Daily Life : Working / Relaxing
Read MoreAlong the shores and on islands in the Andaman Sea on the west coast of southern Thailand, the so-called sea gypsies—chao lae, or “people of the sea,” to the Thais—live largely on what they are able to harvest from the ocean. Several different ethnic groups are frequently classed together under the broad term sea gypsies.
The chao lae have managed to make a living by fishing, diving for oysters and other shells, and by harvesting the edible birds nests, considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, that are found on limestone cliffs in oceanside caves along the shores of the Andaman Sea. However, commercial trawling has depleted areas where they used to fish, their diving areas have been placed off limits in marine national parks, and environmental laws have placed a ban on collecting shells and coral, making survival hard in attempting to pursue their traditional ways of life,