Here in Khao Lak, I feel like I’m a foriegner twice over. As well as being in Thailand, I’m also surrounded by German and Swedish tourists. To the extent that you hear more of those two languages than you do English. It’s a peculiar sensation. Khao Lak is a tiny village that has changed beyond all recognition in the last five years. If you think speed of change is just an abstract metaphor, come to Thailand and watch it happen in front of you. Go to the toilet, come back, there’s a new hotel.
Khao Lak originally started off as a scuba diving destination. There was little else here besides some dive shops. The town is the nearest place on the mainland to get to the Similan Islands, one of the best places to dive in Thailand. It’s where I saw my first manta ray. It is a truly spectacular dive destination. Liveaboards to the islands traditionally ran out of Phuket and still do. But leaving from Khao Lak takes several hours off the journey to get out to the Similans.
My friend Dan was here to celebrate the arrival of the Millennium, and was talking to some local fishermen. They were ecstatic because they’d just sold their beachfront land for a fortune. Since then, huge luxury resorts have mushroomed around Khao Lak, which is essentially still a line of ragtail shops either side of a dusty road that stretches for about 500 metres. German and Swedish tour companies have marketed Khao Lak as the alternative destination to Phuket with uncrowded beaches. The result is that Khao Lak has now become a sun and sand destination for affulent Europeans. Scuba diving here is still popular and more dive businesses open up every year. Competition is fierce. But Khao Lak’s main tourist income now is the package tourists, usually middle aged and – how do I put it? – ah yes: fat.
It makes for a strange mix – you’ve got the scuba dudes crew hanging about, aged tourists wandering around trying to keep out of the sun they’ve spent so much money getting here to be in, Thais setting up tailor shops, trinket shops and bootleg CD/DVD shops to cater to the tourists and everyone speaking in four different languages. English is still the lingua franca between the Germans and Swedish and Thais. (I read the other day that Italians are running into employment problems because traditionally they have avoided learning English as a second language, whereas in the rest of Europe being fluent in English as well as your native tongue is so commonplace as to be unremarkable – which is, er, remarkable). Khao Lak is a veritable Interzone, but without the mugwamps.
