Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ban Moken
(Moken Village Tour per person 300B)
Moken have long settled in this one sheltered bay on Ao
Bon where a major ancestral worship ceremony (Loi Reua) takes place in April. They ex-
perienced no casualties during the tsunami that wiped the entire village away, because
they read the signs and evacuated to the hilltop.
The national park offers a Moken Village Tour. 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 from the park's headquarters (per person 100B). Handicrafts are
for sale to help support the local economy and there's a clothing donation box at park
headquarters for the Moken - this is the best place to lighten your load.
VILLAGE
Diving & Snorkelling
Dive sites in the park include
Ko Surin Tai
and
HQ Channel
between the two main islands.
Richelieu Rock
(a seamount 14km southeast) is also technically in the park and happens to
be one of the best, if not the best, dive sites on the Andaman coast. Whale sharks are
sometimes spotted here during March and April. There's presently no dive facility in the
park itself, so dive trips (four-day live-aboards from around 20,000B) must be booked
from the mainland.
Snorkelling isn't as good as it used to be due to recent bleaching of the hard corals, but
you'll still see fish and soft corals. Two-hour snorkelling trips (per person 100B, gear per
day 40B) leave the park headquarters at 9am and 2pm daily. Expect to be mostly in the
company of Thais, who generally splash around fully clothed and in life jackets. 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 themselves in Ban Moken.
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
is also a good
snorkel spot though there seems to be some bombing damage here, as well as bleaching.
Still, there are hundreds of colourful fish, big and small.
Wildlife & Hiking
Around park headquarters you can explore the forest fringes and spot 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-
