Thailand
Surin Islands
Sea nomad stilt houses above coral gardens, five islands out in the open Andaman.
The Moken call themselves people of the sea. They free-dive without tanks, read currents the way farmers read soil, and their stilt village stands over the shallows of the Surin Islands — five granite-and-forest islands in the northern Andaman where their world and the underwater one overlap.
The Surin Islands form Mu Ko Surin National Park in Phang Nga Province, and Koh Surin Tai keeps one of the last traditional Moken settlements in Thailand — a living village, visited respectfully by park boat, not a staged attraction. The surrounding shallows carry some of the country's most extensive hard-coral gardens, snorkelled straight off the beaches, and Richelieu Rock nearby ranks among the world's storied dive sites, the place Thai divers go hoping for a whale shark. The park opens with the calm season and closes for the monsoon — the sea itself sets the calendar.
Friends
Diving Richelieu Rock and snorkelling the Surin reefs make a multi-day group immersion — the open-sea crossing is part of the story.
Couple
Snorkelling coral gardens straight off the beach and falling asleep to the sound of the Andaman — raw romance without resort packaging.
- A traditional Moken stilt village still stands over the shallows — one of the last in the Andaman.
- Hard-coral gardens spread beneath the surface metres from the beaches, snorkelled without a boat.
- Richelieu Rock, a short crossing away, is the dive site Thai divers rate above all others.
- Each year the monsoon closes the crossing entirely — the islands keep a season that belongs to the sea.
The national-park restaurant’s Thai buffet between island excursions.
A vegetarian lunch requested in advance through the Surin boat operator.
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