Ko Phetra: Gnarly cliffs, brilliant beaches and zero tourism development
Ko Phetra: Gnarly cliffs, brilliant beaches and zero tourism development
The namesake island of Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park draws few travelers despite jaw-dropping natural beauty in the lower Thai Andaman Sea. (Island Nerd #9)
Hundreds of steep karst massifs dot Thailand’s Andaman Sea all the way from Phang Nga Bay down to Ko Tarutao near Malaysia. Many of these rocky isles consist of little more than cliffs rimmed by sea. Others are joined by brilliant beaches, mangrove forests and old-growth jungles. One of the most impressive of them all is Ko Phetra, an island of limestone that towers high above the khaki sand.
This is the first of two articles about Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park. The second, focusing on Ko Lao Liang, will be out for paying subscribers soon. You can upgrade here to get one weekly article that will be accessible only to paying subscribers starting next week.
An unforgettable island
Set 30 km off the mainland in a remote and relatively isolated setting, Ko Phetra stands as the southernmost point in Trang province. Its old Malay name means ‘Ship Island,’ though my understanding is that phetra refers specifically to the trading junks that transported goods around Asia prior to the 20th century. To me, the island looks more like a fortress when viewed from afar, with its tallest peaks resembling the turrets of a castle set high above an impenetrable wall of stone.
Nearly all of Ko Phetra is composed of limestone that towers hundreds of meters high in several places. The cliffs are visible from at least 70 km away on clear days. Forest thick with vines cloaks the stretches of the interior where soil overlays the stone. Though the four-km-long island measures only around half a km across at its widest point, the terrain is far too steep and rugged for hiking trails.
The rocky west coast has no sand or coral, but it is worth boating around the entire island to view the sheer limestone surfaces. In some spots the rock extends several meters outward to loom over the sea, providing shelter for small fishing boats when storms billow through. While the rock climbing potential is obvious, no roped routes are available for those who climb for the sport of it.
Two slender beaches grace Ko Phetra’s east coast, each stretching for roughly a km and separated by only a short headland that makes it easy to walk the full length of both expanses when the tide is out. Overshadowed by the cliffs and shaded by many species of coastal trees — including rattan, casuarina, yellow shower and Indian almond (or umbrella) — the beaches are dazzling.
Comprised primarily of staghorn and brain coral, a reef that reaches to 70 meters wide extends alongside most of the east coast. Keep in mind though that snorkels and kayaks are not available on the island.
In fact, Ko Phetra is unusual in that it has zero public facilities despite being the namesake island of a marine national park. There is no eatery, campground, bathroom or ranger station. Ko Phetra is not even one of the eight most widely visited islands in Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park, which itself does not rank among Thailand’s better-known marine parks. Very few travelers visit Ko Phetra.
Swiftlet nests and an industrial threat
The only development on Ko Phetra consists of a few wood-and-cement houses and bamboo huts accommodating local people involved in swiftlet nest extraction. A delicacy found in bird’s nest soup and other dishes, the nests formed from the hardened saliva of swiftlets are rich in iron, calcium and other minerals. They’re said to beautify the skin and relieve fatigue in those who consume them.
Skilled climbers scale the cliffs of Ko Phetra and several nearby islands to snatch the valuable nests as part of a controversial industry. As opposed to agricultural swiftlet nest production, which utilizes purpose-built concrete structures, many of the nests from the lower Andaman region still come from wild swiftlets that prefer to lay their eggs amid the crags and caves that peg the ancient limestone.
Some Thai conservationists want to end extraction of wild swiftlet nests altogether, especially on “protected” islands like Ko Phetra, but the trade has been allowed to continue based partly on the fact that local people were partaking in it long before the national parks were established. It’s a very lucrative trade. Packaged nests fetch 500 to 1,000 baht or more at retailers in cities like Hat Yai.
Natives of Ko Sukorn told me that tourists should not go to Ko Phetra without a local boat driver or guide, lest the nest hunters think they’ve arrived to plunder. Guns are on hand to defend against thieves. To reiterate for emphasis, visitors should not go to Ko Phetra without a local and visitors should not wander into the nest hunter shacks if they don’t want to get shot.
