The long story of Samui’s Coconuts as the previous biggest occupation of locals.

‘’ Ko Samui has another alias as ‘’ The Coconut Island ‘’. This Nickname was given by the travelers coming here and meet the plenty of coconut palm trees on this island…………… ‘’

The local people on Ko Samui, Ko Phangan and the nearby islands traditionally have a deep relationship to coconuts. Back in the long history , the coconut farming was their based-occupation. The coconut plants/fruits gave them the main income for living of whole family.

There were coconut farms entire the islands, also widely the most popular career was it. Any place where there a man settled, there are coconut trees. This has made Ko Samui become one of the largest coconuts production sources of Thailand.

The tourists traveled to Ko Samui in the early time (when there is still not too many resorts), were very impressed with the plenty of coconut trees on the entire island, especially in the beach zones There were a lot of this palms growing along the beaches with super clear crystal water making the beautiful views. When walking deeper in the coconut forest, they will see one’s way of life of the farmer families.

They, travelers had called the island ‘’ the coconut island ‘’ ever since. However, nowadays the palms in these zones have been partly replaced with resorts and hotels. But they are many people who still have occupation that related to coconut, yes, Samui is still be one of the important coconut producers.

For Samui people, the coconut trees is a very useful plant, besides its yummy fruits, other part of the trees can be used. They used the wood to make house. They make flowerpots from the old coconut peels and make several handicraft products like spoon and folk, ladle, key ring, bracelet, comb and etc, from the coconut shell. These are available for sell at the touring spots for example at Na Thon pier, Hinta Hinyai rocks.

 Using old fruits to make coconut milk. As you might know that coconut is the important ingredient of many Thai foods like the Green curry, Red curry, Massaman curry and lot more.

Time went by, always more tourists travel to the Samui island, things have been built to serve the tourism like the ferry piers that people can bring cars into the island, the airport that provides Bangkok – Samui flight directly. The popular Chaweng beach and Lamai Beach have been replaced from the coconut trees with plenty of reports and hotels.

While the tourism was boomed, the farmers stopped farming and sold their near-beach properties to the property developers because. The very good price were offered for the near-beach land.  

There is a comedy story that told by recent Samui people, that if their grandparents could see, how things in this island have been changed nowadays, they will admit that they have done some mistake in their time. The good child especially who was well-loved from the parent usually got the land that far away from the beach, because it has better soil for growing coconut farm than land at the beach that is cover with sand, While the lesser-loved child received the beach-land representing an inferior gift because sand is not so good for making coconut farm.

If their ancestors have chance to manage it again today, the situation would have reversed. Who know that the beach-lands will be the most worth treasures like today.

However, coconut still are the main plants of Ko Samui and other nearby islands. The coconut farms account 90% of all cultivated areas. The scenes people peeling coconuts or lead money cultivating coconuts still appearing today. There even are monkey shows there.The growing of tourism lead to the big and fast change on Ko Samui.  Chaweng become a perfect tour market today and Lamai and Rin beaches tend to be also in the near future.