T.I.C.D.: Mu Ko Adang & Ko Khai
The entire Adang archipelago and the Ko Khai group of islands, condensed.
Welcome back to the Thai Island & Coastal Directory, a book-in-progress that promises to be the most complete guide to coastal Thailand ever written in English, covering more than 800 islands. For info on how to use the T.I.C.D. and a working Table of Contents, paddle over here. Thank you for reading!
Resuming Satun province…
The islands of Mu Ko Adang comprise fully a quarter of Satun’s islands.
Mu Ko Adang
Also known as the Butang archipelago, Mu Ko Adang contains 26 islands located some 65 to 80 km southwest of the nearest mainland (at Pakbara). This distance makes them some of Thailand’s furthest-flung islands.
Only 40 km away is the large island of Pulau Langkawi, which is part of Malaysia. Mu Ko Adang’s location near the international sea border in the absolute southwest of Thailand certainly adds to its “out there” allure.
This remoteness does not mean that no one goes to Mu Ko Adang. To the contrary, its best-known island, Ko Lipe, is by far the most popular island not only in Satun but also the entire Southern Andaman coastal zone. It’s also one of only 10 Thai islands that I put in the mass-tourism category. Despite its diminutive size, the crowds venturing to Ko Lipe rose steadily throughout the 2010s.
With at least 32 dive sites, Mu Ko Adang also ranks among Thailand’s most popular scuba zones. Non-diving boat tours are big business as well, mostly thanks to the veritable fleet of longtails that anchors around Ko Lipe.
Ko Lipe is however the only heavily developed island in an archipelago that is otherwise almost entirely undeveloped thanks to its inclusion in Mu Ko Tarutao NP. Founded as Thailand’s first marine park in 1974, it also includes the large island of Ko Tarutao, which combines with Mu Ko Adang and the Ko Khai group in what remains the largest and arguably the best-known marine NP in the country. Add Mu Ko Bulon and Mu Ko Khao Yai, and you can see why Satun’s collection of islands stands right up there among the finest of all the coastal Thai provinces.
The marine park’s foundation did come at a hefty cost to the Urak Lawoi who have lived in Mu Ko Adang since 1910, if not earlier. Some of these “sea people” have established resorts and other businesses on Ko Lipe, but many remain stateless and often struggle to retain the rights to remain living on modest slices of an archipelago that was, for many decades, theirs to inhabit as they pleased.
Islands below arranged roughly from E to W.