History of Koh
Samui
Until
the year 1940, Koh Samui was without any road and cars. The Island lived
in its own pace with almost no contact to the outside world . Getting from
Maenam to Lamai Beach for example meant walking through the mountain jungles
for hours and hours, a trip that was impossible to make to and back in
one day. Tourism was unknown, there was simply no convenient way for anybody
to come to Koh Samui. The only way to reach the island from the mainland
was by a daily boat (6 hours from Suratthani harbor to Nathon). At arrival
here one had to count on another cople of hours or more to reach ones final
destination. Early plans of a road construction were laid down because
of the mountainous area
and the impossibility to get heavy
construction machines to the island.
In the
year 1967, Khun Dilok Suthiklom, the headman of the island decided that
something had to be done for development and contacted the government for
help. First start of construction consisted of manual labor by hundreds
of people cleaning a way around the island. Rocks and trees has to be cleared
out of the way and the result after long hard handwork was a kine of dirt
track that lead almost all the way around. Two major obstacles were the
high mountains between Naton and Maenam and the long mountain stretch between
Lamai and Chaweng. The former had to be lowered by dynamite to allow the
road to climb up in an acceptable angle; even so, in the first couple of
years before laying out concrete it meant usually that everybody except
the driver had to get off the car and help pushing it up. The area between
Lamai and Chaweng isthe rockiest clifflandscape on Lamai and road had to
be more or less carved out of the mountains on a length of 3 km, an impossible
task without dynamite and heavy
construction machinery. So these
machines were slipped over from the mainland and in lack of a deep water
pier had to be brought to land on beaches that were steep enough to allow
the large carrying vessele to anchor at land. In-between there were further
delays due to prolonged rainy seasons, the heavy monsoon rains making it
virtually impossible to work at all, not to mention laying out concrete.
Finally
in the year 1973 order came from Bangkok to finish the Samui ring road
project and concrete started to run to complete a 52 km. long, 12 meter
wide road all around the island that now seems indispensable to us and
most people cannot even imagine anymore there was time when the only way
to get from one place to other on Koh Samui was on foot or by boat.
Since 11 June 1999
e-mail: samuilife@hotmail.com
:References:
Samui Sun (Free copy) Volume 1 No.9
After an article and with photos
given by Paitoon Srifa Koh Samui School and SaRa Art Press.
In formation from : Samui sun, Accommodation Samui, Thaiway, Let's go Thailand 1995
Fodor's Southeast Asia, Maverick Guide to Thailand, What's on Samui, Samuiwelcome
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in 1965 ] [
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]
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] [ Local Fruits ]
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