It took a lot of self-motivation to drag myself to the holiday island of Phuket, especially since it is quite a detour by public transport on the way south from Hua Hin to the Malaysian border. But the Chinese influences (the result of a 17th-century tin mining boom) in the Old City of Phuket turned out to be a refreshing change from the monoculture of the rest of Thailand.

From Phuket Town, I visited Sirinat National Park, one of the 7 nature reserves included in this tentative site, which lies some 30km to the north. I took the bus that runs hourly from inner city bus terminal 1 towards the airport and got off about 3km before the final stop when the bus passes the park entrance road. There’s no lack of signage that you are approaching and entering a national park. It was renamed to ‘Sirinat’ (after the Thai queen mother Sirikit) in 1992, but maps.me still has it listed under its older name ‘Nai Yang‘. Officially there is a 200 baht entrance fee, but the gate wasn’t staffed and I don’t see how they would enforce it anyway as the area includes a public beach.

Finding something appropriate to see and do is another matter. The best thing I could find was to hike the ‘Beach Forest Nature Trail’ – all 500m of it! It’s a forest trail with interpretative signs, totally underwhelming although it must be said that the signs are relevant to its possible future WH status. Sirinat consists of a coastal forest, with sandy and salty soil that keeps plants low.

I don’t think there is anything more ‘natural’ to the park than this. I also went to the visitor center (one room), saw a youth camp, bungalows, park headquarters, and a lot of cars on the main road that crosses it. The beach is fairly nice and wasn’t too busy. I had to laugh at the stray dogs that had buried themselves in the cool sand and were sleeping comfortably. I walked via the beach towards the airport, where I caught a bus back to town.

The park area is so tiny (2 km²) that I can’t see how its values are preserved despite the commercial development all around it and it wouldn’t surprise me if IUCN requested it to be dropped from a final nomination. Thai politics may want to keep it in though, as Sirinat NP was a prestige project of the former governor of Phuket, it would give Phuket a WHS (resulting in even more tourism!) and the park is full of references to the Thai royal family.