If you click on the link up here the map will appear and you'll be able
to magnify it how much you prefer.
1) Khao
Phanom Thong n.p. and Wat Bot
2) Phu
Hin Rong Kla n.p.
3)
4) Thung Saleng Luang n.p. Nepenthes here! click, read
what's happened and see a few pics.
5)
Kaeng Chet Kaeo n.p.
6) Sak
Yai n.p.
7)
Klong Tron n.p.
8) Ram
Kham Haeng n.p.
9) Lam Nam
Nan n.p. 14 Feb 2004. Fortunately on the way back from Klong Tron I had seen the entrance of
this other np, entrance that following my map should have been in a completely
different area. The park extends all around an enormous lake. I had a nice 4 Km
walk up to the headquarter. What a shame that the lake was not visible from
there. I asked the guard about the mokao moken lin and he went to call someone
more expert than him. Then this girl came, and she told me that Nepenthes are
not growing there. Well, this was the last defeat, as the next np was going to
be Phu Kradung…
10) Mae Wa n.p. Nepenthes mirabilis
here, read the story and see the pics…
11) Phu
Soi Dao n.p. No Nepenthes here. This and the followings are the parks that have been called by the nice
and kind lady from the Versaille Mansion, where I was staying in Phitsanulok in
2004. When she realized that I was in Thailand just for that, she did all she
could to help me. And it’s really a great thing to have a local person who is
helping you in these kind of research, as you‘ve seen how things can be
difficult here just because you’re not thai! Most of the park officers at the
phone appeared quite sure about whether or not they had the mokao over there. I
took the parks phone numbers from an internet site and give the lady the list,
then she called and asked "Do you have mokao moken lin? Where in the park
does it grow?". Unfortunately in 2006, when I went to ALL the np that said
“yes”, they ALL, incredibly, said “no mokao, sorry”. Just in two cases they
recognized the phone number we had called in 2004 and just in one case, Doi
Inthanon, the confusion was cleared up (the park had a botanic
garden/restaurant/research center inside, and in this place they used to grow
nepenthes a few years before, so the park officers were quite self confident
when at the phone they said “yes, mokao grows here”. Of course. Brilliant.). I
can’t still believe it or understand how the hell that could happen for more
than ten times! Now the same work of “park calling” is being done once again
for all the thai national parks, by Agent Niky, someone I really trust and who
works in a more effective way, writing down the name of the person who sais
“yes” and the name of the area where the mokao grows. In the list that follows,
at this point, excluding the parks where I’ve been in 2006, you can’t even
trust the negative answers. We just have the possibility, after that the second
“park calling” will be done, to say that some of these parks said “no mokao”
twice. That only helps to take them off from the list of the places to visit,
for some time…
12) Si
Satchanalai n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
13) Nam
Nao n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
14) Ob
Luang n.p. Or Op Luang. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
15)
Chiang Dao n.p. No Nepenthes here. We called in 2004 and they
said “Yes! We have Mokao Moken Lin!”. But then in 2006 I went there. I arrived
at the main road at 9:30. Then a sign to a secondary road, “Chiang Dao Wildlife
Sanctuary”. Not exactly a national park, but that was the only sign I could
follow. I stopped a car and the driver, who later confessed to be a
professionist of the batik art of flower and butterfly painting (his website,
bangkokprofile.com), brought me directly to the end of the road. From there I
followed a small, steep road up on the mountain and I finally reached the
office. A small office, with just a few photos of wild animals here and there
and a man in uniform with a kid, probably his son. I asked about the mokao, I
showed him a drawing and of course he started laughing. After the usual few
minutes of laughing he said, “no mokao, sorry”. I showed him the phone numbers
we called two years before, but he didn’t recognize them. He even called them
but nobody answered the phone, and as he couldn’t speak English, the only thing
he was repeating was “no mokao”, no other explanation. A little bit of hope
arrived when he managed to explain something like “oh, but this is not the
Chiang Dao national park, this is the Chiang Dao wildlife sanctuary”, and he
told me where the check point of the np was. I went back almost to the first
main road and then back again, as the np was at the end of a parallel road. On
the road I stopped at a wonderful place, a little restaurant with some
bungalows, some kind of hidden resort. “Nest” was the name. A perfect wild
paradise for tourists. Expensive but good food and quiet atmosphere (I had
garlic bread with balsamic vinegar, parmesan cheese and roasted chips,
something not easy to find around here, believe me!!), the whole place being
rounded by the park mountains and forests. After lunch I arrived at the np
check point, that was surrounded by the high, vertical, deep mountain forest,
so that the whole area was almost completely dark. I just found some poor
looking workers, man and women, who of course started laughing and shouting one
to the others some phrases containing the word “farang”. They were looking
after the flower beds near the check point. First I asked about the mokao, and
after laughing for some more minutes, and after looking at a nepenthes drawing,
they said “no mokao”. So I asked about the np office or headquarter, and they
said the office was at the end of the parallel road. Yes, exactly the place
where I had just been. They also didn’t recognize the Chiang Dao phone numbers
I had called in 2004. I went back and stopped a car, that brought me to the
main road where I took the bus to Me Malay, the nearest city to the Huay Nam
Dang np.
