The South

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1) Ranong, that’s the main city. In 2004 at the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found specimens labelled "N. mirabilis" coming from Muang Len, from the Ngow waterfall and from a mine at Had Som Pan village. In the same year at the Chulalongkorn herbarium I found a specimen, again from the Ngow waterfall, and I wrote "N. gracilis or mirabilis?" next to it on my notes. I don’t remember if that’s what was also written on the specimen’s label or if it was just a personal doubt. In 2007 I went to check, as N. gracilis is quite rare in Thailand and also because Eric Schlosser from Germany was hoping I could also find the rare U. corynephora, found near those waterfalls many years ago, at 300 metres altitude. With a songtew it didn’t take too long from Ranong to the very popular Nam Tok Ngow Park. I walked from the main road to the mean way that goes straight to the park. Just before the entrance I saw a few metres away some forked ferns, so I went to check and in fact I found N. mirabilis. At the entrance a man with a very sleepy expression on his face but very excited in his movements came to me and started speaking in Thai. In no way he could understand that I couldn’t speak Thai. He just kept talking and talking. Of course I knew he wanted me to pay the fee (200 bat!) but it was some kind of holyday, as the expedition this time was a very easy one and for a very common plant, it was meant to be just an easy day of relax, so I was in the mood of playing. I wanted to see how long he could take to use his own brain to go a few metres back, take one ticket with the price on it and show it to me so that I could understand. It took 15 minutes, which I counted with my watch. At the visitor centre there were a few N. mirabilis pictures but no utrics. No food, all the little restaurants were closed, all the staff was away. I just had my water. I soon reached the waterfalls, a vertical, open cliff of a few hundred metres; the only place where you can find carnivorous plants, as all around it’s just tropical, thick forest. In the rock crevices of the whole cliff U. bosminifera was quite abundant, flowering and impossible to take decent pictures of. There was some kind of vertical strip of soil going all the way up on the right side of the waterfall, and that’s where here and there you could find some N. mirabilis, often in too much shade to produce good pitchers. I climbed up for about a hundred metres, attaching myself to crevices and branches, until it became really too dangerous and I risked to fall down and die. The cliff is quite vertical and completely wet; it’s very easy to loose the grip. No corynephora, probably I really had to climb up to 300 metres. But that was mirabilis, not gracilis, I got no doubts anymore!

2) Ko Phangam. That’s an island. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" that comes from there. There’s a national park on the island, maybe the mokao grows inside that.

3) Ta Kuapa. Nepenthes here! Read all we know about them…(trip 2008)

4) Kien Sa, that’s the main city. At the Chulalongkorn herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen of N. mirabilis from a no-hunting area near this place.

5) Ao Phang Nga. Nepenthes here! Read all we know about them…(trip 2006)

6) Thung Song, that’s the main city. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" that was coming from there.

7) Krabi.

Nepenthes here! See some pics and read the story (updated 2007).

8) Khao Pra Bang Khram. On my map that’s a wildlife sanctuary, something similar to a national park. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found some specimens labelled "N. mirabilis" that were coming from there.

9) Huay Yod, or Huay Yot. That’s the main city. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a strange specimen without label that was coming from this district.

10) Thai Muang, that’s the main city. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" that comes from this place, exactly "near the bridge", as written on the label. The strange thing is that the label says "Thai Muang, Phuket", and Phuket is much further to the south, while the actual nearest city would be Phang Nga.

11) Phuket. I’m sure you know that place, as it’s the main target for all the tourists together with Chiang Mai. It’s the main city of a beautiful island. It’s not cheap if compared to the rest of Thailand but there you’ll find all the comforts and a lot of falangs. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" that was coming from west of Ban Bohan, I don’t know where near Phuket.

12) Sikao, that’s the main city. At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" that was coming from Ban Mai, a village near that city. In 2006 at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found a specimen of N. mirabilis coming from the ex-national park Had Chao Nai.

13) Kantang, that’s the main city (I visited the two nearby islands Ko Libong and Ko Sukon in 2008). At the BKF herbarium in Bangkok a specimen labelled "N. mirabilis" was coming from this area.

14) Trang, Nepenthes here! Read the story and see the photos (trip 2007).

15) Chanà, Nepenthes here! Read the story and see the photos (trip 2007).

16) Thung Nui, Nepenthes here! See what’s happened (trip 2006).

17) Narathiwat, Nepenthes here! Read the story and see the photos (trip 2008).

19) Kanchanadit, that's the main city. Some mysterious Nepenthes around here. But no photos yet, just the dry specimen (trip 2007).

20) Betong, that's the main city. From "Skeletal Revision of Nepenthes" by Cheek and Jebb (1997), we know that N. sanguinea is growing here, on G. Ina, 20 Km east of Betong, near the border with Malaysia.

