Private Tour | 2-days/1-night private tour in Cheow Lan Lake
Situated between Khao Sok National Park and Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Cheow Lan Lake has one of the most beautiful scenic views in Thailand.
The lake deserves more than one night of stay, but if you only can stay one night, you will still be able to enjoy a few activities with this tour. If you truly want to enjoy more of the lake, then a 3D/2N tour is recommended.
With the 2-days/1-night tour in Cheow Lan Lake you will be able to see scenic rock formations, hike to a viewpoint, visit a cave, hike in the jungle, kayak, swim and drive around for wildlife watching. The tour includes a stay in a raft house of your choice, a private guide and a private boat with driver. No others will share the guide or the boat with you during the tour.
Raft house options
500 Rai Floating Resort (high-end)
500 Rai Floating Resrt is one of the best raft houses in the lake, with 15 houses/units of various sizes. It is located at the far end of the lake, between Phupha Waree and Krai Son raft houses, with one of the best views in the lake. It is the only option in the lake providing electricity 24 hours/day (deluxe option with only 12 h/day a/c powered, others 24 h/day).
Following are the room types;
| Deluxe (4 pax) | 36 ㎡ - Master bedroom with double-size bed, loft with two mattresses. 1 kayak, 5 life jackets. A/c from 6 pm to 6 am. Check-in 2pm, check-out 9:30am |
| Villa (4 pax) | 42 ㎡ - Master bedroom with double-size bed, loft with two mattresses. 1 kayak, 5 life jackets. A/c 24h/day. Check-in 2pm, check-out 9:30am |
| Family Villa (8 pax) | 72 ㎡ - 2 connecting villas, 2 master bedrooms with double-size bed, 2 lofts with 4 mattresses, a/c 24h/day, 2 kayaks, 8 life jackets. Check-in 2pm, check-out 9:30am |
Panvaree The Greenery Floating Resort (high-end)
The raft house is located in the entrance of Khlong Long tributary. Compared to other optiong in the lake, Panvaree The Greenery Raft House has fewer cabins/houses which makes it a relatively quiet place even when the place is fully booked, ideal for people avoiding crowds. Quality wise it is no doubt one of the best and most popular raft houses in the lake. Electricity is provided from 5pm until 9am.
Following are the room types;
| Superior room (2 pax) | For couples or 2 adults + small child (child to share same bed as parents but quoted half price). Rooms can be with either a double bed or twin beds, unfortunately can't be chosen, either one can be booked depending on availability and other circumstances. |
| Family section (4 pax) | For families up to 4 pax, 2 storeys, 2 rooms, 1 bathroom, 1 king size bed in each room. |
The price for the rooms varies depending on week-day, week-end day or holidays.
Panvaree Resort (high-end)
Located right next to Panvaree The Greenery, Panvaree Resort has similar quality and price level with different type of bed settings, it too has less cabin/houses. The rooms gets a bit cheaper at Panvaree Resort for groups of 3 people or more.
Following are the room types;
|
Garret house king (4 pax) |
Semi-detached to a garret house queen, with a king size bed and a loft area with 2 single mattresses on the floor. |
| Garret house queen (4 pax) | Semi-detached to a garret house king, with twin beds and a loft area with 2 single mattresses on the floor. Max 4 people |
| Private garret (4 pax) | Solitary unit (not semi-detached), with twin beds and a loft area with 2 single mattresses on the floor. Max 4 people |
The price for the rooms varies depending on week-day, week-end day or holidays.
Laguna Cheow Lan Raft House
Laguna Cheow Lan Raft House is located in Khlong Long tributary, in the middle of the lake. Each room have a king size and a single bed, private bathroom, a/c, balcony and can accommodate up to 3 people. The beds are on the floor. Electricity is provided from 6pm until 6am.
