Ao Phang Nga (5)
2004: You write it
Phang Nga, you pronounce it Pangà.
This area of
2005: A few months
later, in July, Nong came out with some other good news. He found another
Nepenthes species in another island of the same gulf. This is the first picture
of this plant that was published on the web: pic1. Nong supposed it was of course
another of the many forms of the mysterious N. thorelii. But this plant, called
since then “giant thorelii”, not only doesn’t grow in the same area of N.
thorelii (the north-east), but it also hasn’t much to do with it. Nong kindly
provided some photos of the plant in the natural habitat, that you can see checking
my links to his website. And you can also build up
your own opinion giving a look at the bottom of the x-plants
page.
2006: I went to Phangà.
One month before I went to visit Nong’s nursery, Neofarm, to collect as many
information as possible about all the mokao locations he knew about. Nong is a
very kind man, and personally I find myself very close to his sense of humour.
Unfortunately he’s not only very busy, but he’s also kept in the dark by the
villagers about most of the Nepenthes locations. In fact the villagers, coming
from everywhere in
Let’s go back to Neofarm. I asked Nong about N.
Viking. He showed me how he’s trying to propagate this species by tissue culture.
He said he only knows about two islands in the phanga gulf which host mokao
moken lin. The Viking island is kept in the deepest secret. There are only two
families who know that place and they want (they wanted) to remain the only
source for this plant on the market. Nong went to that island, but he was asked
10.000 bat (250 euros). A completely crazy price, I can’t imagine how much they
could ask to a rich farang. Nong was taken there by night, so that he had no
idea about which direction they took. The trip took about 4 hours, but as long
as he knows maybe the villagers went around for some time to confuse their
guest. N. Viking here grows near the beach, in pure sand. The specimens of this
species that you find here seem to be all of the purest line, with round
pitchers. Then he went to another island, where he was taken by some other
villager. Nong promised this person to never reveal where this island is. So
there’s no way to know that, and maybe that’s better. But for your curiosity
I’ll tell you that it’s half an hour from the coast (but from which pier??
There are too many!) and three hours from the Viking island.
On this second island the “giant thorelii”
grows up on a hill. There are also some other plants growing here, on the
beach. They are still called “Viking” but Nong says they are not “pure blood”.
They grow on the beach but their pitchers have a longer “neck”, so that they’re
not round (see Nong’s website for more details).
These are very interesting news. The “giant thorelii” seems to have the unique
characteristic, among the thai species, of having a striped peristome, which
eventually gets red (like N. maxima, truncata etc). What about the not-pure
Vikings? How can they be hybrids if there are no other species on that island a
part from the “giant thorelii”? How comes that there are no intermediate plants
between the two species but just the “giant” on the hill and the not-pure
Viking on the beach? Is the latter a new species, that was created by mother nature
only to make us crazy (an evolution of N. mirabilis which went in the same
direction of Viking but didn’t reach that same extreme?? Gosh!) ?? We could have another example of
these extreme N. mirabilis in Thung Khai…
One month later I went to Phang-nga city. I
found a nice room for 150 bat. The owners were two very old ladies. They were
very kind and smiley, but also very pressing. Every morning I used to wake up,
go down and their first words were “You check out?”, “No”, “Pay now! Pay now!”,
holding out their hands. Until I got tired and I said some bad words in
Italian. And I started paying in the late afternoon, just to make them suffer.
Once one of them even came into my room, as she probably thought I wasn’t
there, she saw me and she said “ooohh, thank you, thank you!!” and left. The
“pay now” and “thank you” cases are two good examples of how a very bad English
can make your intentions appear much worse than what they really are. Here the
“pay now” would actually mean “can you please pay in advance, if you’re not
going to leave today?”. While the “thank you, thank you!!” would be “I’m very
sorry, I thought you were not in the room, I just came for the daily cleaning”.
I went to the bus station, where three or four agencies were looking forward to
help a lost farang to find his way.
