Suan Nai Dum

Suan Nai Dum in Chumphon’s Thung Tako district is Thailand’s toilet-themed garden — a 200-rai working fruit farm where every restroom on the property is a fully functional piece of roadside art. The Ministry of Public Health named it an official public-toilet learning centre in 2006, and it’s still a working orchard first, novelty stop second.

The toilets are the reason most people detour off Highway 41: a Tarzan-and-Jane pair built into a tree platform, a floating toilet moored on a pond, a “pig’s rear end” toilet visitors queue up to photograph, and dozens more scattered along the garden paths. All of them work — this isn’t a display of empty shells, and each one is built and maintained as seriously as the ones inside the restaurant. Between toilet stops, the paths wind through fruiting Shogun orange trees, Thung Tako papaya, and mangosteen, with orchid and fern beds filling the gaps between the fruiting rows. A coffee shop on site serves civet coffee alongside the usual Thai iced coffee, and a small OTOP shop sells the farm’s own durian jam and seasonal fruit to take home.

The idea grew out of an ordinary durian and orange farm — the toilets came later, as the owner started building them as a personal project, and word of mouth turned individual stalls into the garden’s main attraction. That origin still shows: nothing here feels purpose-built for a tour bus circuit. The paths are farm paths, the shade is orchard shade, and the toilets sit wherever there was room for them rather than along a curated walking loop.

Insider Tip: Weekday mornings are quiet enough to get the popular toilets — the floating one and the Tarzan pair — without waiting for other visitors to finish their photos.

Watch out: This is a working farm, not a manicured show garden — paths can be muddy after rain and shade is patchy at midday, so bring water and decent shoes rather than sandals.

The garden sits right on Sai Asia Road (Highway 41), about 56 km south of Chumphon town near the Surat Thani provincial border, which is why it’s easy to fold into a road trip between the two provinces rather than treat it as a dedicated day out from Chumphon city. There’s no public transport directly to the gate — a rented car, motorbike, or taxi from Chumphon town is the only practical way in. Entry is free, and the farm makes its money instead from the coffee shop, fruit sales, and OTOP souvenirs, so budget a little for those rather than expecting to leave empty-handed.