16) Doi
Inthanon n.p. No Nepenthes here. We called in 2004 and they
said “Yes! We have Mokao Moken Lin!”. But then in 2006 I went there. I left
Chiang Mai at 8:30 and soon arrived to a small city, from where - thanks to the
usual free lift - I reached the park very easily. Here I bought my 200 bat
ticket, full of hope, as the check point staff told me that the mokao was
growing in a place called Klong Kan Luang. I went to another check point
following the staff directions. On the way to this second check point a taxi
driver asked me 500 bat to go to Klong Kan. Crazy. When I reached the second
check point the park guards told me to wait until they could stop someone who
was going where I was going. After about half an hour a car stopped and I
arrived, for free, very close to my target. After another 30 minutes walk I
reached a very large, flat, open area among the mountains, full of cultivated
fields and greenhouses. On the way to this place I had already realized that
there was something wrong. The neighbourhoods were becoming always more
populated, while usually if you’re looking for nepenthes, road after road you
find yourself in always more lost, hidden and unreachable places. I went to the
main office of this strange “Centre”, where fountains, restaurants, flower
shops and greenhouses can be found one near the others like in any European
botanic garden. I spoke with an old, smart, English speaking man, probably the
director, who easily understood what had happened, as much as I did. He even
helped me to check if they were still growing some mokao moken in their
greenhouses, but he found out – disappointed as much as I was – that all their
nepenthes had been neglected and died. Not that I was expecting to find much
more than N. mirabilis, but that would have been better than nothing. The
director told me to ask at the headquarter, another 30 minutes walk from the
Centre. I went to the headquarter, where after a while the always laughing
guards called another smart, English speaking, old man. He told me to ask the
Klong Kan director. Jesus. Anyway, eventually we called by phone a lady who
seems to be an expert of the plant life of Doi Inthanon. She said that as far
as she knows the mokao doesn’t grow there. Enough negative answers for that
day, I had to think again how to go back to Chiang Mai. And again my good luck
with hitchhiking arrived on time. A comfortable and expensive minivan stopped.
Inside, a group of men and women who clearly belonged to some kind of high
business society, were quite happy to bring me back to Chiang Mai for free. Of
course, as a reward, I had to tell them all my story about the mokao moken lin.
We stopped by some very large waterfalls, where I was asked to appear in all
the pictures they took. They bought me some fresh, green mango with the usual
little bag of sugar, salt and chili powder and we drove back home.
17)
Huay Nam Dang n.p. No Nepenthes here. We called
in 2004 and they said “Yes! We have Mokao Moken Lin!”. But then in 2006 I went
there. The closest city was Me Malay, where I arrived at 4:15, after having
just been at Chiang Dao np. I found a man who was loading his out-of-service
minibus with a lot of stuff (mainly big cooking terracotta pots) he had just
bought at the market. He offered me to go to Huay Nam Dang, 77 km far away, for
just 40 bat. The temperature in the area started going down as soon as the sun
set. And also, sitting in the back of the open songtaew, the cold wind was
freezing me. The driver wasn’t very good, and after one hour and a half of tens
of rapid curves taken at 200 km/h, on the mountain, with that climate, I
started feeling not too well. I managed not to vomit, and once we reached an
altitude of 1000 meters, thank God, we stopped right in front of the park
entrance, where I soon recovered. At the entrance the very kind staff, laughing
and using here and there the usual word “farang”, just knocked twice on the
sign “1 person, 200 bat”. I ignored the “I’m the smartest one here” expression
of the officer and asked to speak with someone from the park office. A very
kind, English speaking lady answered to one of the guards mobile phones, and I
explained her what I was doing there and what I was looking for. She knew the
mokao moken, and she also asked the staff at the office, but they said they
were quite sure no one had ever seen it growing in the park. She couldn’t come
to the entrance to see me because, she said, the office was 6 km far and her
motorbike was broken. I wasn’t allowed to go to the office without paying the
200 bat and after the negative answer there wasn’t so much need to see the
office personally. Plus, it was about 6 o’clock, the sun was gone and I had to
find some way to go back to Chiang Mai from that lost place on the mountains.
