Tham Chorakhe

Tham Chorakhe is a 300-metre tidal cave on Koh Tarutao, reached only by longtail boat through a mangrove-lined canal — there’s no road or walking trail to it. Boats leave from the pier at Ao Phante Malaka, the park headquarters on Tarutao’s west coast, and take around 20 minutes along Khlong Phante Malaka, a brackish-water channel walled in by dense mangrove on both banks. The cave itself has no lighting or walkways; boatmen pole or paddle in using a torch, so it stays completely undeveloped compared to Thailand’s more commercialised show caves.

Inside, the passage narrows and widens through stalactite and stalagmite formations shaped by tidal water over thousands of years. The name comes from the crocodiles once said to have lived here — locals report crocodile remains found in the cave in decades past, though no live population remains today. Because the cave floods with brackish tidal water, timing matters: boatmen generally won’t run the trip at extreme low tide, when the boat can’t clear the passage, so ask at the pier before planning your day around it.

There’s no separate ticket for the cave — it’s covered by Tarutao National Park’s standard entrance fee (200 THB for foreign adults, 100 THB for children; 40 THB for Thai adults, 20 THB for children), payable at the park checkpoint when you arrive on the island. Boat hire to the cave itself is a separate cost, arranged at the same pier alongside trips to other spots around the bay.

Watch out: Boats don’t run this route at very low tide, since the cave mouth can become too shallow to enter. If you’re staying overnight on Tarutao, ask your accommodation or the park ranger station to confirm tide times before heading to the pier.

Most visitors combine the cave with other stops around Ao Phante Malaka bay in a single half-day boat trip, since the pier is the hub for reaching several of Tarutao’s canal and forest sights. Bring a dry bag for cameras and phones — the boat sits low in the water inside the cave passage and splashes are common — and pack insect repellent for the mangrove approach, where mosquitoes are persistent even in daylight. There’s no lighting, food stalls, or facilities at the cave itself, so treat it as a short, self-contained detour rather than a destination to linger at.