Days 99 – 100: Ko Tarutao National Marine Park

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057799&l=8e5c3&id=1101094

The following morning the Germans and I walked down to the park office to buy tickets for the ferry. We assumed that we’d just go to Ko Tarutao, the closest of the islands, but when we talked to the park ranger we learned that there was no coral reef around Ko Tarutao, and hence no snorkeling. The Germans had just bought new snorkel gear and had their hearts set on seeing some tropical fish, and I was never one to enjoy just lying on the beach all day, so we decided to take the longer ferry ride to an island called Ko Adang, which supposedly had good beaches as well as decent snorkeling. Best of all, we could rent a beachfront longhouse on Ko Adang for 400B/night, which came out to less than $4/person.

While in the park office, we read a bit of the history of the park from a display on the wall. Apparently, the marine park had once been a prison, and was selected as a prison site based on its remoteness and its shark and alligator-infested waters which would discourage people from trying to escape by swimming. Shark and alligator-infested waters? Suddenly I was less enthusiastic about the snorkeling.

We caught the ferry to Ko Adang, which turned out to be the same ferry that stopped at Ko Tarutao and Ko Lipe, the other main islands in the marine park. Most people on the boat were going to Ko Lipe, the only island open to private development. Happily, we were the only ones headed for Ko Adang.

Upon reaching Ko Adang we found that we had the place totally to ourselves. One Thai couple was camping on the beach, and another was staying in a longhouse down from ours, but we hardly saw those people the entire time we were there. The place seemed genuinely undiscovered.

We spent the afternoon on the beach, alternating snorkeling sessions with naps in the sun. The snorkeling was decent, though nothing compared to the best reefs I had seen in Indonesia, Egypt, and Honduras. We probably saw thirty different kinds of fish, but the coral itself wasn’t particularly colorful, and so the fish were a bit drab as well. The Germans were impressed, though—I think it was one of the first coral reefs they’d ever seen. Oh, to be naïve again.

That night we ate dinner at the one modest, government-run restaurant on the island. We expected to find miserable food at inflated prices, but instead we found cheap, delicious Thai fare. I was really starting to like this place.

The following morning we decided to hike to the other side of the island to check out the other known snorkeling spot. The jungle in the interior of the island was thick, and there was no trail, and we didn’t have machetes, so we decided to hike around the edge of the island instead of going over the top. I’m not sure if that was a mistake, but I do know that the hike, which took over five hours, was one of the hardest I’d ever done. The beach quickly ended and we found ourselves climbing over the rocks, most of which were damp and slippery from rain and the waves. We were all wearing sandals, as we had to wade through the water at some points, and all of us slipped multiple times on the rocks. By the time we reached the other side of the island, we all had cuts and bruises all over our legs and arms, and we were exhausted. We had basically bouldered for five hours, on slippery rocks, in sandals. Not ideal.

At one point as I was climbing up one of the boulders, I saw a huge monitor lizard on the rock below, sunning itself. The thing was nearly five feet long, and looked almost identical to the Komodo dragons I’d seen on television. Suddenly, it jumped up and splashed right into the water. I had no idea these things could swim, and I wasn’t so keen on running into one while snorkeling. I figure monitor lizards must be what the park office sign called “alligators.”

The snorkeling turned out to be much the same as on the other side of the island, but we were all glad that we had at least made it over here and checked it out. But the one thing that none of us was prepared to do was hike all the way back—we were still bleeding from the first round, and besides the higher tide would put the waist-deep water we had waded through over our heads. Luckily, we came upon a fishing village on the beach, and we convinced one of the villagers to take us back to the other side of the island on his fishing boat. No one in the village spoke a word of English, which marked the first time on this leg of the trip that I was forced to pull out my glossary and speak some Thai. It was about time.

That night back at the restaurant we ate a much deserved lunch and dinner in the span of an hour and then retired to our longhouse. Satisfied that I had explored the island sufficiently, I decided to head back to the mainland the next morning. I certainly could have stayed longer, but the truth was that the long nights were getting to me—our longhouse had no electricity, so when the sun went down, I couldn’t read, and it was a long time from 7pm until 6am. And of course with no electricity there was also no laptop usage. In the end, maybe I’m just a sucker for modern convenience. Or at least post-Edison convenience.