Ko Samet

Ko Samet takes its name from the samet, or cajeput, tree that grows on its forested hills, and the island long supported only a few fishing families on its sheltered northern shore. Its literary fame came from the poet Sunthorn Phu (1786–1855), whose father's family came from Klaeng district on the mainland opposite: he set part of his epic Phra Aphai Mani on the island's shores, and statues of the poem's prince and the mermaid who guided him to Ko Samet stand on Hat Sai Kaew today.

For most of the 20th century the island remained a quiet dependency of Ban Phe across the water, with coconut smallholdings, fishing and a village at Na Dan. The government restricted overnight stays on the island until 1981, and cheap bungalows spread along the east-coast bays in the years that followed. In that same year the Royal Forest Department declared the Samet archipelago, nine other small islands, the Khao Laem Ya headland and Mae Ramphueng Beach a national park. Resort building accelerated all the same, and the unclear legal status of land on the island has fed long-running disputes between residents, developers, the Treasury Department and the park authorities; in August 2013 three resorts found by the courts to have been built illegally on park land were demolished.

Proximity to Bangkok decided the island's character: a weekend destination for Thai visitors as much as a backpacker stop, reached in a few hours. A pipeline leak off the Rayong coast in July 2013 sent oil onto Ao Phrao, which was closed and cleared over the following weeks, damaging the island's reputation for a season. Building at the main bays has continued, and the southern third of the island remains largely empty.

The island's culture is that of the Rayong coast — fishing families, Chinese-Thai traders and the temples and spirit shrines of the mainland — layered over with the habits of a resort that has served Bangkok for more than forty years. Weekends and public holidays bring a strongly Thai crowd: families taking rooms at Ao Wong Duean, groups of friends eating seafood on the sand, and music that runs late at Hat Sai Kaew.

Sunthorn Phu is the island's cultural anchor. Phra Aphai Mani, one of the best-known works of Thai literature, tells of a prince held by a giantess and helped by a mermaid, and part of it is set on this coast; the statues on Hat Sai Kaew, and the poet's memorial at Klaeng on the mainland, are visited by school groups and marked each 26 June.

Manners follow the national pattern, with the extra sensitivities of a small community. Residents distinguish sharply between the beach and the village: beachwear, drinking and noise belong to the bays, not to Na Dan, the school or the temple. Fire-spinning shows, beach bars and full-moon style parties are part of the northern beaches' evening trade rather than any local tradition. The national park's presence means that rules about collecting, fires and rubbish are enforced, and conservation of the reefs and the turtle nesting sites on nearby islands is taken seriously.

Only a small permanent population lives on Ko Samet, most of it in and around Na Dan at the northern tip, where the pier, the school, the health centre and the everyday shops are. The number of people on the island at any moment is several times higher, made up of resort and restaurant staff from the mainland and of migrant workers, and of visitors, who far outnumber residents at weekends.

Nearly every livelihood depends on visitors: bungalows and resorts, restaurants and beach bars, boats, songthaews, dive and kayak operators, shops and building work. Fishing continues on a small scale, and much of the seafood eaten on the beaches is landed at Ban Phe, where the island's supplies of water, fuel, food and building material also come from.

The rhythm is weekly rather than daily. Fridays bring the boats in full from Ban Phe, the beaches fill on Saturday, and Sunday afternoon empties the island again; midweek it is calm enough for the resorts to catch up. Water is the chronic constraint — the island has no substantial fresh supply of its own and depends on wells, tankers and careful management — along with waste disposal, electricity supply and the long-running argument between development and the national park.

Seafood is what the island cooks: prawns, squid, blue swimmer crab and fish grilled over charcoal on the beachfront in the evening, or steamed with lime, chilli and garlic, or fried with garlic and pepper, served with nam chim seafood, the sour-hot dipping sauce that goes with all of it. Hoi thot, mussels fried in a thin batter with egg and bean sprouts, and tom yam with prawns are standards on nearly every menu.

The mainland supplies the flavourings the coast is known for. Rayong is Thailand's main producer of nam pla, fish sauce, and also makes kapi, fermented shrimp paste, and Ban Phe's seafront market sells both alongside dried squid, dried fish and prawn crackers bought as gifts. The province's orchards send in durian, mangosteen, rambutan and pineapple from about April to June, and pineapple from Rayong is sold sliced along the beach.

Everyday eating on the island is Thai working food, cooked for staff as much as for visitors: rice with one or two curries from a tray, stir-fried basil with pork or chicken and a fried egg, noodle soups, and Isan grills with som tam and sticky rice. Beach bars sell fruit shakes, coconuts and beer on ice, and the coffee is the sweet iced kind drunk everywhere in the country.