My trip to Koh Panyi - Floating Muslim Village (Sea Gypsy Village).

Hi Steemians!

My current post will tell about a small village called Koh Panyi in the province of Phang Nga, Thailand.

To get there, we used the services of local travel agencies (this is the cheapest and fastest way to visit any place).

The island is in 40 minutes from Phuket.

This is a small island that was built by Indonesian fishermen. They arrived in Thailand in the 18th century in search of a better life.

Source: Google maps.

At that time, the Thai authorities interdicted the purchase of the land for foreigners and fishermen were forced to settle on the water (in the literal sense of the word 😁😁😀).

There live about 1 690 people (400 families). Their mayor is in same time a policeman and a mentor in a mosque.

The main occupation of "people of the sea" (Thais call them so 😀) was fishing and pearls.

In the 90's there was a crisis and residents were forced to do tricks to survive. A local postman traveled to the mainland to hand over leaflets to attract tourists.

At present, the village has a souvenir market and several restaurants where you can eat delicious fresh fish and seafood.

Now there are a lot of tourists and locals are very happy about it. Working is available for everyone, even for the smallest - in the intervals between games they sell souvenirs.

Children don't speak English well and sometimes they are very shy, but they don't miss the chance to earn some money on the handmade products of their parents 😁😁😀.

On the island, besides a mosque there are even a school. People created their own football team and founded even a unique football field: this is a wooden platform on the water...

As I have already said, on the island several restaurants were built especially for tourists, but local people don't eat here. They prefer their own street cuisine.

Although the village is very happy to meet guests but here they are asking to follow several rules:

• do not bring and drink alcohol,
• do not smoke,
• do not come there only in swimsuit
• do not bring dogs ( they have a lot of cats there)
• do not bring and eat pork.

Despite the large flow of people on the island, locals are trying to keep the streets clean. Teachers in schools even regularly organize the garbage collection.

This is how their streets look like:

This island looks like a small independent country, and the people who live here are one very big family.

I really enjoyed being here, this atmosphere of friendship and invincible spirit is simply incredible.

If you have the opportunity to come here, just visit this amazing place. It's better to see everything with your own eyes than to hear a hundred times 😉😉😉.

I hope you enjoyed my story and photos that i made on my phone MI 5 during our trip.

Sweet dreams my dear friends,

Best wishes,

Olga:)