How We Do Things

Our Jungle Camp
Eco-Inspired
Jungle Accommodation

Welcome to Our Jungle Camp,

I have spent over 50 years in Southeast Asia, mostly in the jungle developing eco-resorts in Thailand, starting with the River Kwai, Krabi, Phra Thong island and Khao Sok National Park.

Khao Sok National Park is one of the best protected natural habitats in Thailand. Preserving this magical part of the world starts with education and experience – your stay at Our Jungle Camp helps our outdoor education efforts and raises environmental awareness between local schools, kids and their families.

Our Jungle Camp’s Tree-houses, Riverside Bungalows, and Bamboo Huts are built from carefully sourced bamboo and renewable materials.

We lead by example, we minimise our use of power by foregoing air conditioning and televisions, we reduce plastic waste with purified water and run our own educational organic farm for healthier living.

I hope you enjoy your time with us and get a little closer to nature – Our Jungle Camp is an eco-resort that will leave you inspired.

Dick Sandler
Founder

As Seen On

Our Team

The OJC Family

CHOMPOONUTE (GONTHONG) LOURDESAMY

General Manager

CHOMPOONUTE (GONTHONG) LOURDESAMY

General Manager

With more than twenty years experience as a trainer with a focus on experiential learning style both in an NGO and corporate setting. Gonthong developed her areas of interest ranging from environmental education, managing biodiversity in the landscape, and environmental management through teaching plantation staff and management in Malaysia. In her current role as the General Manager of Our Jungle Resorts, Gonthong strives to implement the principles of sustainable tourism while enhancing guest's experience by sharing her love and awareness of the natural environment.

Marius Herrmann - Tourism Professional in Thailand

Marius Herrmann

Sales & Marketing Manager
Marius Herrmann - Tourism Professional in Thailand

Marius Herrmann

Sales & Marketing Manager

Our new Sales & Marketing Manager, Marius, was born in Germany but has spent extensive amounts of time in the eastern hemisphere; some of his stopover destinations include Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. But Khao Sok has always been his anchor, throughout his career he worked along the tourism value chain from planning and constructing an Eco Resort to Tourism Marketing and running sustainability-focused Eco Lodges. He has a deep curiosity for the local culture, prevailing pristine nature, and adventure based-activities in and around Khao Sok National Park.

Tumn

Assistant Manager

Tumn

Assistant Manager

Born and raised in Suratthani Province, our experienced Assistant Manager Khun Tumn has worked for many years with different 5 Star properties in Phuket and Suratthani. For him Hotel Management, is not only a profession but a lifestyle, which he lives with his service oriented mindset on a daily basis. As a local resident, he will gladly answer all your Thai related questions and can recommend you the best nature places in Khao Sok, which he now calls home.

Nita

Reception

Nita

Reception

Nita came to Khao Sok from a big city in the North of Thailand, and would have never imagined to enjoy working in such a remote environment. But her decision to work in hospitality made her fall in love with the pristine surrounding nature of Southern Thailand, where the guest interaction allows her also to travel without ever having to leave her beautiful country of Thailand.

Yu Yee

Service Staff

Yu Yee

Service Staff

Yu Yee has worked at Our Jungle Camp for just over a year, but has a total of three years of experience in hospitality here in Khao Sok.  She grew up in the nearby Kirirat disctrict, but moved to Khao Sok following great job opportunity and the chance to meetvisitors from around the world here at our resort.  On days off, she enjoys traveling to all the nearby attractions the area has to offer: viewpoints, waterfalls, hot springs, new coffee shops, there’s lots to do for the adventurous local!

Na

Foreman

Na

Foreman

After being a local government officer, Na has spent the last ten years working in construction before joining us in 2018.  He worked as an apprentice under the main foreman who helped with major rebuilds and renovations at the Jungle House and Jungle Camp over the past few years.  His favorite project so far was his design and construction of the front desk and reception area.

Dick

Founder

Dick

Founder

Dick Sandler, our founder, is sometimes called the grandfather of eco-tourism in Thailand. He has lived in the country for 50 years and speaks fluent Thai. He started doing eco-tourism on the River Kwai in 1972 before the term “eco-tourism” even existed. Subsequently he pioneered eco-resorts in Krabi, Phang-nga, and Khao Sok before these became international tourism destinations. With his pioneering expertise, he has been invited as an eco-tourism advisor in several other Southeast Asian countries.

My Vision

I grew up in the concrete jungle of New York City. City brats were typically shipped off to summer camp in beautiful rural areas of upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. I was a camper for 13 years and it turned me into a nature nut for life. As a result, I have spent much of my life tramping happily through the jungles of Southeast Asia.

The other result is that I want to bring the love of nature to young children everywhere. It will enrich their lives and turn them into advocates for (if not saviours of) the earth in the future. This is what we are doing at Our Jungle House and Camp. We devote a significant portion of the income from our resorts to a free nature camp for Thai kids, and we try to make education the focus of the whole resort experience. Hence, we hope you will mix with the Thai kids doing their activities at the weekend camps, visit our organic farm, and learn from our local jungle guides who also love the amazing nature at Khao Sok.

Join us in the enjoyment of nature and the fight for the future.

