Thailand Guide
The deep south
Ko Tarutao National Marine Park
The unspoilt KO TARUTAO NATIONAL MARINE PARK is probably the most beautiful of all Thailand's accessible beach destinations. Occupying 1400 square kilometres of the Andaman Sea in Satun province, the park covers 51 mostly uninhabited islands, of which three are easy to reach from the mainland and offer accommodation for visitors. Site of the park headquarters, Ko Tarutao offers a variety of government-issue accommodation and things to do, while Ko Adang is much more low-key and a springboard to some excellent snorkelling. Tiny Ko Lipe is something of a frontier maverick, attracting ever more travellers with one dazzling beach, plentiful bungalow resorts and a rough-and-ready atmosphere.
Ko Tarutao's forests and seas support an incredible variety of fauna: langurs, crab-eating macaques and wild pigs are common on the islands, which also shelter several unique subspecies of squirrel, tree shrew and lesser mouse deer; among the hundred-plus bird species found here, reef egrets and hornbills are regularly seen, while white-bellied sea eagles, frigate birds and pied imperial pigeons are more rarely encountered; and the park is the habitat of about 25 percent of the world's tropical fish species, as well as dugongs, sperm whales, dolphins and a dwindling population of turtles.
The port of Pak Bara is the main jumping-off point for the park; its national park visitor centre can book you a room on Tarutao or Adang. The park amenities on Adang, though not on Tarutao, are officially closed to tourists in the monsoon season from mid-May to mid-November (the exact dates vary from year to year). Many of the resorts on Ko Lipe close at this time too, and the frequency of the ferry service is reduced.
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