Mae Wa n.p. (10)
2004: At the BKF in
Bangkok I’ve been told by Mr. Pooma (see The Trip) that the mokao grows
there, and he visited the place with M. Cheek. At the BKF I also found a
specimen labeled "N. mirabilis" that was growing at an altitude of
600-700 mt, in a place called Doi Mae Wa.
2006: I went there. I
left Tak at 7 o’clock in the morning and I reached the n.p. by bus 2 hours
later. Some people from the park staff saw me at the bus stop and they called
the park guards who - with a pick up and holding their rifles - brought me to
the park head quarter. I managed not to pay the fee as the guards just tried to
find someone who could speak English to help me. The only person was a young
guy at the village next to the park, so we went back to the main road and I
spoke with this smart guy called “E” (they always have nicknames here, as their
real names are usually too hard to pronounce, so they keep a “farang version”).
I was still on the back of the pick up while speaking with E (who was on the
road), with the guards all around me, all very curious about the purpose of my
trip and about all the documents and maps that I had regarding the mokao moken
lin.
They were listening very
carefully to our conversation, trying to find out the best way to help me. E
told me that he only saw the mokao in one little area of the park, near the
headquarter. On their brochure it was 1 cm, from the HQ to the nepenthes, but
they told me that it would take 24 hours to go and come back! The name of the
area is Nam Dip Kop and, they told me again, it’s at 600-700 mt altitude. As I
suspected that nothing but N. mirabilis could be found there, I asked E to send
me by email the pictures he had taken in the past, and I renounced to reach Nam
Dip Kop. The photos you see down here were taken by E, and they show N.
mirabilis, strangely growing at 700 mt altitude, in a pine forest area which
dries out during the hot season, so that the plants only thrive in the wet
months. Exactly the same conditions in which N. smilesii grows, factor that
lead both me and probably M. Cheek to…well, just check! I had a quick lunch in
a place in front of the bus station, next to the park, and then I took the bus
to Chiang Mai…
