Flora and Fauna in Thong Nai Pan

I was aimlessly surfing the net today and discovered the official website for the Department of National Parks and Plant Conservation – www.dnp.go.th. It’s a really clunky website; typical of government websites in Thailand, but it does contain some interesting information.

I have always been curious about what flora and fauna you can expect to see in Thong Nai Pan. I have seen large birds, snakes, lizards and a plethora of insects. I have also spotted lots of different types of tree and flower. But beyond personal experience and anecdotal accounts of huge snakes etc., I have been unable to get a definitive list of what you might hope to see in the Thong Nai Pan area. That is until now. The national parks website has a page about Than Sadet, just a few kilometers down the coast. It is a safe bet to say that most of what Than Sadet has got Thong Nai Pan also has.

Here is what the website lists for Than Sadet:

Flora and Geography

Interior: lush primary forests filled with evergreen trees. The forest floor is important as it contains such flora as hopea odorata.

Hillside: dry primary forest with stone channels where important plants such as chukrasia velutina are found. It is a limestone mountain containing Portia tree and hibiscus.

Fauna

Mammals: cervus unicolour (deer), monkey, spectacled langur, slow Loris and Javan mongoose

Birds: brahminy kite, white-bellied sea eagle, hill myna

Snakes: both venomous and non-venomous such as cobra, king cobra, green cat snake, python.

Amphibians: frogs, Blyth’s mountain frog

Other aquatic life: striped sea catfish, striped snake-head fish, crab, shrimp, land tortoise, splendid squid, rainbow cuttle fish.

Shell: oyster, scaly giant clam, abalone.

Sea turtle: green turtle and hawksbill turtle.

Notes

1) The deer, as legend has it, were released under the orders of King Rama V around Than Sadet. I’ve never met anyone who has seen one of these deer. They are protected by royal edict but who knows if they established themselves into the island’s eco-system.
2) To this list I would add monitor lizards, geckos and numerous birds (see bird’s of Thong Nai Pan post) and water buffalo (domesticated), dogs (domesticated) and cats (domesticated)

King Rama V in Thong Nai Pan

King Chulalongkorn was the fifth monarch of Siam in the Chakri Dynasty, also known as King Rama V. The present King Bhumibol is of the same dynasty and is called Rama IX.

King Rama V was the monarch that saved the Kingdom from partition under colonial powers. He also attempted to reduce corruption in the administration, abolished slavery and did what he could to modernize the Kingdom while preserving the religious traditions of the country.

He was the first monarch of Thailand to properly tour his Kingdom. He bought a steam ship and spent time visiting the islands in both the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea.

One of the islands that he frequently visited during his reign (1868 – 1910) was Koh Phangan. As several websites about the island mention, King Rama V was particularly smitten with Than Sadet. He went to the waterfall and the beach in this area a number of times. He even carved his initials into a rock by the waterfall. This started a trend: both King Rama VII and the present King Rama IX have also carved their initials into giant rocks by the river bed.

What is less well known is that King Rama V also spent time in the Thong Nai Pan area. He visited Than Prawes waterfall and spent time in the villages of Noi and Yai. As with Than Sadet, he commemorated his fondness for Thong Nai Pan by carving his initials into a large rock in what is now Thong Nai Pan Noi village.

If you are walking from the beach through the village it is on the right. You go past Rasta Baby and over the bridge. The famous rock is next to the building that is at present an ice cream shop. Sadly there is construction work going on at the moment obscuring the rock from the road.

Perhaps if more people expressed an interest in seeing the rock with King Rama V’s initials on the local community would make more of an effort to preserve the area around the rock and make it a tourist attraction.

The Path

When tourists first visited Koh Phangan in the 1970s there was no road to Thong Nai Pan. The last part of the journey from Thongsala had to be done on foot or by boat. Footpaths were important travel routes. One route that has sadly disappeared in Thong Nai Pan is the path over the rocky headland that divides the northern Thong Nai Pan Noi from its larger southern sister, Thong Nai Pan Yai. It is a path that saves a lot of time. The alternative is to take the main road up the hill and down the other side. The present journey on foot between the two beaches takes about 30 minutes.

Panviman has occupied the Noi side of the peninsula for over 15 years and has had an impact on the accessibility of the peninsula. They have also recently secured a spot on yai beach at the bottom of the rocks. Previously they have built walk ways partly around the peninsula for guests to access villas and take in the scenery.

There used to be a very faint track that if you slipped quietly along let you take the short cut from one beach to the other. This path is now mostly used by Panviman staff. The development of this great spot straddling the two beaches seems to have closed the rock-route between the beaches.

On the rocks around Panviman there used to be a colony of giant lizards that you could spot sunning themselves most days. There numbers have dwindled.

The future surely for Panviman is to make the hotel one that offers its guests easy access to not one, but two fantastic beaches. It is a unique selling point.