21) Chumpon, that’s the main city. In 2006 at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found specimens of N. mirabilis coming from Kao Mudtree, Paknam Chumpon, Toung Kar and Kuring, all in this province. Mr. Pooma of the BKF also found N. mirabilis near Sawi, at Thung Tako, Ban Khao Thalu.

22) Lang Suan, that’s the main city. In 2006 at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found some specimens of N. mirabilis coming from Na Sak.

23) Ko Samui, that’s the main island. In 2006 at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found some specimens of N. mirabilis coming from Hin Lard Fall.

24) Nakon Si Thammarat, that’s the main city. In 2006 at the BK herbarium I found some specimens of N. gracilis, coming from the Ta Samet river. In 2007 I reached Nakon Si from Surat in a couple of hours. I found the nice Thai Lee hotel, 140 bat a night. I had lunch and immediately I asked around if anybody knew Ta Samet. Not many people did. At the bus station I was told to take the bus to Pattalung and within two hours the guy on the bus let me down on the main road, near a lost village that seemed to be the closest point to Ta Samet, more than 10 km away. Fortunately two kind and very young girls gave me a lift with their motorbike, and by the way I didn’t even have to pay for the bus from Nakon Si, I don’t know why. But where the two girls left me I had to take a motorbike taxi, who brought me around for more than one hour, asking everybody about the pitcher plants and even coming with me in the forest following people’s indications, with no result. And I knew that one hour with a motorbike taxi is supposed to cost quite a lot. Most of the people said that the previous year there was a lot of it, but then the local people collected all the plants to sell it at the market. Even if it looks like the usual lie given by people who don’t know where the plants are but don’t want to say “I don’t know”, it’s very sad how this poaching practice seems to be so common and well known here in Thailand. On the way back with the taxi we stopped near a house where somebody was keeping the mokao moken ling in a pot outdoor, and it was N. mirabilis. I still think we checked the wrong spots, as the indications always sent us on the side of the road and in the forest, where probably N. mirabilis used to grow, while on the above specimen N. gracilis is said to be growing in an open and marshy savannah, which I didn’t see. I gave 200 bat to the taxi guy and I spent another 60 bat for the minivan to Nakon Si. I had dinner at the KFC; when it was my turn to order there was a black out, I had to wait a lot before my food was ready and I had to eat in the darkness. After thirty minutes I left the place and immediately the light came back. I was quite depressed and nervous, and the best thing to do was moving to the next destination, Pattalung, which I reached the following morning.

25) Yala, that’s the main city. In 2006 at the BK herbarium in Bangkok I found some specimens of N. mirabilis coming from this area.

26) Adang, Nepenthes here, but I couldn’t see the plants (trip 2007).

27) Banthat mountains. Here in 2006 Mr. Voradol and Mr. Pooma found N. gracilis. They found it on Phu Pha Mek, at 1150 mt, but Voradol said he also visited some other of those mountains in the previous years, and he always found that same Nepenthes species. In Thailand there are two groups of mountains that are both called Banthat. The other group is in the Trat province, at the border with Cambodia. When in 2007 I paid a visit to Voradol at Thung Khai, I left him all the photos I had taken in the previous weeks, telling him about the plants at the village near Trang and how similar they were to those in Thung Khai. Then I asked if he had the photos he had taken at Phu Pha Mek; he said his pictures were in Bangkok and I had to ask there. In Bangkok I asked Mr. Pooma to send them to me and he kindly gave me an affirmative answer. But one month later he wrote me that Voradol doesn’t want him to do that. This is the second time something like that happens with Voradol (see Trang). I’ll leave to you any conclusion. In 2008 I spent some more days in Trang and I decided to see if I could reach Phu Pha Mek by myself. I went to the Prai Sawan waterfalls, 150 bath from the village of Yantakao by motorbike-taxi. There I was told, of course, that the road is an impossible maze, that it takes 8 hours to go and come back and that I needed a guide. Uff. It took a while to get those info, because the whole staff of the visitor centre couldn’t speak one word of English. They had no photos of the pitcher plants but they managed to explain that it grows on the mountain area between the Prai Sawan waterfall and the X waterfall. I was then supposed to go to the visitor center of the X waterfall, and there I could have found a guide. It was lunchtime, I knew how these things work (probably the guide would be free in three weeks and it would cost 2000 bath) so I went for my usual plan B. My smart motorbike guy brought me back to Yantakao, were I asked to be brought to any main school, because I knew that many classes go to Phu Pha Mek to enjoy some instructive pic-nic organized by the school. We reached a large high school, where of course the general reaction of all students was shouting “halloooo!!!”, laughing and making lots of questions to my driver, and the air was as usual filled by many “falang” and “mokao moken ling”. I made a few people run, including teachers and students. These people are always willing to have fun and to help. You just have to find the ones who want to help, the smartest ones. Eventually one teacher, after having checked with me hundreds of old photos, found a picture of N. gracilis stuck on a very old poster made to show the flora of the Banthat mountains. The photo was so bad that I didn’t even take a picture of it. The teacher told me that in this period the students are very busy, they have exams, but as soon as the exams are finished, she’ll ask them if they have a picture or if they can take some pictures as soon as they go up there again. She gave me her email and I made her promise five times to answer me. A few months later I sent her an email but of course I had no answer. And of course I’ll have to go back there in person. Phu Pha Mek has a large clearing on its top, a large mountain meadow that follows the whole top edge of the mountain, and that seems to be made on purpose to enjoy the best picnics. N. gracilis grows on the sides of this meadow, just before the deep forest.

