Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hills and a couple of photogenic waterfalls, including
Nam Tok Ton Sai
and
Nam Tok Bang Pae
.
The falls are at their most impressive during the rainy season between June and Novem-
ber. The highest point in the park is
Khao Phara
(442m). Because of its royal status, the re-
serve is better protected than the average national park in Thailand.
A German botanist discovered a rare and unique species of palm in Khao Phra Taew in
the mid-1900s. Called the white-backed palm or
langkow
palm, the fan-shaped plant
stands 3m to 5m tall and is found only here and in Khao Sok National Park.
Nowadays resident mammals are limited to humans, pigs, monkeys, slow loris, langurs,
civets, flying foxes, squirrels, mousedeer and other smaller animals. Watch out for cobras
and wild pigs.
Park rangers may act as guides for hikes in the park on request; payment for services is
negotiable.
To get to Khao Phra Taew from Phuket Town by vehicle, take Th Thepkasatri north
about 20km to Thalang District and turn right at the intersection for Nam Tok Ton Sai,
which is 3km down the road. Some travel agencies run day tours to the park.
Phuket Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre
( 0 7626 0492;
www.gibbonproject.org
; admission 10B; 9am-4pm)
This tiny sanctuary in the park,
near Nam Tok Bang Pae, is open to the public. Financed by donations (1500B will care
for a gibbon for a year), the centre adopts gibbons that have been kept in captivity in the
hopes they can be reintroduced to the wild. The centre also has volunteer opportunities
that include providing educational information to visitors, cleaning cages and feeding the
animals as well as tracking the released animals.
ANIMAL SHELTER
TOP OF CHAPTER
Thalang District
A few hundred metres northeast of the famous
Heroines Monument
in Thalang District on Rte
4027, and about 11km northwest of Phuket Town, is
Thalang National Museum
( 0 7631 1426;
admission 30B; 9am-4pm)
. The museum contains five exhibition halls chronicling southern
themes such as the history of Thalang-Phuket and the colonisation of the Andaman Coast,
and describing the various ethnicities found in southern Thailand. The legend of the 'two
heroines' (memorialised on the nearby monument), who supposedly drove off an 18th-
century Burmese invasion force by convincing the island's women to dress as men, is also
