operators put it at around two and a half hours each way from Ao Nang, and more from wherever else you are picked up. Second, Khao Sok has two halves that are easy to confuse. The village and the park headquarters, with the forest trails, are on the west side; the pier for the lake is at the dam, about an hour's drive away by several guides' reckoning. A day trip from Krabi goes to the lake, not to the village.

Our take on the Cheow Lan day trip, with what it includes

The day trip: what you actually do

The day trip we list is a long one: its listing gives 10 to 14 hours, door to door. Once you reach the pier, you board a boat and cruise across the lake to Khao Sam Kloe, a three-peaked rock that the operator builds the trip around. Then come a hike and a cave, swimming and kayaking, and a Thai lunch on a floating rafthouse. Guiding is in English or Thai.

Another operator's description of a similar day helps fill in what the listing leaves vague. It describes about two hours by longtail on the water, a forest walk to a cave called Pra Kai Petch, and lunch on a rafthouse, and asks for closed shoes for the cave path, a dry T-shirt for afterwards and insect repellent. Our listing does not name its cave, so ask which one, and how long the walk is.

Three questions are worth sending before you book. What time is your pickup? It probably explains much of the range between 10 and 14 hours. Which park fee does the price cover? Khao Sok charges a fee at the park headquarters, at least one park guide lists a separate one for the lake, and the listing only says that tickets are included. And what happens in heavy rain, since the cave is the part most likely to change?

A night on the lake instead

The other way to see Cheow Lan is to sleep on it, in one of the floating rafthouses moored along its shores. They range from bare wooden huts to rooms with air conditioning, and you reach them only by boat from the pier; some are well over an hour away across the water. This site does not list an overnight trip, so you book with a rafthouse or with an operator that sells the night with the transfer from Krabi.

What a night buys you is time on the water when the day groups are not there. According to an online guide to the park, boats do not run before sunrise or after sunset, so the evening and the first light are spent where you are moored, which is the point. It also says your park ticket covers several days only if you sleep inside the park. The night has a price in comfort. In the simplest rafthouses, power runs only part of the day, showers can be cold, and the phone signal is weak or absent. Boats and rooms are scarce in high season, so book ahead.

Day trip or night: side by side

What changes between the two, as the listing and the park guides describe them.

When to go

The lake can be visited all year, but Khao Sok does not keep Krabi's calendar exactly. The park's own seasons, as an online guide to the park sets them out, run from rain between late April and early December, with most of it from May to October, to a dry season from January to March. In the wet months the forest is at its greenest, but trails turn slippery, leeches come out after rain, and caves can close: the park shuts at least one of its caves when rain is forecast.

Two practical consequences. If the cave and the walk matter to you, aim for the dry months and keep a spare day in case the weather turns. If you are in Krabi in the monsoon and the sea is too rough for an island day, the lake is one of the few long days out that a rough sea cannot cancel, though the rain can still trim the programme. The same park guide also reports that boats are easier to get from May to early July and from September to early November, outside the busiest weeks.

What keeps running in Krabi's rainy season

Who should skip it

Short stays. With three or four days in Krabi, a day mostly spent in a van costs you an island day. The Tiger Cave Temple and the Emerald Pool give you an inland day much closer to base.

If the road wears you out. If long hours in a vehicle leave you sick or worn out, the drive is the larger part of this day, and no lake makes up for it.

Some health conditions. One operator advises against its own lake day for people with back injuries, pregnant travellers and anyone with heart problems. The same operator takes children from age 4; ours has a child rate up to 9. Ask before booking if any of this applies.

Wildlife watchers. The park is home to large animals, but a day crossing the lake by boat is about the landscape. Do not book it expecting to see them.

Tiger Cave Temple and Emerald Pool: the inland day closer to Krabi

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