Getting Back To Thailand

(At Mu Koh Similan National Marine Park)

In my travels around the islands of Southern Thailand, I’ve often wondered why I met so few Thai tourists. Often, I’ve complained about food on islands. “If only Thais were eating here,” I’ve moaned, “then we could get a decent meal!” Since the tourist scene down South is generally dominated by foreigners, I was pleasantly surprised when I set forth for the Similans, two hours off the coast of Pang Nga province and found myself surrounded by Thais, flocking to these distant sands.

The Similan Islands piqued my interest years ago, long before I learned how to dive. Their remote location fascinated me, as did their reputation as the best diving destination in Thailand. I used to daydream about walking their lonely white beaches, swimming with sea turtles and submerging myself beneath the waves in search of manta rays, sea horses and gardens of purple and red soft corals. For my parents’ fourth visit to the kingdom, I decided to arrange a trip off our standard resort path; an adventure to a more distant, bucolic setting.

There are two different approaches to experiencing the Similans. The first is the live-aboard boat option, where divers are ferried to various sites, usually indulging in three-to-four dives per day. Some of these ships are quite luxurious, but my parents don’t SCUBA dive. I worried that we wouldn’t get to see enough of the actual islands from a ship. They worried about cabin fever and didn’t like the idea of being cooped up on a boat, even if sea kayaks were available.

We forewent the live-aboard route and instead chose the second option, lodging in the national park. The night before our departure, we stayed at a nice boutique resort in Khao Lak, just a couple of hours north of Phuket. We arrived at Taplamu pier the next morning, where the docks jut out into a tidal river, surrounded by mangroves, fishing warehouses, and a naval base. Pastel-coloured fishing boats, with four-storey teetering cabins on their sterns; patrol craft and small war ships and a fleet of speedboats. The newer, shinier ones sporting muscle of up to 600 horses in twin outboard engines, were anchored and tied in seeming haphazardness, chine to chine, stem to stern. The smells of water, low tide, fish, diesel and Southern Thai restaurants carried on breaths of wind.

I chose a brand new speedboat with a spacious cockpit, plush upholstery and the biggest, newest-looking Yamahas of the lot. I crossed my fingers and wished that luck would shine my way. I tried to visualize myself on those cushions, gliding easily over the waves on a craft that moved more like a magic carpet than a plain old plastic boat. I had practically created my reality when a Thai kid with gel-spiked hair and a sour expression grunted at me and motioned to a vessel that looked like it could have been scavenged from one of the navy’s target ranges; the only boat within eyesight that had only one engine, with a deep slashing dent through the cowl. I looked at my parents’ faces to see if they shared my disappointment, but they looked unruffled, smiling, chipper.

Two hours and fifty thousand waves later, we arrived at Island Number 8, though no one was disembarking. I wanted to get out and stretch, use the bathroom. I didn’t understand why we hadn’t been delivered directly to our island. Was the driver giving us the run-around? Was there a hidden catch? Were we going to have to transfer boats and pay someone off?

My internal grumblings continued until I began to notice where we were. A gorgeous, shimmering, white sand beach lay crescent-shaped behind us and the sparkling water, a bluish aquamarine, was clearer than any I’d ever seen. Swimmingpool clear, but to a depth of probably ten metres or greater. Beyond the beach, jungle rose up into the hills. The points bookending the cove were of wind-smoothed granite, massive boulders piled upon each other like colossal cairns, as though assembled by titans. I had to laugh at myself. Here we were, literally inhabiting the world of a postcard and I had been making myself sick with impatience and travel paranoia.

Island Number Four, Koh Mieng, where the main parks accommodations are situated, is not as breathtakingly pretty as Island Eight, as there is no signature rock formation, but we found excellent snorkeling. A dirt path from the tent area through the jungle leads to a smaller beach, sometimes called “Honeymoon Bay,” though the maps refer to it more literally as, “Hat Lek,” or “Little Beach.” This became our home base since there were folding chairs to rent and ample shade coverage from the trees lining the shore. The park has cordoned off a coral garden for skin divers here, with a wide variety of tropical fish and hard corals. On one afternoon, I was lucky enough to spot a dark purple octopus squirt away to its hiding spot beneath a rock. Another morning, I took my first beach dive here, following my guide out to the drop off and down to about twenty metres. The coral was not particularly spectacular, but the bounty of sea life proved quality compensation. Rare varieties of crabs and boxing shrimp, eels, and tiny nudibranches were the highlights.