Local nest climbers did put their skills to good use in 2018 by searching for alternate ways into the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in Chiang Rai as part of the search for 12 boys and their football coach who were trapped inside. No new passages were found, but the climbers still received a heroes welcome upon their return to Trang.
Environmental destruction on a far more severe scale would almost certainly result from a proposed deep-sea port project in Pakbara, a mainland fishing town set 50 km southeast of Ko Phetra near a host of other national park islands.
The protected status of much of Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park’s 468 square km of open sea would need to be revoked to clear legal hurdles and allow massive container ships that would damage the marine environment if the port materializes. The project was shelved in 2018 in response to fierce resistance in Pakbara, but Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob said in 2019 that it might be revived.
More to see in Mu Ko Phetra
Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park is also unusual in how its islands and mainland areas are sprinkled over a roughly 80-km long expanse of land and sea covering parts of both Trang and Satun provinces. The park was founded in 1984, and it’s almost as if Thailand’s national park authorities tossed everything that hadn’t already been covered by Mu Ko Tarutao into the newer Mu Ko Phetra.
I’ll introduce Mu Ko Phetra’s marvelous twin isles of Ko Lao Liang next week, and I’ve already written about the Ko Bulon group of islands set further south. What else does this marine park have in store? Though I’ve not yet explored most of the other areas, I’ll briefly touch on them to give you a fuller picture.
To start, nine petite islets and specks of rock lie scattered within a 10-km radius of Ko Phetra itself. Most are visited only by fishers seeking a nap, but Ko Talabeng (aka Ko Takieng) in the northwest has a roughly 500-square meter patch of staghorn coral that I’ve heard is worth a round of snorkeling. It’s included in some of the boat tours that stop at Ko Lao Liang and are fairly popular among Thai tourists.
Accessible via boat and kayaking tours that can be arranged in Pakbara, the rest of the park lies much further south in Satun province. The park’s largest island is Ko Khao Yai, whose jagged karst composition conceals a magnificent lagoon known as Prasat Hin Pan Yod, which roughly translates as ‘1,000-Peak Stone Castle’ thanks to its sharp natural spires of limestone. It’s popular among Thai kayaking enthusiasts.
The park’s far southern reaches include the twin isles of Ko Lidi, where kayaking and camping are options for travelers with their own tents and food.
Ko Lidi can be reached by longtail boat from Ao Nun, a sandy mainland bay where park headquarters joins a walkway set alongside 500-million-year-old sandstone and limestone cliffs known as Khao To Ngai. It’s also part of Satun Geopark, which includes many sites in both Mu Ko Phetra and Mu Ko Tarutao national parks that were collectively granted UNESCO Geologicial status in 2018.
Another Satun Geopark site that falls under Mu Ko Phetra is Tham Le Stegodun, a watery cave where fossils from ancient elephant and rhinoceros were unearthed. These can be viewed at the Satun Geopark Museum in Thung Wa.
I’m keen to visit all of these southern sites of Mu Ko Phetra Marine National Park — and I’ll be sure to share my experiences with you whenever I make it to them. For more on the intriguing geology of the area, check out the Satun Geoparks website along with this Lifestyle + Travel article. You also might enjoy Richard Barrow’s stunning aerial photos of the Prasat Hin Pan Yod lagoon.
Plan on at least a week and some complicated logistics if you’re keen to check out most of the islands and geological attractions in Mu Ko Phetra Marine Park. Exploring it along with Ko Tarutao, Ko Lipe, Ko Adang, Ko Rawi and other islands of Mu Ko Tarutao Marine Park makes for one fabulous trip. Visitor centers for both parks sit side by side in front of the large tourist pier in Pakbara.
Expect to pay around 5,000 baht to reach Ko Phetra, as well as Ko Lao Liang and/or Ko Talabeng, by private longtail boat from Ko Sukorn, which is the closest inhabited island. Longtail boats can also be arranged from Ko Libong to the north and Ko Bulon Leh in the south, though Ko Sukorn is the most reliable place to negotiate a trip to Ko Phetra. While some of the package boat tours advertised in Trang include Ko Lao Liang, I’m not sure that any of them also cover Ko Phetra. 🌴
Click here for a map pinpointing the sites mentioned in this article.
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