Dick Sandler,
Environmentalist & Founder

Mike

Camp Director

Mike

Camp Director

Mike is our Camp Director at the Jungle Life Camp for Nature Education. He has been working in outdoor education since he was a teenager and has been living in Thailand for 10 years, during which time he has worked with many schools from around the world delivering educational programs to an international standard. He is passionate about adventure, sustainability and culture. Mike is a qualified kayaking and climbing instructor and is Wilderness Advanced First Aid trained. He believes that outdoor learning is the most powerful form of education and strives to give his students an experience they will never forget.

Por

Farm Manager

Por

Farm Manager

Having grown up surrounded by rice fields as his parents were rice farmers, he has a strong personality due to his upbringings (helping his family with their business during his childhood) and fully embraces life as it comes with its ups and downs, prepared to face any challenge coming his way. With a good amount of time spent being a nature guide, he likes to bring out students into the outdoors, where he educates about foraging, survival skills and the unique animals who call Khao Sok National Park home.

Our Guides

Vie

Vie, from Khao Sok, enjoys to take photographs, hiking and overall being in nature. Although he graduated with a mechanical engineering major and worked many years in this field, he found his true joy by becoming a nature guide in his hometown.

Bin

Bin has been in Khao Sok for almost 20 years. He is an experienced spotter of the famous, rare raflessia flower, which only blooms in certain areas of the jungle from December to March. He also does National Park overnight tours and family hiking on a consistent basis.

James

James loves interacting with people and practicing his English with tourists! His favorite job is being a guide along the Khao Sok National Park Trails. He is especially fond of guiding more demanding trails to Thansawan Waterfall and leading Night Safaris into the depth of the park.

Rung

Rung, one of our youngest guides, was born and raised in Khao Sok. He loves trekking and seeing the different kinds of animals and species living in the jungle.

Tim

Tim, the sixth out of nine siblings, grew up in Surat Thani province and graduated from the faculty of liberal Arts, International School of Tourism of Surat Thani. She has always loved traveling and spending her free time in the mountains, waterfalls and national parks, which is why she has always known that becoming a tour guide would mean following her passion. Tim values her relationships to people and animals, and knows that from these relationships she can discover and live out to be her true self.

Chai

Chai, born in Khao Sok, has been working as a guide for over 12 years. After learning the basics at a guide training funded by Our Jungle House, he taught himself English while working with foreigners. He loves scavenging for useful herbs in the jungle, and also spends his free time photographing wildlife. At the Jungle Life Camp, he leads our adventure tours down the Sok river, and has a strong background on health and safety. Further, he enjoys to teach about local building methods and the sustainable resources which the forest supplies.

Leam

Leam, born in Klong Seang Village, which now lies in the catchment of Cheow Lan Lake, is proud to be a guide here in Khao Sok, his hometown. He loves sharing his knowledge and showing tourists his hometown, and deeply enjoys spending quality time with them in nature surrounded by wildlife. He also values sustainability and prefers working with eco-friendly companies and operators.

Gai

Gai has been a guide for the past 15 years, and is one of our most experienced Birding guides. His heart is in the jungle, and Gai also loves spending his free time photographing nature. His dream is to make Khao Sok accessible for everyone, and plans on someday offering tours for disabled people. At the Life Camp, Khun Gai educates from Soil Assessments over Birdwatching to Survival Skills and is highly committed to make sure everyone leaves the camp with more knowledge and stoked on nature.

Bamboo & Earth

Our
Facilities

We have beautifully crafted restaurant and bar, on-site organic working farm, a nature camp, a water tower that will be converted into a museum; for now, it still offers amazing views or a place to practice yoga. We offer free parking and wifi.

Feel free to stroll around the property and soak up all aspects of our jungle oasis.

Welcome to Our Jungle Camp!

Did you know?

Our Jungle Camp is a sister resort of Our Jungle House. The owner, a pioneer of nature tourism in Thailand since 1975, has meticulously crafted an experience that’s inclusive of the awe-inspiring natural surroundings.

Outdoor Education

Our Jungle Camp is more than an ordinary resort. It’s a place where several passion projects intersect, offering unique opportunities to locals and visitors. Eco-tourism, organic sustainable agriculture, nature education, and mindfulness are all parts of the Our Jungle Camp experience, and each visit supports these projects.

Proceeds from the resort are used to fund free nature camps for local school children. We work together with local schools to provide supplemental programs that show fundamental concepts of sustainability and natural sciences. Instead of simply learning in a classroom, students are able to experience these concepts first hand! This is done through nature walks, wildlife sighting, educational games and gardening activities.

Just next to the student quarters, we have 3 full time local staff maintaining 980 square meters of farmland. This allows us to source most of our vegetables directly in house and provide a learning space for visitors and students to learn more about sustainable agriculture. We grow our own rice, pumpkin, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and broccoli.  Aside from veggies, we grow various Thai herbs and flowers like Roselle, Butterfly Pea and lemongrass, just to name a few and we have the full variety of wild banana and papaya.

Nestled at the edge of the resort along the nature trails is also our yoga sala. We are very fortunate to be collaborating with a professionally trained local, Rossi, to provide mindfulness and yoga programs for guests, students, and staff. Our yoga sala can also be used for yoga teachers to conduct their own retreats.

All of these projects play an important part in our resort’s mission. We strive to create a space that provides a unique experience for guests and a where locals can expand their talents, foster an appreciation for nature, and pass it along to the next generation!