Fishermen's friends ---------------------- Participating in a homestay in a Thai fishing village or tribal community is not the simple life slumming of Nicole and Paris. Those open and up to the task get to enjoy some soul-sustaining back-to-basics living. -------------------------------

Christina Schott Contributor/Bangkok

It was dawn when Surapong and Saovaluk got up to go crabbing. The couple from cosmopolitan Bangkok looked a bit out of place on the small, wooden fishing boat.

But any awkwardness was gone when Saovaluk snagged a giant black tiger prawn, gleefully holding it up for her husband's camera.

"It feels so good to be out of town and get some fresh air instead," said Surapong, a retired businessman.

They were participants in the Eco-Tourism Club of Koh Yao Noi, a small island in the Phang Nga National Park off southern Thailand.

For five days, the couple lived with a local family, sleeping in a simple stilt house, cooking and eating local food, working on the fishing boat or a nearby rubber plantation.

"Everything is very simple, but also very clean and healthy. We do not want them to change anything because of us," Surapong said. "It is much more interesting to share life with locals than passing by a place and learning nothing about the people living here."

Instead of being swamped by the advance of mass tourism, the homestay program of Koh Yao Noi allows locals to exert more influence on development. They have been helped in their efforts by Responsible Ecological Social Tours Project (REST). Set up in 1994, it is dedicated to helping communities in developing Community Based Tourism (CBT).

"One key aspect is that the tourists participate in daily activities of the local people to create a communication channel between them and outside stakeholders," explained Peter Richards from REST.

Special training prepares local communities to deal with tourists and government representatives.

"With CBT, we want to give the people a chance to stay in their village and use their traditional skills, instead of leaving to the city and trying to find work there."

Yet why encourage tourism, with the potential for negative developments?

"Tourism is already here. People are traveling and always looking for new destinations. Either we can help the local people to prepare themselves to be actors rather than objects in the process -- or we can only pray that tourism will not arrive," was the answer of the former tour operator.

REST currently works with five communities, not only in the south but also with traditional mountain tribes in the north, where participants can learn about herbal medicine (each community is required to have a year's preparation before becoming integrated into the program).

A code of conduct is established (foreign visitors are assigned a translator), but misunderstandings still occur, such as due to visitors wearing revealing clothing or public shows of affection. Some may not be able to adapt to the local food.

"People often talk about looking for the real challenge in the real country, the real 'wow'. But more often their trip becomes just like one banana pancake followed by another," Richards said.

"The ideal situation would be, that you just travel, meet somebody by accident and then stay in his home. Then you are very fortunate, because you will have a completely fresh and unmediated inside look into the daily life of the people. What might be the next closest to this experience is a homestay -- that is what we try to mediate in."

Even children enjoy their time on "shore leave".

"We have already had some great new experiences," Dhon, mother of nine-year-old Sarah, said. "How could my child ever learn so much about nature growing up in Bangkok?"

i-box: REST: www.ecotour.in.th (in English, German and Thai)