Uncover Koh Lanta
Visitors Throng to Koh Lanta's West Coast for sun, sea and sandcastles, Victor Paul Borg goes against the grain and explores the less-known,cilturally rich east
Koh Lanta's Western Coast Reveals Long Glorious beaches, open horizons and family-oriented resorts, but take a 15-minute drive east and a very different destination awaits – and it is enjoying a renaissance.
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When the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) discovered Koh Lanta, they began targeting the historical houses of Sri Raya. But the inhabitants didn’t need any prodding to protect their homes – they’d done this themselves for centuries.
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after the 2004 tsunami, the NGOs and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) coalesced under the Community Network for Restoration of Lanta Island (CNRLI) umbrella. Money poured in, lift ing standards of living. The fishermen got new boats, the Chao Ley got new homes, the houses in Sri Raya got sewage treatment tanks, the mangroves were rejuvenated by new transplants, and the Lanta Community Museum opened in Sri Raya in January 2007. Dedicated to the history of the island’s main three communities, museum exhibits include old Chinese furniture and accessories, fishermen paraphernalia, a charcoal-producing kiln and a ceremonial boat that the Chao Ley use for their Loy Rua festival (boat-releasing ceremony).
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It’s easy to overlook the one-street town of Sri Raya, but look closer and the unique architectural design begins to reveal itself – the walls constructed of wooden planks ridden on each other, the high pitch of the facades, the continuous line of first-floor windows with their four-panelled wooden shutters, the pronounced recessed porticoes on the ground floor. Doorways are flanked by symbolic decorations, especially dedications in Chinese script, and some houses have chequered cut-outs above the doorways, designed to let in light. The wood polish is also different – it’s called Shellac Polish Paint – with a finish reminiscent of wet earth, ranging in colour from dark-brown to red-brown. More peculiar still is the old Chinese temple, bristling with fantastic ancestral icons.
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“My grandfather was one of the original settlers,” recounts Lertsak. “They made charcoal from mangrove trees and traded it in Penang, Singapore and Indonesia. These trade routes also developed through lines of kinship – our forefathers had relatives in the places where they traded, and in some cases, instead of money changing hands through sales, they operated a system of credits. In return for charcoal – and fish to a lesser extent – the inhabitants here received household goods and foodstuffs, especially sugar, salt and vegetables.”
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Lertsak’s father eventually specialised in the fishery business. He operated four different types of fishing vessels. And the nets that he and his neighbours used were so big that three of the houses in Sri Raya had their back terraces extended, with a series of trellises erected for the nets to be hung out. That’s when these houses became known as longhouses, and the three longest ones, including Lertsak’s, are almost 100m long from front to back.
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The interior of Lertsak’s house is unlike anything I’d seen before. The pattern is confusing – the rooms are like appendages, connected by narrow corridors, and all the while, in the boxed-in space, there is the eerie sound of the waves underneath. No house is open to visitors, unfortunately, but one place where tourists can experience these old interiors is at Lennie’s boutique hotel, Mango House, right next door to Lertsak’s house. The hotel’s guestrooms retain the stark minimalism and dimness that is characteristic of the town’s living houses, an atmosphere that Lennie reinforced with the dark brown wooden polish.
“I wanted to strengthen the smoky feel in the rooms,” he says. “I also tried to keep the rooms simple and functional while avoiding clutter. after all, the prime allure here is the water that goes under the house.”
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Fantasy aside, the town’s houses are built out on the water to catch the breeze. The wind gently gusts in from the sea even on the calmest of days, cooling the rooms to the point where a light cover is needed at night. Lennie’s rooms don’t need air-conditioning.
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It’s this quality that is now attracting foreign residents like Susanna Bachman, an American woman who arrived six years ago to teach English. “I fell in love with this place,” Bachman says, “and I have been living here ever since.”
Now Bachman and her husband (a Thai national) run a business called Sun Island Tours. “We take people to places other tour operators don’t cover – these are mostly quieter islands on the eastern side of Lanta – and we also do private tours.”
They run the trips in their longtail boat. Tours could be a day of fishing or island hopping, an overnight camp in an uninhabited island, or simply dropping off guests at Koh Po, a small island fringed by a secluded beach just ten minutes away from Sri Raya.
The town is also a good base for visits to Ban Sang Ga-U, the Chao Ley village of 516 inhabitants situated 15 minutes’ drive south. The Chao Ley are said to have originated in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, hundreds of years ago. They adapted to a life hunkered in house-boats and eventually arrived in Lanta 500 years ago, their first land-based settlement. Even now, they retain a distinct appearance – chubby and muscled bodies, a leathery skin and large brown eyes. Most of the men have curly hair and appear inscrutable and listless; perhaps because, according to Lertsak, they’re still “somewhat untamed and shy of the settled life.”
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CNRLI has put up an explanatory board outside the cemetery. It has also mapped other Chao Ley sacred sites, and there are now plans to construct a Rong-ngeng House and Chao Ley Ethnic Hall at the village.
“That will serve as a place where the Chao Ley can practice their folk singing,” Lertsak explains. “This music is important because the Chao Ley record their cultural history in their songs, so if the music is lost, then the cultural history disappears too. Rong-ngeng, a ritual involving singing and dancing, is still practiced during festivals, especially the boat-releasing ceremony, when a boat is drift ed out to sea to appease the sea spirits. But the teachers of Rong-ngeng are now the elders, and this ritual will die with them unless they pass it down to the younger generations now.”
Information from : http://fahthaimagazine.com/2008/07/01/eastern-promise/
