Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
times spotted here during March and April. There's no dive facility in the park itself, so
dive trips (four-day live-aboards around 20,000B) must be booked from the mainland.
Bleaching has damaged the hard corals but you'll see plenty of fish and soft corals.
Two-hour snorkelling trips (per person 100B, gear per day 40B) leave the park headquar-
ters at 9am and 2pm daily. Expect to be in the company of mostly Thais who swim fully
clothed. If you'd like a more serene snorkelling experience, charter your own long-tail
from the national park (half day 1500B), or better yet, directly from the Moken them-
selves in
Ban Moken
(Moken Village). The most beautiful, vibrant soft corals we saw were
at
Ao Mae Yai
, an enormous North Island bay around the corner from Chong Khod. The best
section of reef is between the white buoys along the northern peninsula. There are more
fish off tiny
Ko Pajumba
, but the coral isn't in great shape.
Ao Suthep
, off the South Island,
has vast schools of iridescent fish and shallow blue holes with milky bottoms.
Wildlife & Hiking
Around park headquarters you can explore the forest fringes, looking out for crab-eating
macaques and some of the 57 resident bird species, which include the fabulous Nicobar
pigeon, endemic to the Andaman islands. Along the coast you're likely to see the Brah-
miny kite in the air and reef herons on the rocks. Twelve species of bat live here, most no-
ticeably the tree-dwelling fruit bats (also known as flying foxes).
A rough-and-ready
walking trail
winds 2km along the coast, through forest and back
down to the beach at
Ao Mai Ngam
, where there's camping facilities and its own canteen. At
low tide it's easy to walk along the coast between the two campsites.
Village Tour
Ban Moken
at Ao Bon on the South Island welcomes visitors. Post-tsunami, Moken have
settled in this one sheltered bay where a major ancestral worship ceremony (Loi Reua)
takes place in April. The national park offers a
Moken Village Tour
(per person 300B)
. You'll
stroll through the village where you should ask locals for permission to hike the 800m
Chok Madah trail
over the jungled hills to an empty beach. Tours depart at 9.15am and must
be reserved the day before. You can also organise a ride over from the park's HQ (per per-
son 100B). If you do visit the village, bring cash to buy handicrafts to help support its eco-
nomy. There's also a clothing donation box at park headquarters for the Moken, so this is
a good, responsible place to lighten your load.
Sleeping & Eating
