By Tom Vater
Photographs by Aroon Thaewchatturat
“I was taking 12 tourists to a coral reef. Suddenly the water level dropped. I shouted for everyone to get on board. I knew something was really wrong. I raced across the bay, when suddenly, the water dropped to nothing, spinning the boat madly until it was stuck in the sand, on the bottom of the ocean, but there was no ocean. I told the tourists to run, and then the water came back.”
– Sarang, a Moken sea gypsy
KO SURIN, Thailand – The Moken sea gypsies, a small indigenous fishing community in Thailand, relied on their deep knowledge of the sea to save the lives of tourists and locals when the giant tsunami that devastated coastal communities in South Asia swept across their islands. Yet the Moken are facing stark choices in the aftermath of the catastrophe, with the Thai government now pursuing them to consider citizenship.
The Moken, animist, nomadic boat dwellers, have been sailing the Andaman Sea for centuries. They make their homes among the nearly 800 islands scattered along the sea off Myanmar. The Moken are ethnically separate from people in Thailand or Myanmar, with their own culture, language and way of living….
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