Home › Diving › Thailand › East › Pattaya › Attractions › Nong Nooch
Pattaya Nong Nooch Botanical Garden
Nong Nooch Gardens should be on the 'must do and visit' list for places to go in Thailand - especially if you are anywhere near Pattaya.
It's a place to be visited near Pattaya for flower lovers and sightseers alike, and you don't have to be an avid gardener to enjoy the spectacle.
Pattaya Nong Nooch Tropical Garden
It is a huge garden to the south of Pattaya City and easily reached by public transport or by one of the many tours that are laid on for hotel tourists.
The garden is known throughout the world as a horticultural masterpiece of enormous size.
Nong Nooch has many different aspects to keep visitors interested - or even entertained! The garden covers an area of five hundred acres, so it is not for a brisk walk.
Nong Nooch Garden is probably the finest garden in Thailand, and must rank in the top ten gardens in the world. Such a statement is of course subjective, but that is how the writer feels.
For this page, the emphasis will be on the ‘tourist’ visitor, rather than the gardening enthusiast or botanist even.
The horticultural details will follow at a later date – after a further visit.
It is of course impossible to write about a garden without mention of the plants, so non-gardeners please be patient. I will also try to whet your appetite as well.
Nong Nooch has a huge range of tropical plants – as you would expect being so close to the equator, and with normal South East Asian climatic conditions.
Nong Nooch started life as a fruit orchard, later developing into this magnificent tropical garden as a result of world-wide travels by the owners. It just shows what you can do if you set your mind upon it.
Maybe not to this scale for all of us, but somewhere there must be a dream. Nong Nooch is one such dream that came true for the owners.
Dreams are simply a vision. For them to materialise, there has to be action. Concerted action and a sense of purpose.
Nong Nooch Garden claims to have the largest collection of plants in Asia. It would certainly be difficult to question that claim, even after a short visit.
As well as being a huge collection of plants, there are of course rarities that go with such collections.
At Nong Nooch, some of the rarest plants in the world are to be found.
Tourists will invariably come to the garden in one of the fleets of luxurious buses that are almost built for the purpose of ferrying to Nong nooch from the local hotels and resorts in Pattaya.
The driveway to the garden is in itself a spectacle, and you will be impatient for the bus to stop, so you can get out and have a closer look. Be patient. It will be worth the wait.
Savour the wide range of palms and sculptured plants from the comfort of your air-conditioned bus - or with the wind blowing in your face, if like me you have a motorbike and live locally.
You will be instantly and pleasantly surprised at the way the gardens and surrounding grounds are kept. Later as you wander round the garden, you will see how this comes about with the myriads of gardening staff on hand.
The staff at Nong Nooch, are also responsible for all entertainment – of which there is much – cooking, and even making the majority of the pots in which many of the plants grow.
The entertainment on hand at Nong nooch Garden includes multiple shows and exhibitions, most with a Thai cultural flavour.
Animals – of the type you would like to take home – are there to wander through. There are other animals which perhaps you would prefer NOT to take home with you.
There are restaurants to cater for all tastes of food, and of course plenty to drink to stop you from becoming dehydrated. It will be hot, and you could be in for a lot of walking.
Aerial walkways are a must if you want to see the garden from a different perspective. For the keen photographer, the walk through the palmtops is essential.
You will get many close-up pictures of spectacular palm trees, and I doubt if you have ever seen so many silver foliaged palms in your life.
The palms are reputed to be the finest collection in the world. Even if you are not a ‘gardener’ you will be taken aback at the range of sizes and shapes of the palm collection – to be seen in virtually every part of the extensive garden.
There are many, many more fine plants in the gardens besides the palms of course. Orchid and Euphorbia collections to name but two.
There are huge expanses of formal gardens, with amazing colour schemes from various plant foliages. Ferns, Bromeliads, Bonsais, and ‘not so bonsai’ sculpted trees and foliage shrubs.
Anyone travelling through this part of Thailand will have been taken in with the endless colour cacophony of red, pink, orange, white and all other colours from the Bougainvilleas. Nong Nooch garden has them in a huge array. Absolutely spectacular!
We will write a horticultural and botanical aspect in a later page. I hope that what you have read so far will tempt you to visit one of the most spectacular gardens in the world.
Getting to Nong Nooch Gardens Pattaya
Nong Nooch Garden is based on Sukhumvit Road(Highway No.3), 18 kilometres (20 minutes) driving from Pattaya City heading towards Sattahip and Rayong.
Pass the turn-off for Silverlake Vineyard, and about 2 kilometres you will see the big billboard of Nong Nooch Garden at the entrance. This will be at the km.163 marker on your left hand side.