The island where (nearly) everyone survived the “people-eating sea”
Fly to Bangkok and take a connecting flight to the Andaman coast. South Surin island is about forty miles offshore.
The island is home to the Moken people, who have continued to live in houseboats or in thatched huts on stilts, fishing and diving for sustenance even as their neighbors in mainland Thailand have embraced Western capitalism, and replaced the natural jungles of South East Asia with concrete ones.
For academics, the most interesting thing about the Moken people is that their ability to see underwater is so remarkable that several research reports have been written on it. Better still, they couldn't come up with any reason for it (so more research needs to be done). A second, more interesting, thing is that they believe the sea has a spirit. In fact, they believe that all things have spirits, and have a complex series of rituals, centered around totem poles, to communicate with them. But the intriguing thing about them is that they are still there. This is because they are prepared to follow messages delivered in ways other than via totem poles. For example, when the tide suddenly changes, and rapidly recedes a long way out, they interpret this as the message “run for the high ground of the hills.” For the sea has become a “people eating sea,” and running from it is the only thing to do.
Thus it was that on December 26, 2004, when the tsunami killed two hundred thousand others, it caught just one member of the Moken people, a lame elderly man who was too slow to escape on his own and was missed in the rush.
There are a few thousand “water people” living in the region, and most of these are now in regular contact with the mainland and the tourist dollar. The Moken in particular try to keep away from that, but after the tsunami, the Thai government's national park rangers visited and offered to help with rebuilding. So now there are plans to include a souvenir shop for visitors to the now famous island where (nearly) everyone survived.
Sadly, Thailand today is run by an increasingly autocratic and brutal clique of men in suits who worship, of course, only money. The long peaceful history of the “Kingdom of Siam,” with its national religion of Buddhism, has become a short story of profit and exploitation. Typical of this is that many of the poor coastal communities destroyed by the tidal wave, like Nam Khem, are being replaced with concrete villas—not for the original inhabitants, but for tourists.
People-eating waves are rare, but they do eat a lot of people when they come.