Lost in the Mangroves
Explore the mangrove village of Leeled and not only will you find a way of life unlike anywhere else in Thailand but also a heartening lesson on how villagers, using their own resources, are reversing damage inflicted on the natural environment.
The boat quietly pulls away from the Leeled dock. Within moments, we are deep in a maze of quiet canals winding through a mangrove forest that a few years ago was open sea. Kingfishers flash electric blue as they dart through the nipa palm and lampoo (Sonneratia) trees, crab-eating macaques cavort in the upper branches, and a heron stands stilt-like in the shallows waiting to spear a fish.
We cruise through a lost world with plants that suggest a pre-historic rainforest. The setting is pristine, pre-human, and the clear water is free of garbage. It is hard to believe that four short years ago, this was a cesspool.
Leeled is a small coastal village nine kilometres northeast of Surat Thani, the departure point for the popular beach resorts of Koh Samui and Koh Phang-ngan in southern Thailand.
Its stilt houses dot the thick mangrove forest that walls the town off from the Gulf of Thailand. Here, visitors discover a part of Thailand quite unlike any other they’ve experienced.
Thailand’s coastline stretches 3,219 kilometres in an arc over the Gulf of Thailand from Cambodia to Malaysia, and along the Andaman coast from Malaysia up to Myanmar. It is divided roughly 10-to-1 between sandy golden beaches and mangroves. In the past few decades, coastal forests have been devastated by villagers cutting nipa palm and other trees to make charcoal and fishing stakes, and by shrimp farmers who fouled the marshlands and polluted the water.
“By 2000, the water had turned black and we had no place to bathe,” Leeled’s kamnan (village headman) Prasert Chanjukorn said. “Fish yields dropped and we were battered by storms because we had no natural barrier between us and the sea. We decided we had to do something.”
Leeled rose to this daunting challenge with surprising speed, becoming a model for villagers here and abroad. Along the way, it has turned one of Thailand’s overlooked regions into a magnet for visitors.
The starting point for a tour is the Nature Learning Centre. This was built as part of a Community-Based Tourism (CBT) project to educate Thais and foreigners about mangrove forest ecosystems and their vital importance. Visitors explore it on ecotours organized by tour agencies in Bangkok and Surat Thani.
Based in one of 13 village homestays, the traveller ventures out to learn how the villagers harvest — but do not overexploit — the area’s rich natural resources. At high tide, they gather nipa palms, forceped fiddler crabs and molluscs, and they set crab traps and fishing nets. At low tide, they collect hard clams, molluscs, fish and crabs. In the waning moon, they journey into the sea to look for shrimp.
Half of Leeled’s 4,500 inhabitants grow coconuts, palm oil and fruit; a third raises shrimp or fish for crabs; 20 per cent are open sea fishermen; and the rest pursue occupations that utilize raw materials from the mangroves. In 2000, in order to preserve their lifestyle, the villagers sat down to map out means to counter damaging practices and take shared responsibility for the health of the mangrove forests.
Effluvia flowed down the river, trees were cut wantonly, garbage and chemicals were dumped into the waterways by shrimp farmers, and the waters were overfished. Aided by a grant extended by the European Union, they embarked on CBT and began devising means to counter the eco-problems.
To eliminate the ammonia by-product produced by shrimp and fish farmers, they transformed fetid shrimp faeces into natural fertilizer. They placed a ban on dumping garbage into the waterways, and formed a collection system to dispose of it. They prohibited the use of fishing equipment less than three kilometres from the outermost tree.
Recognizing that trees were the key to a healthy environment, they reserved a two-acre sanctuary as a breeding habitat for plants and aquatic life. In the open areas, they limited tree harvesting to allow the cleared areas to re-seed naturally. On a boat ride, the guide proudly shows us groves of trees that have grown to seven meters in only four years, increasing the 2005 forested area by half to an impressive 3,127 acres. When we enter the sea, he points to where small trees are now poking their heads above the water, extending the shoreline an astonishing 1,200 metres into the Gulf. Tourism here is participatory and visitors are invited to plant lampoo trees in areas still bare.
The village has also built a 470-metre concrete walkway so visitors can stroll deep into the mangroves. Illustrated signs provide details about the various plants and their uses. The predominant lampoo trees provide edible leaves, and a sour young lampoo fruit that is a key ingredient in delicious dishes. Ripe fruit become animal feed. This softwood’s beautiful, delicate flowers are blended into a dry, red curry. If left overnight in the open air, the nearly-opened flower yields a sweet sap. Boiled into syrup, the sap becomes the prime ingredient in two sweets: Khanom Tang Mei (a sweet, chewy candy wrapped in nipa leaves) and Khanom Jaak Ping (a delicious sweet made from sticky rice flour, raw cane sugar and shredded fresh coconut wrapped in nipa leaves and charcoal-grilled on low heat). Sample either at a village house.
Also populating the brackish water is the coastal leather fern with young leaves that are edible. The bark of the portia tree is processed into rope and caulking material for boats.
The forest is also filled with medicinal plants such as acanthus (sea holly). Its trunk and seeds are said to cure cancer, abscesses and lymph system disorders. Convolvulacae remedies indigestion, and Aegialtes rotundifolia cures loss of appetite, dizziness, gastric distress and menstrual disorders.
