Secret Buddha Garden (Tarnim & Magic Garden)

Statues of monks, animals and deities set in the jungle 400 metres up, laid out by a farmer in 1976 and left to the moss. A small waterfall runs through it.

📍 Coordinates · 9.48267, 99.99481🧭 From Chaweng · ≈ 8.5 km🛣️ Getting there · Hill road or track — car, driver or 4×4🥾 Walk · 5 min on foot🎟️ Entry · Small entrance fee🕒 Allow · 1 h 30🌤️ Best time · morning, rainy months (Oct–Jan)

Why go

Four hundred metres up in the middle of the island, a farmer named Nim Thongsuk began setting statues of monks, animals and deities among the boulders of his land in 1976. The jungle has been closing over them ever since, and the result is the strangest place on Samui.

What you will find

A stream runs through the garden and drops in a small waterfall at its lower end; the statues are scattered up the slope, mossed over, with a viewpoint at the top looking north across the island. Allow an hour, more if you walk the whole loop. A small entrance fee is collected at the gate.

Good to know

The access road is steep and broken: 4×4 or a guided trip, not a rented scooter. Small entrance fee.

Worth knowing before you go

The access road is the real subject: steep, broken concrete and dirt, with drops. Take a 4×4, a driver or a guided trip — not a rented scooter, and never two-up.

Place

On the map

On the map…

Open the full island map · Driving directions · Google Maps · © OpenStreetMap

Places

Nearby

The closest places on the map, straight-line distance.

Na Muang 2

The big one: eighty metres of water down a rock face, twenty to twenty-five minutes uphill from the first fall. Dry to a trickle in March and April.

Na Muang 1

An eighteen-metre fall over purple rock, five minutes' walk from the car park, with a pool deep enough to swim in when the river is up.

Zipline, Na Muang

The second zipline course, strung above the Na Muang valley — easy to bolt onto a waterfall morning.

Read more

The tour page · Temples & shrines of Koh Samui · Koh Samui map

See it with us · Jungle Safari

Want someone to drive you there?

Half of these places are easier with a driver who knows which hill road is paved. Tell us which ones you care about and we will build the day around them.

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