Thailand - Sam Roi Yot Marine Park
A delightful boat trip brings you to this coastal, mountainous Park
Hundreds of small marshy islets, rugged limestone mountains, a great variety of birdlife, flora and fauna, and a name derived from legend - Park of Three Hundred Peaks.
Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park in Thailand covers an area of approximately 98 square kilometres and in 1996 was the first designated Marine National Park in Thailand. It is located approximately a 3 hour drive from Bangkok and about 70 Kl. from the resort town of Hua Hin.
Unlike Kaeng Kracham near Cha’am which is a lush green forest. Sam Roi Yot is a coastal park of high, thinly vegetated mountains that overlook a number of marshy islands which support a great variety of birdlife.
Legend has it that this area of sea was dotted with hundreds of small islets through which commercial Chinese junks regularly used to pass. One day a junk sank and all 300 hands on board were forced to swim for their lives to the shore. It was this incident that led to the area being called Sam Roi Yod, meaning “300 lives saved” which was later changed to Sam Roi Yot meaning “300 mountain peaks” more in keeping with the rugged topography featuring countless limestone hills.
The limestone mountains of the 24,500 acre Park are riddled with caves, inside the most popular of which is a small temple, the Phra Thi Nang Khuha Kharuhat, constructed in the late 19th century. The cave has a large opening in the roof through which shafts of light filter, illuminating the throne and spotlighting the temple.
Access to the cave is by a steep climb through thick scrub and trees and for which something more than flip-flops are called for - trainers are fine, but be very careful on a wet day as the path gets very slippery and there are no First Aid posts on the island.
The journey is best made by boat, either self-hire or by charter vessels, The Mai Thai, a beautifully converted mahogany fishing boat, perhaps. The trip passes through bustling Pranburi Harbour, where heavily laden, multi-coloured fishing boats draped in wicker baskets, orange netting and vivid red, blue and yellow plastic buckets are at anchor in the bay. The crews with their wide black cotton trousers, red bandanas, and long knives, look so much like extras from Johnny Depps’ Pirates of the Caribbean films, that it’s not hard to believe the local rumour that that some of the fishermen took to piracy when the fish weren’t rising to the bait.
Even the most adventurous trekker will enjoy sailing along the coast on The Mai Thai with an ice-cold beer in one hand while cool sea breezes kept the temperature bearable. Silver shoals of flying fish and families of dolphins accompany the boat, seeming to play with the passengers as they swim from side to side or fly over the boat.
Monkey Island is a jungly covered limestone outcrop that sits in the middle of the sea and where the only inhabitants are - guess what? - monkeys. The sight of a boat brings them hurtling down from the trees to range themselves along the beach in the hope of some fruit being thrown to them
One of the gourmet treats in the Hua Hin-Cha’am area is the seafood, and in the National Park there is a simple, but superb restaurant, The Bay Laguna, right on the beach. Swimming in the warm waters before a lunch of sticky rice with mango, tiger prawns, a variety of ginger-baked fish and stir-fried vegetables, all washed down with the local Singha beer, is a recipe for bliss.
The area is rich in flora and fauna: there is something here for everyone to see or study and it is an oasis of peace on an increasingly threatened coast.
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