Phupha Waree Raft House
Phupha Waree Raft House is set back in a private alcove just inside Klong Pey, compared to most basic raft houses in the lake it is considered a bit better option. The rooms are equipped with 2 joined queen size beds, a private bathroom, a/c, balcony and can accommodate 2-4 people. While the smaller rooms will be booked for up to 3 people, the larger rooms will be booked for 4 people. Electricity is provided from 6pm until 6-7am.
Sai Chon Raft House
Sai Chon Raft House is a cheaper alternative. While being a very basic raft house, it is still a better option when compared to most other basic options in the lake mostly because the rooms have ensuite private bathroom. The raft house is located in Khlong Long tributary of the lake, not too far from the pier. The quality is somewhere between bamboo and average options. While the smaller rooms have 1 king size bed, the larger rooms have 2 king size beds. The rooms are equipped with fan only, electricity is provided from around 6pm until 6-7am.
Unlike the other raft houses, kayaking is not free at Sai Chon Raft House, rental will cost 200 Baht per kayak. The kayak fee is optional, not included in our listed prices for Sai Chon Raft House.
Itinerary
There is no strict itinerary with our lake tours, the following itinerary is just an example. Depending on the location of your raft house, weather conditions, your preferences the itinerary may be much different. Example; you may decide to do more kayaking, skip some activities for the other, or simply just decide to relax and spend some time with friend(s)/family at the raft house.
Day 1
- 10 am pickup from Cheow Lan Lake Pier to board your long-tail boat
- Scenic tour of limestone karst formations on the way to your rafthouse
- Check in to the raft house. Enjoy a traditional Thai Lunch prepared with rich southern Thai curries, delicious local vegetables.
- Guided hike to see viewpoints on dry season or to a waterfall on rainy season (optional)
- Afternoon wildlife safari by boat
- Return to the raft house for a swim, relax and enjoy the scenery
- Enjoy a delectable dinner of fish, Thai soup, and veggies.
Day 2
- Rise before breakfast for the morning mist safari, the best time to gibbons, macaques and dusky leaf monkeys
- Alternatively explore the surrounding area by kayak
- Return to raft house for breakfast
- Depending on the raft house and it's location the tour ends around 9:30 to 10 am at the pier
Where & When?
The tour starts at Cheow Lan Lake Pier (Rajjaprabha Dam), 65 km from park headquarters. We can arrange transfer from/to Phuket, Khao Lak, Krabi, Ao Nang, Surat Thani and Khao Sok village straight to tour start in the morning or transfer to the mentioned towns after the tour.
The nearest airports are Surat Thani (~1h), Krabi (~2h) and Phuket Airport (~2.5h), you are recommended to arrive to the area a day before the tour start. This tour is not recommended to start the same day when arriving from the islands or the airports.
This tour is available throughout the year.
When to book?
High seasons periods in the lake are November to mid April and mid July to end of August. Bookings for these months should be done well in advance, earliest possible. Even if some of the raft houses may still have rooms available days/weeks before, guide availability is more of a concern. The guides may get fully booked months in advance for the busiest times of the year.
Panvaree The Greenery superior rooms should be booked at least 6-12 months in advance for the busier months of the year, family rooms too may get booked far in advance.
Laguna Cheow Lan should be booked at least 3-6 months in advance for the high seasons months.
Phupha Waree can be booked a couple of months ahead, for the high seasons months they may get fully booked for most dates 1-4 months before.
Sai Chon tends to have more availability compared to the other raft houses we offer, sometimes days/weeks before. But for the certain peak dates, they too will eventually get fully booked many months before.
Tour details in short:
- Duration: 2 days/1 night
- Type: Private tour
- Price: * see the pricing table *
- Group size: 2 or more people
- Grade: Easy
- Transport: Long-tail boat
- Start: 10am (day 1)
- End: around 9:30 to 10am (day 2)
What to bring:
- Rain clothing, specially on rainy season
- Sneakers for hiking, sandals for waterfall/cave visit
- Personal toiletries
- Swimming clothing & towel
- Hat
- Flashlight
- Insect repellent
- Sunblock lotion
How much?