Actually I went to ask where I could find mokao
moken lin in the area, as these agencies usually keep in their staff people who
know everything about even the most unknown attraction that can make them earn
some money. This time they did it for free, as I also refused all their
proposals of organized trips in the forest for 400-700 bat. Every day I face
that kind of trip for free. They told me that I could have found some mokao at
the Sanang Manorà and Song Prak waterfalls, 10 and 20 km north of the city (by
the way, at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found some N. mirabilis specimens
coming from Kan Sao Sai, in Phanga, but no one there knew this place). In the
evening, walking around while having an ice-cream, I ended up in some kind of
open shop covered with maps and natural beauties pictures. It was actually a
space owned by the local school. An English teacher used to bring some
different students ever other day, so that they could speak with tourists, help
them to find out the best places to visit in Phanga and improve their English at the same time. I
gave a look to all the brochures and maps they had, looking for you know what.
As I didn’t find anything interesting, I spoke with the teacher (I tried to
speak with the students but – the usual problem – they were too shy to speak,
how can they learn if nobody forces them to talk?) and I explained her
everything about my research. Her English was good, and she quickly asked the
kids if they knew anything about the mokao in the Phanga area. They said that
there was some mokao growing behind the house of a boy called Piyà, at Ban
Pring, 5 km from there. They called him and told him that the following day I
was probably going to pay him a visit at his school.
The following day I woke up early, as I wanted
to visit all the three places the same day, to have some more time to explore
the national park, a few kilometres south of the city, where I had to solve the
Viking and gianthorelii islands matter.
At Sanang Manorà, that I reached walking and
then thanks to a lift given by a motorbike, I was told by the kind and
interested staff that there’s no mokao there. One of the workers was born in
the area and he said he was sure about that, while he confirmed the presence of
mokao at Song Prak. Lift after lift I reached Song Prak. The final lift was
given to me by a kind man, who heard what I was looking for and brought me with
his motorbike up and down on the mountains for 30 minutes, asking at every
check point and elephant farm where the mokao was growing. I saw many very
beautiful jungle and mountain spots. We arrived to the final stop, the
headquarter of this campsite-like national park. Here I asked the staff at the
reception, showing my letter in thai language which explained everything about
my research. In the mean time about 400 students where looking at me, a whole
school on holyday. The Scorpions music was in the air, everybody was having
fun, most of them wearing a uniform. And they couldn’t but notice that strange
farang, all alone, in search of the famous mokao moken lin, as the voices
quickly spread among the crowd. First I was brought a few tens metres from
there, near the river, as the girl at the reception had told someone from the
staff that the mokao was growing there. We went but no mokao. So I convinced
her to move her (nice) ass to bring me directly to the place she meant, without
spending one hour to explain it to her staff friends. She brought me to another
place near the river, where finally I saw some N. mirabilis, more than two
metres high, growing among the bushes, in straight sand, a couple of metres
from the water. Here is the nicest specimen: pic1. On the way back I also found some
U. uliginosa.
The students grouped in front of the
headquarter were some of them were distributing dishes of noodles with sea
fruits. I took advantage of this umpteenth sign of my good luck and I had lunch
for free. One of the teachers asked me, joking, where I had left my uniform and
offered me an incredibly spicy chilly pepper, suggesting me to crunch it all at
once, as if I was so stupid to ignore what they were. He was probably trying to
have some revenge for my intrusion, fair enough, I gave him the satisfaction of
biting the tip of it and I made a suffering expression; this gave him and some
others the possibility to laugh for the 20 minutes I needed to finish my lunch.
I drank some water and left, saying thank you to everybody, students, staff and
nice girl at the reception. I walked for about 40 minutes enjoying the tropical
forests around me, then I decide to stop and wait for a car. A songtaew
stopped, with some Russian farangs in the backseats. The thai fellow who was
driving asked me where I was going and he was happy to bring me back very close
to the main road. He told me that the farangs were there to see the park
beauties and the songtaew was already paid, so no problem. The thai man looked
particularly happy and conciliatory when I said “karabao” looking at the bull
head tattoo on his shoulder. Karabao is the national rock hero, that’s his
symbol. On the main road another man gave me a lift and brought me all the way
back to Piya’s school, at Ban Pring.
