Ko Lanta

Ko Lanta's first inhabitants were the Urak Lawoi, one of the sea peoples of the Andaman coast, who moved seasonally among the islands and eventually settled on Ko Lanta Yai, around the old town and at the southern end of the island, where their villages and burial grounds remain. Malay-speaking Muslim families from the coast and further south followed, farming and fishing, and by the 19th century the island's sheltered east coast had become a stopping point on the sailing route between Phuket, Penang and the Malay ports.

That trade built Lanta Old Town. Chinese merchants settled beside the Muslim and Urak Lawoi communities, putting up wooden shophouses on stilts over the water with piers for loading rubber, charcoal and dried fish, and a shrine among them. The town served as the island's administrative centre for generations, and its buildings survive largely because the island's economy moved elsewhere rather than because anyone preserved them.

Roads, electricity and the first bungalows arrived late — mains power reached much of the island only in the 1990s — and development went to the west coast, where the beaches face the sunset. Backpackers came first, then families and long-stayers, and the island settled into a reputation for being quieter than Phi Phi and less built up than Phuket. The 2004 tsunami damaged the west coast and the boats, though far fewer people were hurt or killed here than on the Phi Phi islands. The Siri Lanta bridge to Ko Lanta Noi, opened in 2016, replaced the longer of the two car-ferry crossings and shortened the journey from the mainland.

The island is predominantly Muslim, and that shapes ordinary life: mosques in every village, a quieter Friday midday, modest dress away from the beach, and kitchens that serve no alcohol. Ramadan is observed seriously, and the island's rhythm changes during the fasting month. Buddhist and Chinese-Thai families, concentrated in the old town and Saladan, keep temple festivals and shrine ceremonies alongside.

The Urak Lawoi give Lanta a third strand. Their communities at the southern end of the island speak a language related to Malay, maintain distinct burial customs and set a small wooden boat adrift in a ceremony that carries ancestral spirits away, accompanied by rong ngeng music and dancing through the night. Land rights, fishing access and the pressure of resort development on their villages are long-running and unresolved issues.

Among visitors the island has a settled, unhurried culture of its own: many return each dry season, some stay for months, and yoga, diving and beach bars made of driftwood define the west coast rather than nightclubs. The southern Thai dialect is spoken everywhere, mixed with Malay words in the villages, and English is the working language of the beach road.

Ko Lanta district, which covers the two main islands and the smaller ones around them, has a population in the tens of thousands, and the numbers on Ko Lanta Yai swell in the dry season with Thai and Burmese seasonal workers and with long-staying visitors. Saladan is the practical centre — banks, the fresh market, the clinic, the piers — while Lanta Old Town holds the district offices and school, and most residents live in villages along the inland road rather than on the beaches.

Tourism, fishing and rubber support the island in roughly that order. Boats work the reefs and the channels, rubber is tapped before dawn on the inland slopes, and hotels, restaurants and dive shops employ most people from November to April. The wet season brings a real pause: resorts close, families return to farming and fishing, and the beaches empty.

Water supply in the dry months, waste and the price of coastal land are the issues residents raise most often, along with the effect of the bridge, which brought day visitors and construction as well as convenience. Days start early with the market and the boats, slow in the afternoon heat, and end with the sunset, which on this coast falls straight into the sea and is watched from the beach bars as a matter of routine.

Southern Thai cooking with a strong Muslim element is the island's everyday food. Khao mok gai, chicken cooked with turmeric and spices over rice in the biryani manner, is a village staple, and roti — griddled flatbread eaten with curry or folded around banana and condensed milk — is sold from carts morning and evening. Massaman, the mild, aromatic curry of Muslim origin, belongs to the same tradition.

The hotter southern dishes are here too: kaeng som, a sour fish curry sharp with tamarind and yellow with fresh turmeric; kua kling, minced meat dry-fried with a fierce chilli and pepper paste; and kaeng tai pla, made with fermented fish innards, which marks a kitchen cooking for residents. Rice and a plate of raw vegetables and herbs arrive alongside to cool the heat.

Seafood is the reason most visitors eat out: squid, prawns, blue crab and whole fish landed at Saladan and the old town, sold by weight and grilled over charcoal. Lanta's own speciality is the simplicity of it — fish steamed with lime and garlic, or with a chilli and herb sauce. Breakfast for residents is often khanom jeen, fermented rice noodles under curry, or rice soup; coffee is served thick and sweet with condensed milk, and stalls sell mangosteen, rambutan, durian and pineapple in season.