The tour will be led by a private guide which means no others will join you while exploring the lake and surrounding areas. The price for this tour package depends on the choice of accommodation and number of people, please see price per person further down.
The prices below do not include entrance fees to the national park.
| Price per person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pax | Sai Chon | Phupha Waree | Laguna |
| 2 | 6,900 THB | 7,800 THB | 9,500 THB |
| 3 | 5,300 THB | 5,800 THB | 7,400 THB |
| 4 | 4,500 THB | 5,050 THB | 7,050 THB |
| 5 | 4,050 THB | 4,800 THB | 6,300 THB |
| 6 | 3,700 THB | 4,300 THB | 5,800 THB |
| 7 | 3,500 THB | 4,100 THB | 5,800 THB |
| 8 | 3,300 THB | 3,950 THB | 5,500 THB |
| Price per person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pax | Panvaree Resort | Panvaree T. G. | 500 Rai |
| 2 | 10,400 to 11,500 THB | 10,400 to 12,000 THB | 16,400 to 32,900 THB |
| 3 | 8,200 to 9,200 THB | 10,000 to 12,500 THB | 13,200 to 22,500 THB |
| 4 | 6,500 to 7,300 THB | 7,900 to 9,650 THB | 11,700 to 17,900 THB |
| 5 | 7,200 to 8,200 THB | 8,800 to 11,200 THB | 10,700 to 15,400 THB |
| 6 | 6,600 to 7,600 THB | 7,200 to 8,900 THB | n/a |
| 7 | 5,900 to 6,750 THB | n/a | n/a |
| 8 | 5,350 to 6,100 THB | n/a | n/a |
Displayed prices are per person
Tour rates include:
- Lodging
- Guide
- Long-tail boat transportation
- Lunch and dinner on day-1, breakfast on day-2
- Drinking water
- Kayaking (not included at Sai Chon Raft House)
- Accident insurance for incidents during the tour (covering the hospital costs)
Tour rates doesn't include:
- Entrance fees to the park
- Transfer to the lake from the nearby towns
- Kayaking (only at Sai Chon Raft House, the fee is included at the other raft houses we offer)
Reviews from our guests
By: World Wild Hearts | posted Sun 16 Apr, 2023 | Sai Chon
A video review from one of our guests. This clip wasn't promoted by us, nor were we informed in advance about it.
Review by; World Wild Hearts
By: Mary Ann Saggese | posted Thu 21 Nov, 2024 | Laguna
The tour was great and exactly as described! Operated efficiently and all transfers were on time and professional. The food was abundant and very good. Our local park tour guide was knowledgeable and expertly led us through a cave and on an adventurous hike through the jungle and rock climbing. It was hot as expected in the raft room prior to the 6 pm ac timing. The mattress was excellent and all was clean. The long boat rides were enjoyable but it is a small percentage that see wild life other than monkeys. Still was a great experience!
By: Kamile Stugyte | posted Sat 16 Nov, 2024 | Phupha Waree
Khao Sok national park is gorgeous, and the stay there was the only place on our Thailand trip that didn't feel too touristic and cramped with people. This is due to the huge park area.
We stayed in Phupha Waree. While the place is definitely run down, the tour company was honest about the conditions upfront, which we appreciated. The place is fine to stay in for the night, though we did have ants all over. It was good to have the AC in the room, as it was very much needed but it made an awful noise. The views from the front raft house porch were wonderful as well. The food could've been better.
The guide had limited english (but we have seen much worse in Thailand). He took care of us, but lacked some knowledge or language skills to give information on the wildlife in the park. However, he had a great eye for monkeys and birds. I'm sure we spotted more animals with him than people in some other boats.
While we really enjoyed this trip, I think it's a bit too pricey.
