Kung Krabaen Bay Royal Development Study Center

Kung Krabaen Bay Royal Development Study Center is a working coastal research station in Chanthaburi’s Tha Mai district, founded in 1981 after King Bhumibol visited the bay and found its mangroves stripped bare by unregulated shrimp farming. The center runs the opposite experiment: demonstration ponds that show local fishing families how to farm shrimp, crab, and fish without wrecking the mangrove that feeds the bay. Entry is free, and the site — boardwalk, ponds, and small aquarium — takes about two hours to walk through properly.

A 1.6-kilometre wooden boardwalk is the spine of a visit, raised above the mud and running through replanted mangrove forest to the shoreline. Exhibition pavilions along the way explain the bay’s ecology and the center’s breeding programs, with tanks holding some of the species raised in the ponds — tiger prawns, mud crab, seabass. Past the pavilions, rows of outdoor culture ponds show the farming techniques in action; you can watch staff checking water quality or feeding stock, particularly in the mid-morning. A modest aquarium near the entrance introduces the mangrove’s smaller residents, mudskippers and fiddler crabs among them, before the boardwalk proper begins.

Insider Tip: Go before 10am. The boardwalk has almost no shade for most of its length, and Chanthaburi’s coastal humidity makes the walk back noticeably harder by midday.

Watch out: Public transport doesn’t reach the center — you need your own vehicle or a hired driver from Chanthaburi town, about 25 km northwest.

This is a research station first, not a landscaped park, so don’t expect manicured grounds — expect mudflats, working ponds, and staff who are there to farm, not perform for visitors. That’s also what makes it worth the detour: it’s one of the few places in Thailand where you can see, close up, how a royal-initiated development project actually operates decades on. Combine it with Laem Sadet-Kung Graben Harbor, the beach and fishing harbour a few kilometres away on the same bay, or the nearby Laem Sadet Arboretum for a full loop of the Chanthaburi coast.