The Samet Scene

On quiet, innocuous looking Ko Samet, there's a lot happening on the beach. It's not the crazy parties and not-so-secret drug dealing of Ko Phagnan and Ko Phi Phi. It's not the throngs of foreign tourists staying at unending rows of fancy resorts like Phuket. It's the mix of identities, social worlds, statuses and standings. 

On a normal day – or year – Ko Samet would still be dominated by foreign backpacker and middle-class tourists. Many of Samet's major institutions ranging from bungalows at a variety of price points to fire twirling shows to massage on the beach to banana pancake breakfasts to ubiquitous crepe stands to seafood beach barbecues stem from decades of foreign tourists. In fact, with a few special variations like Chicken Corner which makes kosher schnitzel for Israeli tourists on Ko Phagnan, these things form the infrastructure of a foreign tourist destination within Thailand.

But as I have mentioned before, Ko Samet is an easy-access destination for Bangkok inhabitants and so, even in normal times, it draws significantly from Bangkok's eclectic and unusual resident population. And with foreign tourists like us being few and far between, Thailand's – and primarily Bangkok's – social composition is more on display than ever.

The majority population this weekend are middle and upper-middle class Bangkok families. Sometimes it's just nuclear families with children, other times the entire extended family. And about half the time, these families are wearing matching outfits. I saw one large extended family where the women and girls all wore a variety of cuts of clothes all made from the same vivid rainbow fabric – sundresses for the girls, a more elaborate dress for mom, ponchos of the grandmothers. The men had matching shorts and traditional Thai-style shirt outfits of their own featuring a blue elephant pattern on white fabric. The family had at least ten members all walking down the beach in their identifying uniforms. This concept is prevalent in the family scene and sometimes extends to couples without children – the next most common group on the island.

All of these families and couples are what you might expect to see on a cruise ship – ready to swim, eat, play and enjoy good family fun.

But as you get into the minority populations, things get more interesting. There are of course some families that aren't the classic Thai cookie-cutter model. Mixed-race, intercultural families where the children may be in tune with multiple worlds. In Thailand, the caucasian-Thai set have it easiest and in fact often get privileged opportunities. Likrun, as they are called, have a severely overstated presence in television, cinema and music. In a country that considers light skin better than dark and sells whitening cream and parasols, Likrun are the model of what Thais are supposed to aspire to be. But there are other ways Thais mix. I noticed at least two families with what I assume to be Carribean or African-American fathers and Thai mothers. Some of their adorable children were playing and swimming near ours – but unlike the other Likrun are exceedingly rare.

Less rare on Ko Samet are a significant gay male population – both foreign and domestic. Of the foreign, it appears a fair number may live and work in Thailand. While there are certainly a sizable number of couples – there seem to be more groups of gay men – often mixed Thai and foreign – who travel together in signficant numbers, staying at the same lodgings. Thailand has always been highly tolerant of varying sexualities and it makes sense that Bangkok's gay scene would take weekend and holiday getaways.

In a similar but different camp, a significant number of transgendered women are spending New Year's here. The concept of a transgendered woman is very old and very accepted in Thai society with its own special gender classification – kathoey. While too often portrayed as flamboyant, immature, silly or funny on television, Kathoeys generally get respect and acceptance in their society. They are one of the reasons Thailand has become a destination for plastic surgery of all kinds. The ability for men to transition was in high demand and as Thailand's medical institutions evolved, this constituency presented demand. With a little time, transgendered people from around the world looking for sex reassignment surgery found Bangkok a friendly and affordable destination  - especially when it may have been hard, expensive or impossible to get in their own countries.

"Daddy, I noticed there were a lot of transgendered women in front of us on the beach today, " Sennen remarked with curiosity. He wanted to know why so many when he wouldn't ordinarily see them in large groups.

The middle-aged kathoeys women in front of us were doing what everyone else was there to do – have fun and enjoy the beach. This particular group wore expensive and flashy (but conservative) beach wear and did a lot of laughing together. I don't recall ever seeing such a group before during any of my stays in Thailand. I may be reading too much into the situation, but I got the sense that part of the joy for these women was being there, as a group enjoying their lives in the same way as other groups do. They were neither flamboyant and trying to draw attention nor were they shy and trying to blend in. They held their space on the beach and place among vacationers.

Then it gets dicier. Being within range of both Bangkok and Pattaya, Ko Samet has always had an unfortunate number of foreign men with rent-a-girlfriends. Not exclusively, but often middle-aged men from North America, Europe, Japan and Australia come to Thailand as sex tourists – sometimes just frequenting the sex districts of Bangkok and Pattaya, but in many cases securing a "girlfriend" to accompany them throughout their vacations. I've written about this before but when seeing it live, it's hard not to look over and wonder how some of the pairings can even come to be. Old obese men with 20 year-old Thai girls. Forty-five year olds holding hands across the table with a 22 year-old Thai girl he's probably known for a day. Or perhaps worst, the forty-ish year old American guy we saw last night who treated himself to two girls for New Years Eve.

As a general rule, Thais have little warmth for this kind of business even though it's legal and allowed. For some families and women – particularly those in the poorer Isaan provinces of the Northeast – prostitution in its many forms brings in valuable money the woman or family would otherwise never have, but at a terrible cost. Still, many hotels and bungalow operations will not accept clients who they know to have prostitutes. 

Of course, there are real, legitimate intercultural relationships. And while body language and demographics tell most of us which are pay-to-play relationships, it's not always possible to tell. The ambiguity can leave a legitimate intercultural couple feeling observed and judged – especially because there are plenty of judgments about even legitimate relationships. He's got an asian fetish. He doesn't want a woman from his own society who will challenge him. He's a loser back home. She's a gold digger. She's a slut. She's using her body to get what she couldn't through her intellect and hard work. She is turning her back on her own culture.

I've seen a few definite, legitimate intercultural relationships on Samet – but unfortunately a lot more that are not and which sort of stink up the place.

Other than the transgendered group in the row of beach chairs in front of us, Sennen, Ailyn and Bailey haven't made any other social remarks. Ailyn did complain today that a Thai boy who tried to dig in the sand with them would not respond when she greeted him and later thanked him in Thai. She felt that he was either rude, or spoke Spanish. I told her I could hear him speaking Thai with his parents and suggested that maybe he was just shy and uncomfortable and tried to teach her how to introduce herself in Thai. Ailyn gave him no quarter. She spoke to him politely in his language, he didn't respond  - he was out. 

For us in the most privileged minority tier, we had a great day sleeping in, enjoying the beach, eating great Thai food, swimming and for Sennen, Bailey and Emily – paddle boarding. New Years Day was just another day for us in paradise. Tomorrow we have a  five hour boat-trip to tour nearby islands and snorkel. That's as big as the plans get here












on Ko Samet.