Half of the Moken living in the Surin Islands have an identity number beginning with 0.
While other related groups were semi-nomadic and formed coastal communities, the Moken considered themselves true nomads of the sea.
The Moken possess many fables and folk tales which help them make use of the natural world.
The Thai have two names for the Moken: chao ley, people of the sea, and chao nam, people of the water.
After the 2004 tsunami devastated the region, park officials brought the several Moken settlements together on the same beach on Koh Surin Tai.
Like the Moken, who have no tradition of saving what they earn or catch today for tomorrow, I had stopped fixating on the future.
There, at the far end of the cove, situated on a fringe of sand between verdant hills and an iridescent bay, lay the Moken village.
They say old habits die hard, and the more time I spent on Koh Surin Tai, the more I saw this to be true for the Moken.
The 200 or so Moken living on the Surin Islands are part of a larger ethnic group spread out across the Mergui Archipelago off the coasts of Burma and Thailand.
Following a tradition of maritime nomadism in the region, the Moken shifted from island to island for centuries, subsisting on what they gathered underwater, along the foreshore and from the forest.
Traditionally the Moken are huntergatherers, spending much of the year fishing from covered boats known as kabangs, only returning to land to collect fresh water or seek refuge from seasonal monsoons.
In the weeks and months after my departure from the Moken, one image stayed with me above all others, following me from Thailand to India to the US. I often replayed in my mind the burial I witnessed on my first morning in the village.
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