In all, I took three dives, all organized from Hat Lek. For the second, I was transported in a Zodiac to neighbouring Island Number Five with my dive master, two research biologists and a young couple from Bangkok, all of them Thai. We navigated around massive coral heads, where the bright red fans and the almost electric violet soft corals dazzled. Giant groupers and triggerfish cruised for prey. I was over twenty metres deep and the water was clear as crystal.

After lunch, we took a long tailed boat out to “East of Eden.” I don’t know why they put the “East of” in the name, for the garden was easily of Biblical proportion. A steady current moved us along the wall, so I had only to regulate my buoyancy. For some reason I thought of snow. Something about the texture and the cool colours, the purples and whites, reminded me of the most gorgeous days of winter, when snow blankets the pines and the crystals catch the sunlight, transforming it into tiny, sparkling rainbows. Though not the most desired effect at thirty metres below the surface, the textures and varieties of sea life took my breath away. When we got back to shore, one of the researchers showed me some samples that he had collected, pieces of fiery red coral, the same animal that had looked violet at depth. “The water filters out colours as you descend,” he explained, “but this is what it really looks like.”

Meanwhile, my parents were exploring the reefs of Island Number One, from the surface. Turtles are often spotted there, but it wasn’t their day. They came back raving over the coral, however, the prettiest they had ever seen. “We’ve seen more fish at a couple of places in the Caribbean,” said my father, “but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Over the course of three days and nights, we explored most of the Similans’ eleven islands, mostly by boat and snorkeling, but also by foot in places. Koh Mieng, for example, has a few hiking trails that lead to various viewpoints and sunset vistas. By the time the evenings rolled in, we were uniformly exhausted, though the crowds around the campground were festive. Many families had come, their children racing about in the sand, scampering after land crabs and metre-long monitor lizards, modern day dinosaurs. On the first night, a boy scout jamboree serenaded us. The second and third nights played host to a good-sized party of folks who, according to my dive master, worked for the royal family. In the open dining room, Thai professors from Chiang Mai chatted with well-heeled young professionals from Bangkok. Two groups of marine biologists busied themselves in front of their notebooks, editing footage they’d shot on underwater video cameras. Aside from the boy scout night, when the menu was set and quite boring, the food was quite good, reasonably priced and prepared promptly; a true novelty for an island retreat!

To describe accommodation in Mu Koh Similan Nation Marine Park as rustic is understatement akin to a depiction of the Oriental Hotel as merely comfortable. We were led to a dorm room in a long-house, next to the public toilets. The walls did not reach all the way to the roof, rather stopped at about seven feet from the floor, and were then covered with a blue mosquito netting canopy. The door opened to reveal four small, hard pallets lying side-by-side on a single plywood platform. There was no fan, which explained the ventilation between the top of the walls and the roof.

Since I was fairly certain that this was not the picture I’d been sold when I booked the room, I talked our way into one of the new hillside bungalows, though only for the first night. This afforded some breeze and gorgeous views of the sea and stars, as well as a fan, private bath and actual beds. I would highly recommend to any visitor seeking a modicum of comfort to insist on one of these cabins. For the more adventurous, however, those who seek an even more authentic experience, tents, mounted on platforms of sand, may be rented and the dorm rooms provide an interesting, though hardly luxurious option. Here, entire extended families of ten or more made their homes, chattering with each other after dinner, gathering for breakfast on mats laid out upon the porch. Fortunately our worries about noise proved unfounded, as the talking stopped just as soon as the lights went out at about nine pm. My parents and I agreed that we wouldn’t choose to stay in the long-houses in the future, but we were glad to have been part of a real Thai family vacation, at least this once.

The Similans are quite simply a wonder. In addition to the aforementioned views, coral gardens, where flocks of parrot-fish feed and stunning rock formations, towering counterpoints to the floury beaches, the islands also play host to a wide variety of rare and interesting wildlife such as the Hairy Legged Mountain Crab, which makes the sound of a chicken, Nicobar Pigeons, which bustle about the underbrush, and Flying Foxes, giant bats with the wingspan of ravens, which swoop throughout the treetops by dusk, gobbling up insects. Manta rays and sea turtles are commonly spotted by divers and the occasional (harmless) whale shark and school of porpoises make appearances.

It’s fortunate that Mu Koh Similan Marine Park is so remote and that it closes for about six months a year, so that its natural treasures may be preserved for future generations. Equally auspicious, however, for the adventure-minded tourist, is that access is really quite easy and the experience genuinely Thai. A quick jaunt from Phuket leads to whole new worlds, of undisturbed nature and underwater splendour.

 Benjarong Magazine - September 2003, Volume 6 Issue 9