Ko Ngai

This guide to Ko Ngai in Krabi's Hat Chao Mai National Park opens in June 2024, when a park ranger's drone survey turned up the largest single-day dugong count ever logged in these waters, after months of surveys had found only a handful of animals. It traces the seagrass meadows the dugongs depend on and the sanctuary Thailand set aside here in 1981, one of its first for the species. You'll meet the Chao Leh, the sea gypsy families who read these waters long before any ranger's drone did.