Ban Ko Pan Yi

Do you know the feeling: you are sure you have never been to this place before. And yet it seems familiar to you.
And all because of a soccer field!
Ok, the soccer field is really special. Only recently I saw a documentary about it, without knowing that I will actually see it!
When the ball leaves the field, it gets wet. And whoever kicked the ball, has to fetch it.

Kho Panyee is a special Muslim village floating by the sea in Phang Nga Bay. It is part pf the Ao Phang Nga National Park. The floating island lies in the shadows of a high limestock rock formation in a sheltered bay at sea. Koh Panyee is about half an houer by boat from the Phang Nga Pier in Phang Nga Bay.
The origin of Kho Panly or Panyee Muslim village. The floating Muslim village was created about two hundert years ago by 3 seafaring fishing families from Java in Indonesia. They were lppking for a good location with lots of fish. If they would find this place they would let them know by hosting a flag on top of a mountain top so others could found them.
They found the sheltered spot by the high rock and hoisted the flag. Slowly more people joined them, and the meantime 400 families are living here.
Nowadays only older generation in the village still speaks Bahasa Indonesia, the younger generation mainly speaks Thai.
By living on the water they cleverly circumvented Thai law. The law states that foreigners are not allowed to own land uon Thailand. Wenn later on more ans more tourists came to Thailand and therefore also to Koh Panyee, they got ownership. The first thing the inhabitants of Koh Panyee built at the time was a freshwater well and a mosque.

Thanks to the three fishing families who found this place and decided to settle here, a complete village has been created with everything you can expect from a village. There is a school, hospital, cemetery, market, stores, smal museum and of course a fish farm.Read more