> Tour operator's response
Thanks for your honest review, much appreciated. :)
It is very interesting that, if we book the very same room with very same conditions to 2 different people, the opinion about the rooms can be completely different. Some like you thinks it is "ok", others the opposite, but in some rare cases some can go as far as to say "a nightmare" and "how traumatising experience it was".
You said the food couldn't be better, and yet we also get completely opposite reviews about that, with some not being familiar with the Asian cuisine. Shortly, as we always say; "we can never make everyone happy".. Glad to hear you enjoyed the overall experience. :)
The only reason I can think of ants all over the place is, you possibly missed the signs that you shouldn't take any foods with you into your rooms. Last year, I made the mistake of taking some desert with me which my guide gave me, I left it in the room. The whole bed was full of ants. With no food around, they were gone within an hour. But tiny small food, even some bread crumbs dropped on the floor, the place gets full of ants very rapidly. There is absolutely no reason for them to be around if there is no food.
I won't elaborate the price, but just shortly; a guide/boat being booked for 2 days, boats burning a lot of petrol, room being in such a remote place that it takes 1h 20 mins drive to get to, add to that the logistics costs, these private tours really can't get much cheaper than that. :(
We understand fully that the tour may feel too pricey.
We will update the raft house about the noisy a/c.
By: Jena Heinzmann | posted Tue 12 Nov, 2024 | Sai Chon
Super organized days and ice local guide.
The bed of the homestay wasn't very comfortable but it was like expected.
We enjoyed it.
By: Cristina Carnerero | posted Mon 11 Nov, 2024 | Phupha Waree
Our 2D1N tour was the highlight of our 3 week holidays. Our guide U was a great guide. She made sure we were Ok all the time and that we had all we needed. We went to a waterfall and it was super fun. There were many people but U took us to a path where we were the only ones there. She even cared for a scratch my boyfriend had in his leg after the hike. The hotel Phuphawaree was nice, the bed was confortable, the food was good and very large portions. The bathroom was a bit basic, but it was ok. During our boat tours we saw monkeys, buffaloes, hornbills and we could even hear a wild elephant! We will always remember this trip.
By: Jaci | posted Sun 29 Sep, 2024 | Laguna
We loved our stay in the Laguna Raft House! The accommodations were very nice and our guide, Junn, was amazing!
By: David Rigau Comas | posted Sun 1 Sep, 2024 | Sai Chon
We received excellent contact, information and feed-back from Thai National Parks personnel - congrats ¡¡
Price/ quality relationship of Sai Chon Raft House are only acceptable. The mattress was very uncomfortable and day-trip to a waterfall was quite short and too crowed. The Park is extremely large and in my opinion there no need that several groups do the same trekking at same area.
By: Els Boomkamp | posted Sun 1 Sep, 2024 | Laguna
We had a super nice trip to Cheow Lan Lake (2D/1N) organised bij Thai National Parks. The communication to reserve the trip was perfect! In no time we had a response to all our questions.
Our guide Kiem was very friendly and taught us a lot about the park and animals living there. We stayed at the Laguna which was fine to stay for 1 night.
We saw birds, bats and monkeys and heard elephants eating bamboo. We climbed a waterfall and the views were amazing.
I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone!
By: Carla De Winter | posted Sun 25 Aug, 2024 | Laguna
Wij hadden een 2 daagse tour geboekt met 1 overnachting op het meer. Wat een geweldige ervaring. Onze gids Nhum wist veel te vertellen. De geluiden die je ‘s ochtends hoort als je wakker wordt, zijn geweldig. We hebben een grot bezocht, we hebben een hike gedaan naar een super mooi uitzicht over het meer. Een hele klim, maar het was het dubbel en dwars waard. Niet heel veel dieren gespot, maar het is de jungle, ze staan niet voor je klaar. Maar wat een fantastische belevenis, echt een aanrader!
By: Veerle Vannecke | posted Mon 19 Aug, 2024 | Phupha Waree
Perfect stay and trip. Nice guide. Second time we booked, it was again perfect! Will recommend you with other people.