Vartika Resovilla Kuiburi

King Mongkut Memorial Park of Science & Technology.

This small shoreline park in Waghor District, 10 km south of the city of Prachuap Khiri Khan, was founded to commemorate King Mongkut?s forecast of a total solar eclipse on 18 August, 1868. The king invited Sir Harry Ord, the British Governor of Straits Settlements from Singapore, as well as a party of French astronomers and scientists, to watch the total solar eclipse of at this spot, which the king had calculated himself as the best place to observe the event in Thailand. King Mongkut?s calculations (?East Greenwich longitude 99 degrees 42' and latitude North 11 degrees 39'?) proved accurate, but during the expedition both King Mongkut and his son Prince Chulalongkorn were infected with malaria. The king died six weeks later in the capital, and was succeeded by his son, who survived. The royal expedition ? known in the annals of international eclipse lore as ?King of Siam?s Eclipse? ? is today considered a landmark in the development of scientific disciplines in Thailand.

Kuiburi National Park

Covering 969 square kilometers through parts of the districts of Pranburi, Sam Roi Yot and Prachuap Khiri Khan, and extending right up to the Thailand/Myanmar border, Kuiburi National Park is a well-protected haven for much of the country?s rarest wildlife. The hilly terrain encompasses pristine dry evergreen and moist evergreen forests, along with a great variety of other flora. The park is believed to harbor the largest herd of wild elephants in Thailand, testament to the fact that Kuiburi was once an important source of elephants for logging work as well as military and royal functions. The park forests are also home to tigers, leopards, gaur, gibbons, banteng, serow, dusky langur, Asiatic black bear, Malayan sun bear, stump-tailed macaques, Malayan tapir, Sambar deer and four species of hornbill, as well as hundreds of other species.

Sam Roi Yot National Park
Established in 1966, Sam Roi Yot was Thailand?s first coastal national park. It covers 98 square kilometers of limestone mountains, mangroves, freshwater marshes, mudflats, salt pan, sandy beaches, forest trails and offshore islets. The steep limestone mountains are sparsely covered by dwarf evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs which grow in the thin soils and on the barren rock. A mixed deciduous forest, including areas of secondary growth and bamboo grows on the foothills and in the valleys. The limestone topography has eroded naturally in places to produce beautiful limestone caves

The mountainous interior supports a population of serow, a dark-furred goat-antelope now rare in Thailand. To catch a glimpse of the serow, try scanning the rugged mountain crags with a pair of binoculars in the early morning or evening when it is most active.

Pygmy Bryde?s Whale
The Pygmy Bryde?s Whale, called Balaenoptera edeni by zoologists, is one of the rarest whale species in the world and the smallest whale resident in the Gulf of Thailand. Like other Bryde?s whales it is named after a Norwegian who established South Africa?s first whaling stations, Johan Bryde, whose last name is pronounced broo-da (hence the common misspelling as ?Bruda?). It is one of the least researched and least known whales of the rorqual species (whales with a dorsal fin and long throat grooves on the lower side of their bodies).

As a species, the Pygmy Bryde?s Whale prefers warm waters and is usually coastal-bound, rather than pelagic. These mammals are mostly found along the coasts of India and Myanmar. It?s preference for tropical climes had led to its less common name, Eden?s Whale.