Lotta Granbom, a mother of three from Sweden is on holiday in Thailand. It is her first trip there together with her daughter Ebba-Lotta. After some difficulty finding accommodation at the tourist resorts, they decide instead to search for Sea Nomads in the Andaman Sea. Lotta has heard of a nomadic group of people who live on the sea around Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia. She is curious to find out more; why a people choose to live on their boats? How this does shape their culture and traditions? What is their origin? And why do so few people know of their existence? This first journey, and encounter with the Urak Lawoi Sea Nomads will change Lotta’s life. For years to come Lotta will passionately follow and document their way of life. They have maintained a culture, language and life style set apart from Thai society, but all this is now changing. Lotta’s base has been Ko Lanta Yai in Thailand. Lotta’s work will show that the Urak Lawoi Sea Nomads do not live in the “pristine paradise” anymore as she had read about and expected. During her visits she has lived in a primitive hut, right on the beach, together with her three daughters. Incredibly, the hut was not swept away by the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia on 26 December, 2004, however the luxury resort built on the same beach did not have the same luck. The Urak Lawoi Sea Nomads talk of two different changes for them: “first the tourist came to the island and then the tsunami”. This book is a field study of the Urak Lawoi, an indigenous people in Thailand, and the consequences for them with rapid tourist development.