Beach Day in Khao Lak – LamRu National Park , Thailand
Blue sky and blue ocean are always a lovely sight. The calm sea in Khao Lak – LamRu National Park looked so serene.
The tropical evergreen forest in Phang Nga Province of Thailand is in Khao Lak – LamRu National Park. This park has some beautiful beaches too. We love to visit places with unique terrains. So when we saw this place has forests and beaches, we decided to visit Khao Lak – LamRu National Park(I still can’t pronounce the name). This park is located around 120 kms from Phuket, Thailand. Phuket is one of the crowded tourist places in Thailand. But once we came out of the tourist areas, Phuket looked lovely with beautiful beaches. We drove along the shoreline in our rental car and saw beautiful sunrise. As always, we reached the park very early and the park employee told us that the park opening time was 8’o Clock. The park guy didn’t speak a word in English, so we talked only through sign language. He should have been used to tourist people but he watched us curiously.
While we had to wait , we walked along the roadside seeing the blue sea and checked our watches constantly. We were so eager to get inside the beach in the morning light. The sea was calm and clear which was perfect for snorkeling. Then something caught our attention. It was a temple with full of rooster idols. We were so surprised on seeing the rooster idols and we came up with fascinating theories about the temple.
I had never seen a temple like this in my life. This odd looking temple had hundreds of hen idols in different shapes and colors.
Really, why there was a rooster temple near a national park? By the time we came up with more funny ideas about the temple, the park guy signaled us to come. We paid the entrance fee and got the tickets and brochures. We packed our snorkeling kits,camera stuffs and we were ready to plunge in the water.
When the park guy was explaining us about the park trails in sign language, I spotted the Changeable hawk eagle sitting on a tall tree and watching us. The park guy was surprised to see the eagle as he had been standing there for very long time and never noticed it. Since at the entrance itself we spotted a raptor, we took it as a good omen and started walking on the well paved short trail to the beach. As we were the first visitors, there was no soul in sight in the beach. The beach looked glorious in the morning light. I am not sure about other country people but for Indians a less crowded, no trash beach is a privilege. Vinod immediately got ready with his underwater camera and snorkeling kit to plunge in the water. The beautiful lagoons formed by the rock barriers were perfect for snorkeling.
The lagoon looked so scenic and we enjoyed the place by walking in the water seeing the colorful fishes and many other tiny marine creatures.
I could see so many colorful fishes on the lagoon without even entering inside the water. Vinod started snorkeling in the lagoon and immediately warned me abut the moray eel on the rock crevices. The Moray eel is an opportunistic predator. They are beautiful in their own way, but I am always scared to see the way the eel opens and closes its mouth. And I have watched so many Piranha, Shark movies to get enough nightmares about marine animals. So I got down in the lagoon , stayed at center , saw some colorful fishes and quickly got out. As always, Vinod was so excited to see the moray eel and other colorful fishes, so he continued snorkeling while I decided to enjoy the beach.
Wild Creatures in Beach
Beaches are not just for humans but also for so many wild creatures. From big seals to small crabs there are so many wildlife are dependent on beach. Obviously in tourist beaches there are no chances to see any wildlife but since this beach was inside a national park there was abundant life along the shoreline.
Infact the beach was teeming with hermit crabs and many other fascinating little creatures. The way the hermit crab carries it’s shell is always fun to watch. So I was watching this little guys while vinod was snorkeling with the fishes. Vinod was excitedly squeaking whenever he spotted something very colorful in the water while I was calm and watching crabs. The hermit crabs seems to have a very busy lifestyle! There were also some beautiful trees on the beach side and they were in full bloom. The fallen flowers on the beach made it more beautiful. While I was watching them curiously, I noticed a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. A Pacific reef heron was jumping on the rocks and trying to catch fishes.
The pacific reef heron seemed to strike at everything that moved on the rocks or inside the water. The green rock crabs were all in high alert and were scurrying to save their lives.
He was fully focused on his food and didn’t mind me at all. Then a collared Kingfisher flew and sat on another rock. We were chasing behind this kingfisher for a few days now, so I excitedly started shooting pictures of him. Finally, the big guy White-bellied Sea eagle also came but he didn’t land. While I was watching the predators of fishes, Vinod was watching the fishes !
When you walk on the beach with no sound in the world except for the Ocean sound it always give you peace. Especially this beach in Khao Lak – LamRu was one of the quiet, beautiful beaches I have ever seen. While I was enjoying the serenity I saw a small swing tied on a tree. Immediately I left all my camera equipments and ran to the swing. It was a new experience for me to swing watching the ocean and I didn’t realize that simple act would bring me so much happiness.
People say when you are a grown up you should stop doing silly,childish things. But sometimes doing childish things make you immensely happy, like this swing!!
These simple interactions with nature is what we miss in this modern world. I enjoyed swinging till vinod had enough of snorkeling. We had spent good time in the beach and it was time to explore the jungle. We went to the interpretation center and saw the photos of numerous orchids and fishes in Khao Lak – LamRu national park. We were in peak dry season, so I didn’t expect to see any orchids in the park. We started walking in the narrow jungle trail and within few minutes we were fully in green environment with birds singing.
Toothbrush orchid was immensely beautiful when looked closer. These are the kind that will make you fall in love with flowers.
It was a sudden change from blue to green surroundings. We were hearing the ocean sound continuously but the trees were so huge , we didn’t have any ocean view. To my surprise, I spotted the toothbrush orchid hanging on a tree. We had seen this orchid in Andaman but it was hanging so high I didn’t get the chance to see the orchid closer. Here the orchid was hanging at my eye level, so I saw the beautiful orchid closely and continued our walk. We didn’t expect to see a jungle with really old trees in this park. So we happily saw the trees with huge buttress. We had to keep our eyes on the trail as there were lots of tree roots crossing the trail. There were lizards jumping on the trees.
While walking the trail , we were continuously checking all the vegetation for orchids . In between the search we had a face to face encounter with Emma Gray’s Forest Lizard or Forest Crested Lizard.
After sometime there was a opening and we had a good ocean view.
It was really different to walk in a jungle but with ocean sound.
Another old European couple also joined us in the walk and we were happy to see them walking excitedly even when the lady was struggling to make some steep climbs .We reached the end of the trail and another beach came into our view.
We were so used to mountain climbing that always at the end of the hike we were at the top of some mountain. So when we saw the beach at the end of the trail it was quite exciting.
There were no lagoons in this beach but the sea was perfect for swimming. By this time it was already noon and the climate was very hot and we were dying to have something cold. We were really surprised to see the park employees selling icecreams in that small beach. We started exploring the beach vegetations while munching our icecreams. I was surprised to see the aquatic plant Centella asiatica covering the beach ground. There were also mangroves along the beach edges. There was an exotic butterfly flying around. We started running behind the butterfly and continued our magical day in Khao Lak – LamRu National Park.