Here we asked a teacher, who told us where Piyà
was living. The man brought me there, we spoke with Piyà’s cousin, who works as
a guide in Phuket and has a perfect English. She was waiting for me. She told
me how the mokao was once growing behind that house, but in the last few years
many people went there to collect it and sell it or grow it at home, so that
now it was probably gone. I was curious to see what there was behind the house,
as all the area had nothing to do with the usual Nepenthes habitat. I walked
for a few metres, among some chickens and rubbish, then among some trees, while
the girl kept telling me “yes, right there, right there”. I was quite doubtful,
when suddenly over the last bushes I found myself in front of a laaarge, open
sand mine, with sparse vegetation here and there, including the usual forked
ferns. I started exploring the whole area and I found some thirsty N.
mirabilis, surviving the drought but enjoying the sun. I went back and told the
girl that she had to protect those plants as much as possible, as these mokao
poachers are one of the reasons why this plant is disappearing in the whole
Country. The man who brought me there gave me the last lift to my hotel. No
words to say how these people can be so kind and ready to help you at any time.
You won’t believe it, but I had been so quick that there was still time for the
national park.
The Ao Phanga national park has over 40 islands
and a large mangrove forest in its inland part. I’m sure you’ll greatly
appreciate a photo of the whole gulf taken by satellite, which will give you an
idea of what it means when they tell you “yes, they grow there, somewhere” and
you just have a couple of days to cooperate with people who don’t speak
English: Pic1. At the park headquarter,
at two different offices, after one hour spent trying to make them understand
what I was saying, they said “no mokao sorry”. They probably had no idea of the
worldwide discussion which is in process about their park, and how the
nepenthes are being collected, sold and put at risk of extinction without the
staff even knows they exist. After a while I was told to get in touch with Mr.
Wittaya, owner of the chic, expensive but wonderful restaurant behind the
visitor centre. He speaks a good English and he knows very well all the boatmen
which bring the tourists to most of the park islands. At the restaurant they
told me that Wittaya was very late and I had to come back the following day. In
the evening, after a deserved shower, while having my usual ice-cream I went to
the little “farang student centre” to tell the teacher how my research was
proceeding. By the way, the tsunami doesn’t seem to have left any sign of its
presence here. I saw some photos of how the disaster was able to destroy many
places in Phanga, but the citizens were very fast, brave and effective (in the
whole Country it was like that, you’ll see it my other south
notes), as much as the government was with delivering helps and money, so
that now everything is like before, even better. The following day I went back
to the national park. I went to the restaurant and after a few hours, that I
spent visiting a part of the mangrove forest following an elevated wooded track
with didactic signs, I met Mr. Wittaya. He’s a very kind man, who sat down,
offered me a cigarette and listened to the whole story with great attention.
Lost islands, mysterious plants, illegal poaching, who wouldn’t find that
interesting?
He told me he was ready to help me, even if
there were not many ways to do it. He could only ask all the boatmen and let me
know. There’s no way to visit all the 40 islands, especially considering that
to go and come back for a general, quick, 3 hours tour of the bay, they’ll ask me
1000 bat. No way to see the islands one by one to find the mokao ‘ken lin. I
would need my own boat. Then not all the islands are tourist places, so there’s
no need for the boatmen to go there, and no need to have any idea about which
plants are growing on them. Then again not all the islands are inside the
national park. If you see the sat map,
there’s a big island right in the middle of the picture. Only the islands on
its left belong to the national park boundary. Without much hope I left Phanga,
ready to come back at any good news from Mr. Wittaya. The news never arrived.
He wrote me, saying that one of the boatmen thought he had seen some mokao on
one of his islands and he could take some photos of it. Email after email,
Wittaya always told me he was going to do that the following week, and
eventually he didn’t even answer anymore.
