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Koh lanta's sea gypsies

In the south east corner of Koh Lanta sits a little village home to a unique group of people known as the Sea Gypsies or “Chao Leh” (people of the sea). Formerly nomadic seamen, the Sea Gypsies were the first people to settle on Koh Lanta 500 years ago.

Their true origins are sketchy. Because their language is only a spoken language, no written testimonies exist to verify their real origins - only legends and historical anecdotes.

According to one story, a group of Chao Leh migrated along the coast of what is now known as Malaysia’s Kedah state. The group later separated and established separate settlements on various islands in the Andaman Sea. Other scholars believe they came from India.

The Chao Leh centre their life on marine and coastal resources and as such have inseparable ties to the sea. Traditionally, they had permanent houses on land but were nomadic in their food foraging practices, especially during the dry season when for several months the entire families travelled to different places in the Adang archipelago.

As well their fishing prowess, the Chao Leh are excellent divers - able to move freely and stay comfortably underwater for long periods of time. In the past, they did not use any kind of equipment, except for a small pair of tailored goggles made of carved wood and glass.

The fundamental part of a Sea Gypsy household was the boat. Around 3 meters long, sometimes equipped with a sail, in the past, boats were crafted by hand with simple axes. Boats form the centrepiece of the yearly Loy Rua (floating boat) festival, during which time the Chao Leh pay respect to their ancestors & the spirits and symbolically float away their misfortune with a small ceremonial boat.

For the Urak Lawoi, the natural and supernatural are not sharply distinguished. Till today, offerings are made on special occasions to ask for good harvesting and some carry a talisman to ward off bad spirits and misfortune. Others believe that illnesses can be treated by a spirit medium.

Their animistic belief in the supernatural and traditional spiritual worship remains strong. Besides the Loy Rua festival, they worship the spirits by raising two high poles as a door or threshold and the bodies of their deceased are deposed of on cemetery islands where the spirits of the dead live on.

Today most sea gypsies have been granted land, surnames and Thai citizenship. They retain close relations to other villages and still retain their own language using geographical terms for each other: the name "Pulau" means island and "Piapi" is the name of a tree growing in the mangrove swamps. During the centuries, the name "Pulau Piapi" changed to today's Phi Phi.

Over the past few decades, the Urak Lawoi have undergone rapid change in their ways of life. With National Park rules and regulations, their nomadic foraging way of life has been prohibited. The intensification of commercial fishing and a fast growing tourism industry offer alternative livelihoods that are moving them away from their subsistence way of life and into the market economy, making it more and more difficult to sustain their traditional culture and traditions.