Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park: my first time camping in Thailand!

I love camping! Back when I was in the Boy Scouts, I used to go camping nearly every month. It's one of my favorite things to do. Recently, my fiancee and I had really been wanting to try camping here in Thailand. We decided - quite spontaneously just the day before our trip to Prachuap - that we ought to spend a night in the nearby forest park. That afternoon, we went to the local Big C (a Thai mega mart similar to Walmart) and bought a 299 baht tent ($10), some 199 baht sleeping bags ($6 each), some sleeping pads, inflatable pillows, and a battery-powered lantern. It's the cheapest camping gear that we could find, and we spent about $30 for the whole bunch. Still, we figured that would be enough for one night in the wilderness, and we excitedly packed our bags, ready for adventure!

After visiting some temples in Prachuap town, we hit up the local 7-11 to get water and snacks, then hired a tuk-tuk to take us about 10 minutes out of town to the Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park.

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A forest park is part of Thailand's excellent national park service, but is a smaller park managed by the province instead of the national government. I guess it's something similar to a state park in the US. 

Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park

You can rent gear from the rangers for 200 baht per night, but if you bring your own, all you need to pay is the entrance fee (100 baht for foreigners and 50 baht for Thais). The rangers gave us a prime spot just next to the ranger station and the toilets, and ran an extension cord from their office so that we could have power right inside our tent. They were super nice!

our little $10 tent

They were laughing at our little tent, though. 

"Are you sure you don't want to rent ours? It's going to rain tonight."

I was insistent. I had already bought this tent, and had already gotten it all set up. I didn't want to waste my money! Besides, the tent I had bought was supposed to be waterproof.

My fiancee wasn't so sure.

"Maybe we should rent theirs..." she said. "But you're the camper. It's your choice, Michael."

I decided to stick with my Big C tent.

The rangers chuckled. "We're going to clear a spot under the ranger's pavilion for you. Just in case..."

setting up our campsite

The forest park is located just outside of Prachuap Town, at the end of one of the city's three bays. It's a perfect location! At night, you can listen to the sound of the waves lapping gently at the shore and watch the fishermen head out in their boats for a night of squidding in the Gulf of Thailand.

a view of the bay from the campsite

We took a small nature trail along the coast to a viewpoint atop some boulders which looked out over the bay. The air was cool with a nice breeze coming over from the sea, and though we could hear distant thunder rumbling far away, it didn't seem like it was going to rain at the park.

hiking along the coast

Trekking any deeper into the forest park requires hiring one of the rangers as a guide. Though Khao Ta Mong Lai is a tiny park (1.37 km²), it's infamous for hikers getting lost and needing to be rescued. There are all sorts of legends of the park being haunted, and of hikers who break the rules and wander off into the jungle or try to take the closed-off trail up the mountain getting turned around and suddenly realizing that they have lost hours of time. Every years there are stories of people suddenly finding themselves atop the mountain's cliffs and needing to be rescued.

Whether it's true or not, it makes for a great campfire story, and it's all related to the legend of Monglai.

Monglai was a wealthy man who had a beautiful daughter named Yomdoey. The daughter was much sought after in marriage, and Monglai's wife (in secret) pledged the daughter to the governor of Petchaburi. At the same time, a wealthy merchant arrived from China, who took a keen interest in Yomdoey. Monglai arranged marriage between his daughter and the merchant.

It came out that the girl was to be married to two men. In a rage, Monglai killed his daughter, and his wife fled to the north. Monglai, realizing what he had done, drank rice whisky and walked into the sea. Because of his evil act, he was cursed and turned into a mountain, Khao Ta Mong Lai (Mong Lai Mountain).

Another legend from the park tells of visitors sleepwalking out into the bay, waking up when they realize that they are ankle-deep in the sea. Some say that this is the curse of Monglai, who had drowned himself there.

I guess that the tradition of telling spooky stories around a campfire transcends culture.

In any case, we didn't see any ghosts, but it's a fun story just before Halloween.

(We did, however, hear a strange drum beat coming from the sea as we lay in our tent at night...)

along the nature trail

Just to be safe, a small monastery just outside of the forest park maintains a little shrine to Monglai to appease his sad spirit.

the Monglai Shrine

Some people had left candles and incense to him.

I guess they figure that it can't hurt. Better safe than sorry, right?

Monglai

In the evening, we took a walk just outside of the park to where a few resort hotels had been built along the coast. A woman was steaming fresh blue crabs over a charcoal grill, and we bought 2 kilos to take back for dinner. My fiancee is crazy about seafood - blue crab in particular - and she's had to teach me how to crack open and eat crab. I'm actually getting pretty good at it, as we tend to have crab for most special occasions!

Before bed, we had an evening snack of pork floss and chili paste sandwiches (a great camping food!) and an orange.

the view from our tent

It got dark around 6pm. We showered, turned on our little lantern, and settled into our tent. Suddenly, rain began pattering upon the roof.

No problem. The tent is waterproof.

It began raining harder.

And harder.

drip... drip... drip

It was dripping inside the tent.

I touched the walls. My hand was wet.

I noticed a small pool of water at the foot of my sleeping bag.

My fiancee gave me the look.

It meant, "I'm not going to say 'I told you so'".

Sheepishly, I suggested moving the tent up under the pavilion.

"I'm going to blame it on you and your stubbornness so that they only tease you." she told me as she grabbed our bags and ran under the wooden shelter.

I picked up the whole tent - sleeping bags and all - and ran behind her.

The rangers just smiled, bringing us another extension cord and an electric fan to help us air out our tent to dry.

To her credit, my fiancee was a fantastic sport about the whole ordeal. She wasn't annoyed at me (though she does get to tease me about this from now on), and she didn't give up on camping. Instead, we spent a few hours browsing for better camping gear online. Next time, we will be much better prepared!

Our new view wasn't as good as before, but we were comfortable and dry. We had electricity, a cool breeze from the fan, and the sound of the waves and the rain quickly lulled us to sleep.

I woke with dawn to a foggy, muddy morning. We had a breakfast of cereal bars and soy milk (which doesn't need to be refrigerated before opening), then called the tuk-tuk driver to take us back to town.

a foggy morning in southern Thailand

We took a bus back to Bangkok, and got back to the city around 1pm.

It was a fantastic experience, despite the rain. We've ordered all sorts of cool gear, and I'm so excited to try camping again! We are already looking up parks where we should go next! I hope that this can be a fun new hobby for us to enjoy together.