Adventures in Ang Thong Marine National Park
Ang Thong Marine National Park, 2012-08-31 12:00 by Laerke
How we managed to see this gorgeous national park (almost) on our own

The boat pushed through the teal colored waters, it was crowded on board but people were in a good mood, they were on holiday after all. The happy passengers were still in wet swimsuits from the snorkeling session recently completed. Everybody was now munching on their lunch of rice with green curry. “Not spicy, not spicy – just a little bit, you can eat – no worry” the loud but warmhearted guide promised. We were now really entering into the gorgeous Ang Thong National Park with small and big island on all sides of the boat, they are all made up of grey limestone with a dusting of greenery running down from the top, many of them hiding perfect white beaches tucked into coves and bays.


At the next stop of the tour the boat anchored up off a small beach, everybody boarded the incredibly loud longtail boats and were puttered the few remaining meters onto the beach. From here a very steep staircase leads up to an inland lake formed by an underground collapse, there is a tunnel of some sorts out to the ocean that brings in salt water. We huffed and puffed up the many stairs in the beating midday sun, when we reached the top we were rewarded with a very pretty view over the lake. The lake, sometimes called the Emerald Sea, has a very dense minty color, it almost looks fake :)


The last stop is where we’ll be getting off instead of going back to Ko Pha-ngan with the boat. When I first read about Ang Thong National Park I decided that we this was definitely a place we should go, and I set about researching how to get there. I am not too fond of big group tours and we normally do our travelling independently, however every where on the interet it said the same “the best way to visit Ang Thong is to go on a guided tour from either Ko Pha-ngan or Ko Samui”. Even Lonely Planet and Travelfish couldn’t come up with a single suggestion on how to do this on your own. So in the end we compromised and joined a tour – but we were getting off on Ko Wua Talap and weren’t being picked until 4 days later! We pretty much just saw the tour as our transportation to the national park.
Upon alighting at the National Park headquarters on Ko Wua Talap we were greeted by an unusually gorgeous beach, soft white powder sand backed by swaying palm trees and behind them the tall jungle covered mountains rise up. We imagined that all the other tourists were green with envy when they had to get back on the boat to head home – while we were still lying on the beach, we were indeed feeling very smug about our whole set-up :) We enjoyed the soft afternoon light and swam and lazed around a bit more before setting up our tent. You can rent tents or a bungalow, but we had brought our own tent and thus only had to pay 30baht per person a night to stay on this paradise island. And as we had sort of miscalculated how much (or how little!) money we had brought to the island this was indeed a good thing. We counted our few notes and figured that we could afford only to spend about 200baht per meal (including drinks) for the both of us, and this is not like Bangkok where you can get a lovely meal for 30baht on the street. No, there is only one restaurant here and a curry is 150baht and a small bottle of water is 20baht… That night we shared a curry.




But sometimes the best things in life are indeed free, later on the moon rose big and round and golden as if from the water. It was the most beautiful moonrise I’ve ever seen. We sat on the beach right in front of the softly swaying palms and enjoyed the show, it was just us and the moon and its fantastic moon bridge shining in the water, it felt like it was there just for our enjoyment. It was the most beautiful night in a long time :) Next morning we set off on our own exploration off the park, we rented a kayak, packed up the tent and had the restaurant makes us 4 fried rice to-go. After a brief confusing talk with the ranger we established that we would camp on Ko Sam Sao that night and head back to Ko Wua Talap the next day. On the national parks own website it states that “Ko Sam Sao is ideal for camping and has an overall very pleasant vibe”, the ranger at first though wasn’t impressed with our idea. But after convincing him that we would be fine without fresh water and a restaurant he reluctantly made a call – to the ranger station on Sam Sao we assume – and was given an okay. YES! So off we went.


Our first stop was on Ko Mae Ko, this is the island we were on yesterday and saw the “Emerald Sea” lake, this beach however was on the other side of the island and there wasn’t a soul here. Or that isn’t exactly true there were lots and lots of butterflies flittering about, jumping from white flower to white flower on the trees that lined the beach. We also saw – and heard – a couple of horn bills.


The next beach we stopped on had a lone fisherman who was sorting through his catch of sea urchins, he smiled a big toothless grin and said “Sawadakap” to us. We sort of wondered what he was doing there, surely it can’t be legal to fish in the national park? But he seemed completely unfazed by this and had a neat little set-up with his boat, a raggedy hut and some assorted bits and pieces and a nice junk pile at one end of the beach. Maybe the families that lived on the islands when the park was made into a national park were allowed to stay on and fish? Unfortunately rules are not always followed in Thailand, but we are actually impressed that this is a national park as it could be prime money-making-resort-land.


Our lunch of fried rice really wasn’t the most interesting meal, but being all alone on a deserted island it tasted fantastic! Later on we kayaked past some impressive sheer drops of stone walls, and we were just in awe of the landscape here. It was so quiet and peaceful, not another tourist in sight, just the way we had hoped. Upon sailing onto the beach on Sam Sao we kayaked through a natural stone arch – so cool!
To be continued…