Pha Taem n.p. (6)
2004: I received an
email from the kind Eric Schlosser, well known among cp growers for his passion
for Utricularia. He told me that I could have found some Nepenthes on Phu
Kradung and…in the Pha Taem n.p. I asked him how he had been able to find such
a precious information, and he gave me this link (http://www.pop.co.th/travel/honey.phtml?sid=2123&type=en).
So I was ready to include this park to my list without knowing much else about
it. But I was quite lucky. When, during the last days in
2006: I went
there. I left Trakan Puet Pon not under the best omens. It took half an hour to
go from my resort to downtown. I had a quick breakfast and then, looking around
for any information about how to reach the national park, in a shop I met a
girl, Niky. She had a very good English as she had lived in Australia for a few
years. She brought me to the bus station and helped me to find out the best way
to go to Pha Taem and she even left me her phone number, just in case I could
have had any problem going around in the Trakan Puet Pon area. The people at
the station told her that I had to take a tuk-tuk from the bus stop where the
bus would have left me. But being used to it, as soon as the bus let me down,
after 4 minutes I stopped a car who brought me directly to the main road to the
park. I did the last 2 km walking. Very nice and strange surroundings: rocks
and savannahs.
Probably
in the rainy season those places are covered with utrics. At the checkpoint I
showed my letter in thai language which explained the purpose of my visit and
they let me go to the visitor centre without paying the fee. At the visitor
centre I was shown a couple of mokao plants growing in some flower beds. Just a
few pitchers, which gave me the idea of a N. smilesii, but not enough for a
final identification. The staff told me (after some confusion: I had to go with
a park guard and his motorbike to another visitor centre, where I had been told
that the mokao was growing, while eventually it wasn’t true; but in this way I
had another occasion to see the amazing surroundings, flat rocks and savannahs
for kilometres, you wouldn’t be surprised to see a dinosaur walking around in
such a habitat!) that the mokao is growing only at the Soi Sawan waterfalls, at
200 mt altitude. The highest altitude at Pha Taem is in fact 200 mt, another
detail that gives me some doubts about that Nepenthes identity (N. smilesii
goes from 700 to 1200 mt). I wasn’t sure about what to do, as I also had to see
another mokao location, the Kaeng Tana np, and after all I had some pictures and
lids of the plants at Pha Taem. I went back to the check point and I waited for
the fate to decide. After 20 minutes a car stopped, that was going right to the
Kaeng Tana np.
A couple
of days later, Niky offered herself to bring me to the Soi Sawan waterfalls by
car. I accepted as this was making my job much easier. At about 11am we arrived
and we didn’t even had to pay the fee as the waterfalls were dry and the
checkpoint empty. We were told by the staff that the mokao is probably growing
in one of the three main tourist spots, where all the particular flowers and
plants are growing. The first mokao plants I saw there were on the sides of the
little manmade walk that brought to the different view sites. They were not at
all healthy, as they had probably been potted in the wrong time of the year and
in the wrong way. A few meters away I saw the most incredible view. Rocks and
flat savannahs, for kilometres, covered with D. burmanni, indica, U. bifida and
delphinioides. Look here: pic1, pic2, pic3.
I noticed in many visitor centres and parks that everywhere dusita is growing
(dusita is Utricularia), you can see some pictures of the Queen while she
enjoys the view and the beautiful affect these plants can give when they grow
by the hundreds of thousands.
But
here in Pha Taem in particular you’ll see some kind of rock seat rounded by
ropes: that’s the place where the Queen sat down to look at dusitas when she
came to visit this place. And of course the staff made a little monument out of
it. All these carnivorous plants were still healthy and growing despite the dry
season because of some underground, perennial streams that keep the whole area
constantly wet. I couldn’t see mokao for some time though. Then, suddenly, near
two different trees, a few metres one from the other, the only two plants I
could find. There were no other specimens, nor I could see any seedling or
smaller plants, just these two big Nepenthes, not too far from the walk side.
It seems to me a little bit unnatural, but at least there’s no doubt that those
two plants hadn’t been planted by the staff. Then also, the area is so vast
that probably other plants are growing in less visited places, and those two
were left there for the tourists to take pictures. Niky was waiting for me, so
I had to be fast and I couldn’t visit the rest of the area.
The
two N. smilesii plants were about 1 mt tall; the first had lower pitchers and
no flowers. The second one had just upper pitchers and a few big flowers, with
many large seed capsules already emptied, by mother nature or father staff.
They were growing on a carpet of dry grass, in full sun. The soil was made of
clay and sand in equal parts. The temperature was quite high, probably around
35 C, but it was lunch time, so that’s normal. Here a few pics: pic1, pic2,
pic3.
I
spent that last afternoon in Trakan doing my packets to send plants and seeds
around the world.
2007: I went
straight to my usual hotel near Trakan. I relaxed for the rest of the evening;
I had my usual rice with prawns and some whisky with the resort owner. The
following day I went to Soi Sawan. I got there by bus and, I don’t know why,
they didn’t make me pay for the ticket. I went around the whole place exploring
a much larger area than the previous year. But I could only find the usual two
big plants and 2-3 other smaller ones, planted near the car park. On the way
out I found a family that was going back to Trakan. They just told me to wait
for about one hour, to let them visit the waterfalls. So I had a drink, a
strange gum-flavoured sprite they have here in
