Island Wrap #85: 'White Lotus' fever, oldest human remains ever found in Thailand, Ko Samui bridge update, and more

A free monthly spin around the most intriguing and consequential news and other media from Thailand's islands and coastal areas.

Greetings island lovers and welcome to your free monthly news review from Thailand’s islands and coastal areas — and sometimes beyond.

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Catch of the month

Spying Mu Ko Hong’s elegant profile from Ko Yao Noi’s isolated Hat Yao at dusk.

Recently from Thai Island quest…

T.I.C.D.: Mu Ko Ranong & Mu Ko Kam

T.I.C.D.: Ranong coast & offshore islands

T.I.C.D.: Mu Ko Similan & Mu Ko Surin

T.I.C.D.: Mu Ko Phra Thong

With these four published we are now down to the final two sections before reaching the end of the Thai Island & Coastal Directory. Both of them focus on the mainland coasts of Phang Nga province: the first spotlights Khuraburi and Takua Pa along with the nearby Khao Sok region in the far west of Surat Thani, while the final section is all about Khao Lak and Thai Mueang. Both are already completed and scheduled to go live on March 9th and 16th, respectively.

These last sections bring the project to over 1,200 islands and 350 notable coastal areas in all 24 of Thailand’s coastal provinces. Yes, the T.I.C.D. is a lot more comprehensive than initially advertised, so if you’re keen to uncover little-known islands and beach areas for your travels, do consider upgrading to gain access to the entire T.I.C.D. along with dozens of other in-depth articles. And if you’re already subscribed, thank you so much for supporting this project.

Though we’ll reach the end of the T.I.C.D. this month, I do still need to go back and rework some of the introductory material and give every section a solid read while adding a few photos and trimming or adding text and ironing out any stylistic discrepancies for the sake of uniformity. During this phase I’ll also nerd out with an appendix summarizing the project from a statistical point of view, so if you want to know which province has the most islands, or how many of the islands are tiny versus mid-size or larger, that bonus section will be for you.

White Lotus fever

Season 3 of HBO’s The White Lotus is causing a bigger hubbub among English-language media than any Thailand-related film project since The Beach crew defiled Maya Bay to make way for Leonardo Dicaprio in 1999. I’ve not yet started watching but I did enjoy the first two seasons and many, though not all, of the people I know with close ties to Thailand have signaled their approval.

One writer criticized the show for portraying Thailand through a lens of “Orientalism, mysticism, eroticism and exoticness.” True as this may be, I reckon the show creator’s seemingly genuine interest in Thai Buddhism and the inclusion of several Thai actors — most famously Lisa from Blackpink but perhaps more intriguingly the 76-year-old from Hua Hin who came out of retirement to play the resort owner — are enough to place The White Lotus on the respectful end of the scale when it comes to American-made films set in Thailand. Supporting this take is a deep video dive into the symbolism of Thai mural scenes from the show’s opening theme.

Fans of the show might start with a piece from The Guardian that shares copious details about a filming process in which, “for the entire seven-month duration of filming, actors do not live in rented accommodation, as they might on other films. They live on set. That's right, they live in the White Lotus hotel.” Delving further into the show creator’s imagination and how it arced towards Asia and ultimately Thailand for Season 3, an article from The New Yorker is also worth a look.

Bangkok Post notes a huge spike in interest about Ko Samui, “which may not experience a low season this year thanks to the series.” The Phuket Express dishes out the most detailed rundown of specific filming locations that I’ve seen so far, with sites including Ayutthaya’s 16th-century Chedi Phu Khao Thong and Ko Phangan’s infamous backpacker beach of Hat Rin. (I’m also challenging myself to decipher precisely which islands the scenes from Mu Ko Ang Thong were filmed on.) The BBC spotlights several places worth visiting in the islands, as suggested by one of the show’s leading Thai actors who is also a keen traveler.

Los Angeles Times ponders the contradiction of how “a show that sharply critiqued luxury travel also functioned as a glossy advertisement for it.” Much Better Adventures untangles this paradox, acknowledging how the “show invites us to recoil from these characters while drawing us into the settings that enable the indulgence.” On the mass tourism angle, Grist notes that Ko Samui already faces “critical problems in terms of waste management and water resources,” while Skift likens publications that have previously reported on overtourism to “golden retrievers chasing a tennis ball” when it comes to their White Lotus coverage.

The above is merely a sampling of all the Thailand-related media attention surrounding the show. One last example comes from Smithsonian, whose writer performed proverbial backflips to connect The White Lotus to a Japanese oil tanker that exploded and sank off Ko Samui during World War II.

Weather and shipwrecks

It seems that I jumped the gun in last month’s Island Wrap when writing that we were “entering those wonderful few months of the year when all of coastal Thailand enjoys largely dry weather at the same time.” (In this climate-changing world, one can never be quite sure!) Late February brought unseasonably wet conditions to much of the country, showering Bangkok for the first time in over two months and creating serious flooding conditions in several other provinces.

Flash floods hit four isolated villages in Kanchaburi’s Sai Yok district, but the worst of it came further south down the Gulf coast. Homes and vehicles flooded on Ko Phangan as high water left livestock farmers scrambling in Phatthalung, where the Asia Highway was temporarily closed. Floods also hit five other Gulf coast provinces and even some mountainous areas of Trang province.

No shipwrecks were reported as a result of the storms. However, unrelated to the weather in the Gulf, an American nurse sadly went missing about one km off Phuket’s Patong Beach after jumping into the sea from her rented jet ski late last month. As of yesterday, the search for her was still ongoing.