The mangrove is also home to black tiger shrimp (farmed extensively and used in kapi fish paste), banana shrimp, blue swimming crab (weighing more than 500 grams), the forceped fiddler crab with its huge right claw, mullet, catfish, damsel fish, horse mussel, cockle and tok molluscs, which are used for duck feed.
At low tide, mud skippers (lungfish) slither across moist mud flats, mimicking the cartoons of evolutionary animals crawling from a sea-based to land-based existence.
Fish and shellfish are caught in a pong, or chon peek, a V-shaped fishing trap made of stakes and set in the sea. The chengleng, a cone-shaped bamboo trap, is set on a line and sunk into the sea or in a canal to catch shrimp, catfish and crab. The krum is an imitation reef that lures saltwater catfish, damselfish, mullet and shrimp into a false sense of security, whereupon they are trapped.
Among the notable insects is the gigantic Goliath moth, the world’s largest with wings a handspan across. At night, the visitor rides a boat along the canals to observe clusters of fireflies that hang in the trees and blink yellowish green in perfect synchronicity to attract mates. In addition, flightless fireflies resident in the mud banks blink their beacons. Both can be observed through the year but are most active during the waning moon.
To capitalize on the abundance of natural resources and to generate income for women, two occupational groups were created. One uses nipa fronds and leaves for raw material. The second group produces kapi, the shrimp paste that is a vital ingredient in Thai cuisine. Both groups invite visitors to watch demonstrations of their skills.
On an open platform, villagers weave rattan and nipa they collect from the coastline, with bamboo which they buy. Insects may devour the house frame but the nipa roofing is impervious for up to five years. Elsewhere, villagers strip a nipa stalk into two thin tissues. After drying, these papery sheets are sent to Thailand’s North to be wrapped around local tobacco to produce homemade cigarettes. The craft provides a family with a 200-baht per day income.
Another cottage industry is kapi production. Small shrimp are sun-dried, then mixed with a kilogramme of salt and pounded in a large mortar. After fermenting for two days (the scent permeates the air), the mash is placed in the sun again. After a second pounding, it is ready for sale. It is an important ingredient in Thai dishes but visitors are offered it with makam (tamarind) pods. The combination is sour and salty but, surprisingly tasty.
Villagers also raise swallows in a windowless six-story building erected solely for the purpose. On the ground floor, a sound system broadcasts swallow calls, which sound like bat screeches, to attract the birds. The nests they build are sold for high prices for a gourmet soup that is popular among Chinese.
While mangrove exploration is Leeled’s primary tourist offering, there is culture in abundance. Village elders have revived the nearly-moribund Likay Pa “southern Thai folk opera” and Manohra, encouraging professional actors and actresses to teach local children the dance steps. Visitors can arrange an evening of these unique performances which present dramas of ordinary life.
Leeled’s mostly Buddhist parishioners worship at five monasteries that are of marginal architectural merit. The most attractive is Wat Phra Anon atop one of Leeled’s two hills. More intriguing is the monument on the second hill, Khao Sivichai. Thailand’s Fine Arts Department suspects that it may be an ancient Brahman site that in ancient times was an island. A team from the department has been excavating it since 2004 providing the visitor with a glimpse of a Srivijaya-period (7th - 13th century AD) site.
An eco-stay in Leeled represents a foray into a little-known but fascinating facet of Thai life. It is rewarding as much for the wealth of activities as for the knowledge that through innovative approaches one of the poorest districts in the province has turned itself into one of the wealthiest. The visitor is also the richer for all this.
Particulars
You will need a guide who speaks your language as well as transportation to, from and within Leeled. Both should be arranged through members of the Thai Ecotourism and Adventure Travel Association (TEATA) who specialize in ecotourism trips or travel agencies or tour operators in Surat Thani. To gain the full experience of interacting with the gracious villagers, it is recommended that you stay for three days. It is possible, however, to stay in Surat Thani and make day trips.
Activities
A motorboat ride through the mangroves is only one of many highlights of a three-day visit. A six-passenger boat costs 850 baht for a 2.5-3 hour trip. It departs from the Ecology Centre which also offers free use of six plastic kayaks. It is always advisable to hire a guide.
One can take classes in kapi production, plant trees, make nipa roofing or work on a fishing boat, day or night. At night, arrange a cultural performance and/or cruise along a canal under a starlit sky created by hundreds of fireflies.
Season
January to May is the best time of the year to visit Leeled, although nature lovers might prefer visiting during the green season from July to October when the seasonal monsoon rain falls during the latter part of the year.
Contact information: Thai Ecotourism and Adventure Travel Association (TEATA)
Web site: www.teata.or.th
Location:
Leeled Ecotourism Community
Moo 5, Tambon Leeled (Leeled sub-district),
Amphoe Phunphin (Phunphin district),
Surat Thani province
Leeled’s website – www.leeled.go.th — is currently offered only in Thai but will soon be presented in English as well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve Van Beek's special intimacy with water comes in large part because for 11 of his 30 years in Thailand, he lived in a wooden Thai house set on stilts in the Chao Phraya River. He has also paddled a small boat down all of the Chao Phraya's four tributaries; his "The Chao Phya, River in Transition" which was published by Oxford University Press is considered the definitive work on the river and water culture in Thailand. His most recent book, "Slithering South" is an anecdotal chronicle of his first journey. The author of 21 books and 42 documentary films on a variety of Asian cultural topics, he is a Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York, elected in recognition of his solo river expeditions in China and Tibet.
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Tourism Authority of Thailand. All Rights Reserved.
