Krabi's mellow sibling — long beaches, sea gypsies, and zero walking streets
Koh Lanta Yai is the unhurried answer to Thailand's busier islands — a long, thin island in the Andaman Sea south of Krabi with a series of west-facing beaches stretching 25km from north to south, each progressively quieter heading down. The north has restaurants and beach bars; the southern tip around Mu Ko Lanta National Park is near-wilderness, with mangroves, jungle, and an old sea-gypsy village at Ban Ko Lanta built on stilts over the sea.
Koh Lanta's old town (Ban Ko Lanta) is a 200-year-old sea-gypsy (Urak Lawoi) and Malay Muslim fishing village on the island's eastern shore. The Urak Lawoi people, who call themselves 'Orang Laut' (sea people), were the original inhabitants of these waters with their own language, animist traditions, and boat-building craft. Modern beach tourism arrived on the western coast in the 1990s, while the old town has changed remarkably little.