Ko Kut

Ko Kut sits at the far eastern edge of Thai waters, and its history belongs as much to the Gulf's boat routes as to the mainland. The island was settled slowly, by fishing families from the Trat coast and by Khmer-speaking people from the Cambodian coast a short distance across the water, who cleared land for coconut, rubber and fruit and built villages on stilts where the water was sheltered enough for boats.

The frontier moved around them. After the Paknam crisis of 1893 France pressed its claims against Siam along this coast, occupying Chanthaburi from 1893 until 1905 and then holding Trat and its islands until the treaty of 1907, under which France withdrew from Trat while Siam ceded Battambang, Siem Reap and Sisophon. The memory of that exchange is still marked in Trat province. Ko Kut itself was disputed between Thailand and Cambodia in the mid-1960s, and the 1907 treaty remains the recognised legal basis for its status as Thai territory, though the sea boundary nearby is still claimed by both countries.

For most of the 20th century the island lived from coconut, fishing and rubber, with no electricity grid, no through road and a population counted in thousands. Visitors arrived much later than on Ko Chang: a few bungalows in the 1990s, then resorts along the west coast from the 2000s, together with a road, piers and a supply of power. Development has stayed comparatively low-key — there is no nightlife strip and no town — and the island is marketed on quietness, which has in turn attracted higher-priced resorts.

Ko Kut's culture is coastal, Buddhist and mixed. Thai and Khmer-speaking families have lived alongside each other here for generations, and many households have relatives on both sides of the water; the temple at Ao Yai and the small shrines in the villages serve them together. Chinese-Thai traders have long handled the coconut and fish trade, and their shrines stand near the piers.

Fishing sets the pattern of the year in the eastern villages: boats go out according to season and weather, nets and traps are repaired on the walkways between the stilt houses, and squid is dried on racks in the sun. Coconut has been the other constant, and groves cover much of the flatter ground, their crop pressed for oil, dried for copra and sold fresh to the resorts.

Visitors are few enough that ordinary courtesies matter a great deal. Villages are lived in rather than displayed, and photographing homes, boats or people at work is a request rather than a right. Swimwear stays on the beach; shoulders and knees are covered at the temple; voices are kept low. The island has no large festival of its own, and the calendar follows the national one, with Songkran in April and Loi Krathong in November marked quietly at the temple and on the beaches.

Ko Kut district takes in the island and about a dozen smaller ones around it, and had some 2,900 registered residents at the 2011 count, making it the least populous district in Thailand. Most live in the eastern villages of Ao Salat and Ao Yai and in small settlements along the west coast road, with the school, the health centre and the district office serving the whole island.

The economy rests on three things: fishing, coconut and rubber smallholdings, and tourism, which has become the largest employer along the west coast. Resort staff come from the mainland, from Isan and from across the border, and much of the island's food, fuel, building material and fresh water logistics arrive by boat from Trat. Government services, boat operators and construction make up most of the rest.

Life is quiet and early. Boats leave before dawn and the villages are busiest in the morning when the catch comes in; the middle of the day is still; the evening ends early by Thai resort standards, and outside the high season much of the island closes. The recurring concerns are the reliability of electricity and water, waste disposal, the cost and availability of boats in the monsoon, the distance to hospitals on the mainland, and the balance between new resort building and the plantations and forest that give the island its character.

Seafood is the island's own cooking, and the stilt villages are where it is best: crab from the surrounding waters, squid grilled or fried with garlic and pepper, prawns, and whole fish steamed with lime, chilli and garlic or grilled over charcoal, all served with nam chim seafood, the sour-hot dipping sauce. Dried and salted squid hangs on racks at Ao Salat, and shrimp paste and fish sauce from the Trat coast flavour much of what is cooked.

Coconut runs through the island's food, as it does through its farming. It goes into curries — the eastern coast leans towards rich southern-style coconut curries as well as central Thai ones — into sweets, and into drinks taken straight from the nut. The mainland supplies the eastern provinces' specialities: flat rice noodles from Chanthaburi, mu chamuang, pork braised with the sour chamuang leaf, and the orchard fruit of Trat and Chanthaburi, durian, mangosteen, rambutan and longan, in season in the middle of the year.

Everyday food is the same as anywhere in working Thailand, cooked for islanders and resort staff: rice with curries from the tray, stir-fried basil with pork and a fried egg, noodle soups, and Isan grills selling gai yang, som tam and sticky rice. Resorts serve Thai and Western menus, fruit shakes and coffee, and the beach bars are small, few and close early.