Island Wrap #87: Ko Tachai expected to reopen, TDAC form launches for inbound travelers, deep dives into Thai dugongs and elephants, and more
A free monthly spin around the most intriguing and consequential news and other media from Thailand's islands and coastal areas.
Greetings island lovers and welcome to your free monthly news review from Thailand’s islands and coastal areas — and sometimes beyond.
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Weather
Brutal heat and powerful storms butted heads last month as much of Thailand transitioned into the early stages of wet season. Parts of Mae Sai in the far North flooded on Tuesday, only six months after this border town faced its worst flooding in three decades. Tragically, a Lam Khlong Ngu National Park ranger drowned when floodwater filled the cave where he was searching for a tourist’s lost cell phone in a remote part of Kanchanaburi province. Flash flooding also stalled traffic in Phuket, where waterspouts spooked sailors near the marina in Chalong and later forced a plane to delay its landing off Mai Khao. Captured by a passenger, an aerial video of that second waterspout has been widely shared online.
Travel
Tachai Island in Phang Nga recovered after nine years closure (The Phuket Express shares the news from the DNP Director-General that a tourism reopening is expected for this ravishing reef-rimmed island that was closed to tourist traffic in 2016, though no firm date has been set yet. In related news, 10 dive and snorkeling sites in Mu Ko Phi Phi and Mu Ko Poda that closed to tourists in 2024 are reopening on May 13th, including Ko Yawasom and Ko Daeng.)
The Buddha in “The White Lotus” (ARC with a writer who is also a former Thai Forest Tradition monk assessing the show’s portrayal of an elder Theravadan Buddhist monk: “Luang Por Tira’s ‘ocean of consciousness’ sermon seems to come from an entirely different religion. He also gives a trite and superficial sermon in the final episode, which not only sounds like a vapid soundbite from an online influencer, it also again directly contradicts the Buddha’s teaching.”)
Escape the crowds: Three off-the-beaten-path experiences in Phuket (MTCO actually leads readers off Phuket to nearby Ko Yao Noi, among others.)
Bali to Leeds in over 20 hours (Couchfish packs up plans for an epic, almost entirely overland trip across 19 countries, including Thailand.)
Jaded in paradise (Marita Bester thinks Thailand’s “cultural richness is still there — you just have to look for it, sometimes beyond the resort gate or the Instagram post. And often, it’s still found in the quietest, simplest places.”)
What travel guides don’t tell you about visiting Thailand in your 40s (DMN reflects on how Thailand “dismantles you softly, slowly, in ways that don’t immediately register … You sit in a beach shack for three hours and think about your mother. You watch a Buddhist ceremony and remember the friend you lost touch with because neither of you ever made the effort. You hear the rain at 3 a.m. and feel a sadness that’s been with you for years but never had room to stretch out and breathe.”)
Tourism
Thailand Digital Arrival Card system set to launch on 1 May 2025 (TAT News, a government-run site, explains the new TDAC form that all inbound foreign travelers must now submit before legally entering Thailand. Initial concerns that it must be done in advance were put to rest after photos were released showing kiosks that can be used to complete the form upon arrival at the airports, although authorities are urging travelers to take care of it up to three days before arriving. Also note that a fake TDAC scam website has already been found — there is only one official TDAC site and it is https://tdac.immigration.go.th/arrival-card/.)
Thailand struggles to attract Chinese tourists amid competition (The Nation explains how “Thailand received only 1.33 million Chinese tourists in the past three months, marking a 24% year-on-year decline.”)
Phuket welcomes 3.8 million in Quarter One of 2025, revenue hits 149 billion baht (The Phuket Express on one place where tourism “continues to grow steadily. In Q1 2025 [January–March], the island welcomed 3.8 million visitors — 1.077 million Thai tourists [up 10%] and 2.813 million foreigners [up 5.77%].”)
Trat’s Koh Kut endures tourism squeeze (Bangkok Post on how “Despite owners' efforts to expand room capacity, most are unable to proceed due to land disputes with the navy, which still controls much of the area.”)
Transport
Trat locals oppose expressway project (Bangkok Post explains that while most Ko Chang residents seem to support a proposed bridge to the island, Trat’s mainlanders fear it would funnel tourism’s economic benefits further away from the province’s larger population centers, such as Trat town.)
Pattaya construction and transport report (Future Southeast Asia digs into long-delayed plans for high-speed rail, a monorail, and more.)
Thailand’s Hua Hin set to receive international flights — can tourism take off amid traffic, water woes? (CNA on how “some wonder if building a new airport would be better for Hua Hin in the longer term and want more funding from the central government to develop other infrastructure to cope with larger visitor numbers.”)
FAA reinstates Thailand’s highest air safety status after ten years clearing the path for direct flights to the US (TTW on how “Thailand now fully complies with international aviation standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO], resolving the technical and regulatory shortcomings that led to its downgrade in 2015.”)