Travel and food

Koh Mak: The tiny island that’s redefining travel to Thailand (The BBC on an island in Mu Ko Chang that certainly punches above its weight among international media and has reportedly “become a testing ground for how small islands can thrive without sacrificing their soul to mass tourism.”)

Insiders’ guide to the royal playground of Hua Hin, on the Thai Riviera (SCMP spotlights one of Thailand’s classic beach towns.)

2 days in Phuket for street food lovers (Michelin Guide made me hungry with many of these modestly priced morsels of Phuket town.)

Tourism

The lowdown on long-stay visas (Bangkok Post on how some rules for the Long-Term Resident Visa [LTV] and Destination Thailand Visa [DTV] have been relaxed so that proof of substantial assets remains necessary whereas the previously required proof of substantial annual income was jettisoned.)

Thailand records 4.8 million tourists so far this year (Bangkok Post on a 17% increase in inbounds compared to the same period last year.)

Transport

Bridge too far? Fresh from ‘White Lotus’ bounce, Thailand’s Samui questions need for road link (SCMP on seabed drilling tests that are now searching for the best route for a potential 54-km road bridge to Ko Samui.)

New first-class bus service coming to link Bangkok airports to Pattaya, Hua Hin (The Pattaya News)

Unique visual account of life on Thai trains (Nikkei Asia with a paywalled article showcasing some of the work of a Chinese photographer who recently spent 37 days riding the rails around Thailand.)

Environment

Thailand ‘bringing back the bad old days’ for fisheries, say activists (Dialogue Earth on resistance to a proposed law that, according to additional reporting from Bangkok Post, the Senate sent back to the House after resolving to “support the ban on the use of all types of purse seine nets with mesh sizes smaller than 2.5cm for fishing at night” — a victory for small-scale fishers and environmentalists.)

Thailand’s climate challenge solutions (Bangkok Post with an opinion piece pointing out how “the Swiss Re Institute, which studies potential economic loss due to climate change among 48 countries, ranks Thailand No.3 for the impact on agricultural yield and No.1 in both labour productivity and tourism vulnerability. A terrifying scenario, indeed.")

The $29-billion shortcut: Thailand’s land bridge project fuels hopes and fears (Hard Stories with an in-depth report on the proposed mega-project that has reportedly been “gaining new momentum.”)

Wildlife

• A trio of Bryde’s whales appeared near Ko Pa Yat in Mu Ko Ang Thong National Park, which is partly closed until mid May to protect spawning mackerel and the whales and other marine creatures that feed on them.

• A curious whale shark delighted a boat full of tourists off Ko Kut’s Ao Phrao in a scene that was captured on video.

• One of the “fewer than 10 nesting female leatherbacks left in Thailand” nested in Mu Ko Phra Thong last month, while in Phuket, 70 Olive’s ridley sea turtle hatchlings were filmed waddling into the sea for the first time.

• A previously unknown poisonous snake species, dubbed the “red-barred green pit viper,” was discovered in Eastern Thailand.

• In other serpentine news, a Phuket snake rescue squad scrambled to apprehend a king cobra in front of a startled crowd when it escaped during transport between the Kamala hotel where it was found and the jungle. And in Bangkok, footage shows a “fearless vendor” casually snatching a giant python that was creeping through Khlong Toei Market in search of its dinner.

Society

Thailand’s last sea nomads confront a changing world (MongaBay with a richly filmed report following members of the Moken tribe above and below the water at their begrudged permanent homes on Ko Surin and Ko Ra, where some now find more consistent income from collecting plastic waste than fishing.)

A salty and bitter harvest (Bangkok Post with a video report on challenges facing the salt farmers of Chachoengsao east of Bangkok.)

Thailand mulls wall at Cambodia border as scam centre crackdown widens (CNA on efforts to cut off scam criminals sneaking over Thailand’s eastern borders as Thai police collaborate with authorities from China and Myanmar to rescue thousands who were trafficked into scam centers across Thailand’s western borders.)

A licence for eviction? Thailand’s ethnic protection bill sparks fierce opposition (Thai PBS on a bill that is ostensibly meant to embrace and protect stateless indigenous people, but could pave the way for land grabs after a critical part of the bill mandating “that authorities had to sign agreements with local ethnic communities in [natural] areas” was removed.)

Thai same-sex couples to wed under the sea (Bangkok Post on how, for the first time ever, the annual underwater wedding event off Ko Kradan in Trang province included couples with recently won marriage rights.)

In other news

Ancient child skeleton, nicknamed ‘Pangpond,’ unearthed in Thailand, rewriting history (Thai PBS on an extraordinary excavation at Din Cave in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park revealing the remains of a six to eight year-old child who appears to have been laid to rest with great care at least 29,000 years ago — much older than any previously discovered skeletons in Thailand.)

Researchers find ancient fossils in Krabi cave (Bangkok Post on the excavation of “the fossils of spotted hyenas, orangutans, deers, wild boars, cows and hedgehogs” dating from 80,000 to 200,000 years ago at To Chong Cave near Ao Nang.)

Pattaya cannabis farm fire leads to dizzying aftermath (The Pattaya News on how firefighters “faced difficulties due to the thick smoke from the burning cannabis plants, which filled the entire alley with a strong odor.”)

I leave you with…

A slow clap for Jack, the 22 year-old French traveler who asked a Bangkok cab driver to take him to Ko Tao in Southern Thailand but, due to a miscommunication, was instead dropped off roadside near Doi Tao in Lamphun province up North. Jack then hitched a ride south with a cabbage truck until hitting another bump in the road when he lost his wallet at a gas station in Ratchaburi. After a good samaritan returned the wallet and a policeman provided some much-needed guidance, Jack finally found himself island bound with one hell of a story to tell. 🌴

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