Koh
Samui is
Thailand's third largest island and the largest
in the south-east of the Gulf of Thailand.
Koh in the Thai language means island and
there are around eighty islands surrounding
Samui: Koh Pha Ngan, Koh Tao and Koh Tan are
the closest and also inhabited. Samui is more
than 280 sq. km. in area and has a population
of approximately 34,000.
The most popular beaches are Chaweng, Lamai,
Bophut and Maenam beach. The Samui interior
is a tropical jungle with hills up to 600
metres high.
History
Perhaps
you have friends or family who have visited
Thailand and told you of their experiences.
If Samui will be your introduction to the
Kingdom, bear in mind there are some similarities
and some differences between islanders and
city folk. To compare residents of Bangkok
with those of Samui would be like comparing
big city dwellers from any country in the
world with those in the villages.
Samui
is home to about 40,000 full-time inhabitants.
Like the surrounding islands, it was first
settled by ethnic Malay fishermen from the
mainland, as well as immigrants from Southern
China; at a time when the surrounding waters
teemed with fish. Maps dating as far back
as 1687 have the island identified as "Pulo
Cornam," from the Malay. Little written
history of the island exists, and most of
the knowledge we have has been passed down
through generations. There are two theories
as to how the island was named. The first
suggests that the name of a commonly-found
tree called "mui" was lengthened
at some point. The second, and probably
more likely notion, is that "Saboey"
which is a Chinese word for safe haven (certainly
an apt description of the island's largely
protected waters) was adopted by Chinese
fishermen, and later become the name we
use today.
Vestiges
of the once thriving fishing communities
can still be seen in villages such as Nathon
and Maenam. Lucrative coconut and rubber
farming industries also developed, and harvesting
of these crops still takes place in the
hills of the island's interior. Samui is
home to more varieties of coconut palms
than any other place on earth.
Until
not much more than a decade ago, folks on
Samui had scarcely seen foreigners. With
the influx of tourists an industry sprung
up, and thousands of jobs were created.
Foreign currency flowed in, benefiting many.
These former fishermen and farmers now suddenly
competed to fulfill Western tastes and demands.
But the well-known patient and adaptable
nature of Thais, and the new opportunities
that tourism represented, made it easy for
them to accept the oddities of their new
visitors with mostly good grace. Their entrepreneurial
spirit helped compensate for their limited
knowledge of other cultures, and many have
succeeded remarkably well.
Most
Thais are Buddhist, though a small percentage
of the population is Muslim. You may wonder
about the role religion plays here. In fact,
the philosophy of Buddhist thought is more
significant in the life of the average Thai
than is the dogma of the religion. Most
people don't allow themselves to get too
worked up over the problems and minor inconveniences
of this life, after all, it is only a passage
into another one! Consider this, and the
island's benign climate, its history of
bountiful harvests from the land and sea,
and the almost complete absence of the kind
of strife that has devastated so many of
the world's peoples, and it becomes easier
to understand the "take life as it
comes" approach which continues to
astonish and perplex visitors.
Weather
December
to February (main season) it can get up to
30C(86F). Sometimes brief tropical rain, mostly
in December.
March to June, it becomes very hot, up to
40C (114F), rarely raining.
July to September (main season) is hot, but
some days it also rains.
June, October, November are rainy seasons,
but it does not generally rain every day.
In contrast to other regions of Thailand,
Samui does not really have a well defined
rainy season but sometimes there are sunless
periods of 2 or 3 days, especially during
November (monsoon).
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