The lady told me to leave my email address there and that she would write me some
days later to discuss the problem. Of course she never did. I was waiting for
the last daily bus on the main road in front of the park, when my incredible
good luck (when it comes to hitchhiking) helped me once again. A little,
private minibus, loaded with a group of students, came out of the park. “Where
you go?”, they said all together smiling. “Chiang Mai”, I said. “Come, come”.
And they brought me back to Chiang Mai for free. They were from a Christian
University. The driving this time was great, slow and safe, and the songtaew
was closed on the sides, so that just the back end was open. Enough to avoid
the cold wind and to enjoy the wonderful, clean sky. Only on Phu Kradung, Thung
Saleng Luang and at the planetarium in Milan I have seen so many stars all
together. The students offered me some snacks. While I started telling the
usual story about my research and the mokao moken, I realized that they were
repeating all together at the same time any thai word I could say, probably to
show me the correct pronounce. I started doing it for fun! “Farang”, I said,
and they all together “faraaaaaang!”. “Padthai”, “Padthaaaaai!”. “Savadikap”,
“Saavaadiikaaaap!”. Quite funny, really. After having run out of thai words,
and after a lot of fun, we reached Chiang Mai, where they stopped in front of
their school. For 20 bat I took a bus to my guesthouse and went to sleep.
18) Mae
Fang n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
19)
Chao Sawn n.p. Or Chae Son. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
20) Doi
Luang n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
21)
Klong Wang Chao n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
22) Lan
Sang n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
23) Mae
Wong n.p. No Nepenthes here. We called in 2004 and they
said “Yes! We have Mokao Moken Lin!”. But then in 2006 I went there. I arrived
at lunch time, after two buses from Nakon Sawan, a lift given by a jeep of
smart fellows and a kind policeman who brought me to the n.p. headquarter. The
park has two lines of mountains, in the north and in the south, in the middle
you have some sea-level fields. The trail that has been explored by the park
staff, and so then by tourist groups, and that is probably the only known area
of the park, goes from the centre of the field to one of the mountains peaks,
east direction. There are no flat tops, just peaks. I asked a kind, smart and
English speaking lady who works there, she asked all the staff members, who
have been working there for 2-5 years. They’ve never seen any kind of
carnivorous plants there. I had a great, free lunch, together with the
policeman and the lady, enjoying the beautiful and peaceful surroundings,
something like the Swiss countryside. Then the policeman brought me back to the
bus station for the next destination, after giving me some local fruits.
24) Mae
Yom n.p. No Nepenthes here. Called in 2004.
25) Sri
Nan n.p. No Nepenthes here. We called in 2004 and they
said “Yes! We have Mokao Moken Lin!”. But then in 2006 I went there. I arrived
in the town of Nan on the evening. I found a very nice guesthouse, probably the
only one in the whole town, and I had dinner in very nice place, a bakery, on
the main road, where you can also get a very good farang breakfast for a very
low price. The owner was a smart girl with a very good English. We had a quite
relaxing conversation in his quite relaxing little restaurant (after two months
I still remember that little corner of that little town as one of the best
places where I’ve been during my 2006 trip). She told me that when she was a
little girl, 20-30 years ago, the mokao moken lin was everywhere, and the
villagers used to go in the forest to cut it and sell it at the market. “But
now” she said, “no more forest, no more mokao moken lin”. That is so sad. She
asked a friend, who said that the mokao grows in the Sri Nan n.p., up on the
mountain. It only grows in the wet season. In the dry period the road to the
mokao site is closed and “difficult”. The description matched perfectly with
the usual N. smilesii habitat, including the road that is closed in the dry
season (see Thung Saleng Luang). The day
after I took two buses and after another two lifts I reached Sri Nan. At the
headquarter I couldn’t find any photo of nepenthes and the staff told me “no
mokao, sorry, go to Khun Satan np, they have”. Bah. I also went to the visitor
centre where the only answer to my questions, after 45 minutes of silence mixed
with laughs and a few thai words, was “I don’t know” and “ask BKF in Bangkok”.
I took it as a negative answer and I promised myself to go deeper in that
matter, getting in touch with the guy at the bakery who had said “yes, it grows
in Sri Nan, on the mountain”. By the way, the phone number we called in 2004
was the one of the telephone box just out of the headquarter.