28) Ko Pratong (and Ko Ra) N. mirabilis here. No photos, as a big fire had just burnt everything. But it was a nice adventure (trip 2007-2008).

29) Ban Nang Sata, that’s the closest town. But it’s still far from the mountain that Mr. Pooma visited in 2006, when he found this plant. It’s probably N. sanguinea. The mountain, at the border with Malaysia and completely unexplored, doesn’t even have a name. In Thai language they refer to it with the word “1490”, that indicates its height. The red spot in my map is right on the mountain.

30) Patthalung, that’s the main city. In 2007 at the BKF I found two specimens labelled N. mirabilis, one coming from Thale noi, in the Kuan Kanun district, and the other one from the Sao Thong hill, near the Meaklee village. I wasn’t very sure about the identity of the second specimen. So I went to Patthalung, where the cheapest hotel you can find will cost you 220 bat. I left my backpacks on the bed and I went straight looking for Meaklee. Once I was there I asked about Sao Thong. They were going to send me 6 km from there, but then a girl with good English – she had her baby hanging from a bag on her breast – read my ticket and realized that I wasn’t looking for Sao Thong but for the Sao Thong hill, just 2 km far. The Sao Thong hill is a small hill, covered with forest but even more by gum trees. For 30 bat, just the price of the fuel, she brought me there by motorbike, her baby still hanging in the front. We reached a house at the base of the hill, where I finally asked about the pitcher plants. In these years I realized that you’re better reach the exact place you’re looking for and just AFTER that you can ask about the plants. Otherwise they will send you in one hundred different directions where they are sure they have seen some, while they will tell you that for sure it doesn’t grow in the place where you want to go. It’s too hard to explain exactly what you’re doing, while they’re very fast at telling you how they “lived here for 30 years, no mokao there” etc, being usually wrong. So, just a few metres before that house, I had noticed a boggy area, covered with those plants that are usually found together with Nepenthes. But I thought that asking was the best thing, as there were probably better places covered with Nepenthes, which only the local people could know. A young man came out of that house, I got off the motorbike and I said “moako moken ling”, waiting as usual for the long thai conversation and for the dubious answer. The man said the mokao can only be found in the rainy season, and it grows on the other side of the hill. We went on the other side, where the girl asked a group of people and they said that the plants can be found at the end of a 2 km road that goes up to the top of the hill. The girl left me at the beginning of that small road and then she left. While I started walking, with not much hope. After twenty minutes I was still rounded by forest and gum trees. Remembering the new law I created – “the more you walk, the less you find” – I went back to speak again with those i….s who gave me the wrong direction. The couldn’t speak English, but I could see how all of them had different opinions about where to find the mokao, and everybody was acting like the wise man who knows, something that really irritates me, as that’s only a cover of what would be in fact a chorus of “I have no idea”, that for some cultural reason they can’t make evident. A woman was even saying – still quite sure of her wise words – that the mokao doesn’t grow in that area at all. After about half an hour one of them asked some kids, who after some time came back probably with some good news, as the man told me to follow them. I was then introduced to a Filipino who had perfect English. I explained him how confused were all the people in this district. He became my translator, and very soon he told me that we had to follow the kids, as they knew the place where I could find those plants. I went there by motorbike together with the Filipino, the three kids being on another motorbike in front of us. We went straight to the wet area I had seen next to the house where we asked the first time. The whole area was flat and grassy, but rounded by taller trees and bushes. N. mirabilis was growing there, climbing on the lower vegetation between the grass and the trees. Just about five metres from the house of that probably half blind man who told me to go to the other side of the hill. A few more plants were growing among the tall bushes on the other side of the road. Everybody happy, I took a few photos and we all went to have a coffee at the nice villa of the man who had asked the kids about the mokao. The Filipino then brought me back to the bus stop, and we were already close friends. The following day was the time to try again with Krabi.

31) Tha Chanà. In 2006 Mr. Pooma of the BKF found some N. mirabilis around here.