Free wi-fi soon for passengers on long-haul trains (Bangkok Post)
Environment
Thai marine officials claim success in saving bleached coral (Bangkok Post reports 60% of corals that bleached last year have been saved, an apparent success after a worldwide bleaching event affected “80% of the planet’s reefs,” according to additional reporting from The Guardian.)
Thailand bans entry-level divers from using cameras underwater (DIVE on how the move is “part of a raft of measures aimed at reducing widespread damage to the nation’s coral reefs, and includes new regulations covering group sizes for diving, dive training, ‘try dives’ and snorkelling activities.”)
Developing megaprojects, but at what cost? (Bangkok Post with an opinion piece reviewing the proposed economic corridor and land bridge projects for the South, including how “construction of the deep-sea port in Ranong is slated for Laem Ao Ang, an area that falls within Laem Son Marine National Park.”)
Thailand’s solar sector faces hurdles in net zero push (Dialogue Earth reports that while efforts to boost solar energy have been successful, natural gas and hydropower generated by controversial Mekong River dams in Laos remain dominant, threatening Thailand’s goal of “net zero carbon by the year 2050.”)
Wildlife
Monga Bay quotes several experts on the increasingly critical situation for Thailand’s dugongs, one of whom states that “most of the Trang dugongs have likely either perished or dispersed into nearby provinces, such as Krabi, Phang Nga and Phuket, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of their former strongholds.” There is some good news, though, with Bangkok Post reporting that a recent survey of Hat Chao Mai National Park — which includes Ko Mook and parts of the Trang coast — discovered a herd of 23 dugongs holding out amid the area’s degraded seagrass beds. Meanwhile in Phuket, yet another underweight dugong washed up dead on Mai Khao Beach.
Recent footage shows blacktip reef sharks chasing a school of fish deep into Maya Bay, where they were a fixture during the pandemic.
Lastly, an outstanding in-depth article from Atmos explains, “As long as there have been elephants working in Thailand, mahouts, or elephant keepers, have been training and caring for them. Yet little has been heard from the mahouts themselves. Their relationship with elephants melds lifelong intimacy with ever-present danger, and it offers a more lived understanding of this long, entangled history by framing it in terms of labor.”
Society
Prosecutors recommend dropping royal insult case against US academic (Bangkok Post with the latest on Paul Chambers, a respected author and lecturer at Naresuan University in Phitsanulok who was arrested over text that, according to Chambers, “he neither wrote nor published.” The Diplomat has more background on this touchy situation that a certain former Prime Minister appeared to be alluding to when he said “lawsuits against a number of American citizens” could stall trade negotiations over tariffs on Thai exports to the US.)
Phuket group rallies to oppose casino legalisation (The Phuket News on a rally that joined a “chorus of dissent” against government plans to put gambling and entertainment complexes in Phuket, Pattaya, Bangkok and Chiang Mai.)
In other news
American YouTuber who entered island of isolated Indian tribe has bail plea rejected (The Independent on the latest case of a traveler attempting to meet the indigenous people of North Sentinel Island, part of India’s Andaman Island chain some 700 km west of Phuket. The last one to attempt this, an American missionary, was killed by the islanders in 2018. This time, the 24-year-old made it off the island alive after “offering a can of diet coke and a coconut to the tribe,” but he now faces five years in prison for entering an area that is strictly off limits due to the tribe’s long-documented hostility to outsiders, among other reasons.)
Encroached land seized in Phuket (Bangkok Post on the seizure of a restaurant that came with an order to remove a “140-metre-long stone reinforced embankment” along the coast near Phuket town. And in other land conflict news, a dispute between villagers and a palm oil company turned deadly in rural Krabi province; while in Surat Thani province’s Ban Na Doem, ethnic Tai Dum people won a reprieve from a state land seizure that they’ve been resisting since 1986.)
The Irish man who turned dog days on Koh Samui into a rescue story to reduce Thailand’s strays (SCMP on animal welfare activist and social media star Niall Harbison, whose inspiring story first went viral a few years ago. If this interests you, also check out a video of the stray dog who often rides the bus as politely as any human in Samut Sakhon.)
Phuket’s Alan Morison passes away (The Phuket News on the April 18th passing of this journalistic stalwart and Phuket Wan founder.)
I leave you with…
The rags to riches story of “Meen,” whose smile captured the Internet after a Russian photographer snapped her photo and then showed it to her as she worked as a footpath sweeper on a hot Bangkok day last month. I initially thought the encounter was staged, but in fact it was genuine and quickly went viral, “amassing more than 4 millions views and earning Meen the nickname ‘the most well-known cleaner in Thailand,’” reports SCMP. Since then, the mother of two landed a job as a model for a popular Thai cosmetics brand, winning the “lottery of life.” 🌴
Thank you for reading Thai Island Quest, home of the Thai Island & Coastal Directory.
thanks again for this recap and all you do, David...