Thung Nui (16)
2004: at the BKF herbarium in
2005: Nong found N. mirabilis, ampullaria and their hybrid, N. x
kuchingensis. He says: "They were discovered in the deep forest, on a
mountain, about 200 meters above sea level, at
the border between the Satun and Songkla provinces” (check this
page for some Nong’s photos of N. x kuchingensis).
2006: I went there. I still didn’t know that Thung Nui was a place right in
between the Satun and Songkla provinces. But when I realized, looking at my hotel
brochure, that the BKF specimen of N. mirabilis and N. x kuchingensis were
coming from the same area, I thought that there was no reason for wandering
around in the province; Thung Nui was the place where I had to go.
In
Satun I found a nice accommodation for 140 bat. The following day I took a
songtaew and I reached a village in between, there I started walking, but an
old man after 5 minutes stopped his motorbike and asked where I was going. When
I said “Thung Nui” he was quite happy to bring me there. Actually I wanted to
go to Thung Nui town, but he was so sure that I was going to the nearby
waterfalls, that despite my numerous “no waterfall! no waterfall! Mai mi
waterfall!” he just kept saying “waterfall, waterfall!
Eventually,
after 10 minutes, I stopped repeating “no waterfall”. And we reached the Panan
waterfalls. I thanked my old friend. Then I saw some children, cooking some
chicken together with some older ladies, in front of the waterfalls checkpoint.
I went there and asked “mokao moken lin?”. I explained what I was looking for
and showed some mokao drawings. After about 15 minutes of laughs, something
happened that you often see here. Among a group of 6-7 kids, there’s always the
smartest one. The one that when you move your hand like asking for a pen, all
the others start laughing, while he looks at your hand with open eyes, and
after one second shouts the thai word for “pen” and finds one for you. In a
short time the others don’t laugh anymore, they see how there’s some connection
between the stranger and one from their group, they shut up and just follow the
words and directions of the smart one. That’s very nice to see. So, the
smartest one (and shortest one) of them had a conversation of a few minutes
with me.
It’s
surprising how he could be much more intelligent than many and many adults that
I met here, even if he didn’t speak a word of English. Ah, if everybody here
was so intelligent, the body language would really be a good alternative way to
communicate without using English. After a few minutes he “told” me to sit on
one of their motorbikes, as they were going to show me the mokao location. We
followed a few roads in the small village near the waterfalls, then we entered
in the clearings behind a few small rice paddies and we stopped in a narrow
secondary road that was heading to the hills behind the village. I noticed
immediately how the vegetation changed quickly, and the usual forked ferns
started to appear. Among them some N. mirabilis were growing and flowering, and
low down on the wet and sandy soil, some U. uliginosa. They were both spread in
the whole area, quite numerous, but they were completely absent out of those 30
square metres. While I was looking and photographing the plants, the smart kid
asked me for a cigarette. That’s not good, I know, but how could I say no after
they helped me so much? I gave them some tobacco and papers and while I was in
the middle of the low, tangled shrubs, I heard them coughing and then laughing.
Here a couple of photos: pic1, pic2. We went back, all the three noisy
motorbikes.
On
the way we met another two men, who spoke with the kids, probably asking what I
was doing there. We all went back to the check point, where I had some tasty
chopsticks. While having my lunch, more relaxed as at least I had found
something – probably the specimens also collected at the BKF – the men were
speaking with the kids about my research and about how to help me even more.
One of them could speak some English, and I tried to be very lucky and find
some more mokao. I made a drawing of N. ampullaria, and told them how I knew
about this other species of mokao that should grow somewhere in that area. They
told me, both the men and the kids, that they had never seen that kind of
mokao, and the place where I had just been was actually the only one in Thung
Nui where it grows, as far as they knew. But, like their young friend, also
these two men were quite smart and fast if compared to what I usually find in
this kind of small, rural, thai villages. And they made a quick circle of
phonecalls, so that after about half an hour someone came there and brought me
to meet another person. This person used to grow many plants, including some
unhealthy mokao. I explained him how to grow his plant properly, but he
confirmed that he had seen it growing just there, where I had already been.
They all together contacted by phone another expert, who said that the mokao
type that I was looking for used to grow up on the hill where the Panan
waterfall were coming down from. They brought me there, and on the way I saw
the biggest beehive I’ve ever seen, about 50 x 50 cm!
Then
we checked the place that the man at the phone had pointed out, but no mokao at
all. On the way back to the lower waterfalls, the man stopped and brought me
through the deep forest down to the river. Here he asked me to wait. I sat down
on a big stone, and I looked while he was collecting some little plastic bags
with fishes inside. He used to collect these fishes and leave them there to
keep their water at the right temperature. Then he would bring them to his
aquarium and sometimes sell them. In that moment - rounded by the very high and
deep forest, sitting on that stone, looking at that man and at his unconscious
happiness in doing what he was doing, and then having a quick bath in the river
- in that moment, with no other noise around me but the one of the flowing
river and of all the one thousand birds and other animals from the jungle, it
was one of the very rare occasions in my life in which I felt…calm. Happy,
maybe, or at least in peace with the world’s nature rhythm.
Going
back to the mokao, the problem here is that the whole Thung Nui and surrounding
area is completely covered by tens and tens of hills, all about 200 metres
tall, like the one where Nong found his plants!
We
even called Nong, but he said he had no idea about the place where they were
growing. Boh, maybe they didn’t grow in Thung Nui at all, as actually recently
Nong said that they were growing on the Songkla province side, while Thung Nui
is still in the Satun province; a few kilometres of distance and probably a
completely different area. I tried those bee’s honey at one of the two men’s
hut (an old hut, but with a dvd player and a good hi-fi complex inside). It was
very good and liquid. The fish collector then brought me back to the main road
and to a songtaew stop, where he explained the driver and his friends, sitting
there, what I was doing in Thung Nui. I spent another forty minutes sitting
there and talking and drawing Nepenthes, as they were all very interested in
knowing everything about all carnivorous plants. I’ve never seen so many smart
people in such a lost place!
Unfortunately
no one of them had ever seen a N. ampullaria in the Thung Nui area.
By the way, the
following day I was very good and lucky with my usual lifts, and in less than
two hours and spending just 10 bat I went and came back from the Taleban
national park, that you see on my map, 40 km from Satun. But even there I
couldn’t find anything good. It was on Sunday, and all the offices were closed.
A sick N. mirabilis was growing in a flower bed. At the reception I only found
some young guys and girls. They were much older than the kids in Thung Nui, but
this time they were really stupid. One of them was speaking with a girl’s voice
and that was particularly irritating. They were just laughing and making jokes
at any word I said, ignoring me. After 30 minutes of this, even if I was still
calm – trying to remember how they usually laugh but then they help you and
they save your day – I just left. I can suppose that only N. mirabilis grows
there, but I can’t be sure.
