SAMUT PRAKAN — A 27-year-old man was seriously injured after an unidentified explosive device detonated in front of a house in Samut Prakan late on 23 August, with police investigating whether the blast came from outside or was caused by an explosive already at the scene.

At 22:00 on 23 August 2026, Prakan Rescue Center received a report that a man had been injured by an unidentified explosive in front of a house in a soi off Talat Thammasarot Road in Samrong Nuea subdistrict, Mueang district, Samut Prakan province. Rescue workers from Ruamkatanyu Foundation were dispatched to the scene.

They found Wuttipat Kitcharoen, 27, suffering multiple shrapnel wounds across his body and heavy blood loss. He was lying on the ground in severe pain. Rescuers administered first aid before rushing him to a nearby hospital for urgent treatment.

Several objects were found scattered around the front of the house, apparently thrown by the force of the explosion. Officers also found pieces of black tape that were believed to have been part of an explosive device. Police initially suspected that the device could have been a homemade ping-pong bomb, but a detailed examination is needed to confirm its type and determine what caused the explosion.

A CCTV camera at a neighboring house did not capture the moment of the blast, but its microphone recorded a loud explosion that echoed through the soi, startling several residents.

The injured man's grandmother said she had been washing dishes downstairs when the incident occurred. Her grandson had just returned from outside and was upstairs. She said she suddenly heard a powerful explosion and saw flames inside the house. The grandmother said she did not see exactly what happened because she was washing dishes and had not been paying attention to vehicles or people passing by. She therefore could not confirm whether anyone had thrown an explosive into the property. The blast occurred close to where she was standing, but fortunately she was not injured, although she was badly frightened.

A female resident who witnessed the aftermath said she saw the injured man hitting something before it came into contact with an object below. She said she did not know what the object was before it exploded and insisted that she did not see anyone throw anything into the area.

Another resident said she went to check after hearing the explosion and found the injured man lying in front of the house with heavy bleeding. The injured man could only say that he was in pain and wanted to go to hospital. He was unable to explain what had happened.

No one had clearly witnessed the moment of the explosion, so it remains unclear whether someone threw an explosive into the property or whether an explosive already inside the premises detonated. Police have cordoned off the scene and called in relevant officers.

Gold prices rose again on August 24, 2026, according to the Gold Merchants Association. Ornamental gold bars are selling at 72,300 baht per gram, up 350 baht from yesterday's closing price, based on data released by the association at 9:02 a.m.

Gold bars are being purchased at 71,300 baht per gram and sold at 71,500 baht per gram under the first announcement. Ornamental gold at 96.5% purity is trading at 69,872.44 baht per gram for purchases and 72,300 baht per gram for sales. Global gold spot prices are currently at 4,633.00 US dollars per ounce.

Price Summary for August 24, 2026: Gold Bars: Buy at 71,300 baht per gram, Sell at 71,500 baht per gram Ornamental Gold: Buy at 69,872.44 baht per gram, Sell at 72,300 baht per gram

Gold merchants forecast that the market will open tomorrow with prices potentially rising 1,000 to 2,000 baht per gram, potentially breaking through 80,000 baht.

On August 24, 2024, Suthini Nuchnarot, head of the Chonburi Child and Family Care Center, accompanied the student's 42-year-old mother to file a complaint with Bang Lamung police. The 16-year-old victim, a Grade 10 student at a well-known school in Bang Lamung district, Chonburi, reported being sexually assaulted by her math teacher on two occasions between June and July 2024.

The mother said she noticed her usually cheerful daughter had become withdrawn and quiet. When she pressed for answers, her daughter confessed to the assaults. The teacher allegedly offered to help her improve grades and avoid exams in exchange for sexual favors. He provided exam answers for her to copy, then lured her to a nudist resort in Bang Lamung where he sexually assaulted her twice—once with protection and once without.

The victim stated she initially thought it was normal teenage curiosity but later realized the teacher's behavior was wrong. She secretly recorded a video of the teacher harassing her at school as evidence. The school subsequently drafted a handwritten agreement requiring the teacher to transfer schools, offering 50,000 baht in psychological compensation to the student, and stipulating that the student and parents would be held responsible if any video leaked, preventing further legal action against the teacher.

Police have begun investigating the resort and conducting a medical examination of the student to gather evidence for prosecution.

Most people arrive on Koh Lanta having read a great deal about its beaches and almost nothing about the people who live on it. Then they notice the call to prayer drifting across the road at dawn, and realise they have not been told something fairly central.

The long-established population of this island is mostly Muslim. That is not a footnote about the interior somewhere. It is the island.

How many, honestly

Here the sources stop agreeing, so we will give you the range rather than pick the tidiest number.

Thailand's census counted 23,499 people in the Ko Lanta district in 2000 and 26,805 in 2010. Other accounts put the resident population around 30,000 to 34,000, which likely reflects registration data rather than a census. On the religious split, the figure most often repeated is that around 80 per cent of the island's long-settled population is Muslim.

We have not found an official religious breakdown for the district, so treat that 80 per cent as the widely-quoted estimate it is, not a government statistic. What is not in dispute is the direction: this is a Muslim-majority island in a Buddhist-majority country.

Three communities, not one

It is worth being precise, because guidebooks tend to blur this into a single "local" category.

The island's established population is usually described in three parts: Thai Muslims, whose families largely came from the Malay peninsula and Sumatra; Thai-Chinese families, who arrived on the nineteenth-century tin wave and built Old Town; and the Urak Lawoi, the sea people, who were here first and are a separate community with their own traditions.

They are not interchangeable, and the Urak Lawoi in particular are not simply "the Muslim locals" by another name.

What this means on an ordinary day

Very little, if you are on the beach strip. The west coast runs on tourism and behaves like it.

Inland and on the east side it is different, and the difference is mostly about attention rather than rules. Villages are quiet places where people live, not scenery. Covered shoulders and knees when you are away from the sand costs you nothing and is noticed. So is asking before photographing somebody, which is true everywhere and forgotten most places.

Friday midday prayers matter. There are several mosques across Lanta Yai and Lanta Noi, and if you happen to be driving through a village at that hour you will meet a lot of traffic on foot.

Alcohol is served widely on the tourist side and much less so away from it. Nobody will lecture you. It is simply not everywhere, and in some places it is nowhere.

Ramadan, which catches visitors out

This is the practical one, because it changes how the island works for a month and almost nobody warns you.

During Ramadan, Muslim residents fast from dawn to sunset. A number of local restaurants and shops close during daylight and open again in the evening. If you are staying outside the main tourist strip and wondering why nowhere is serving lunch, that is why.

The evenings are the opposite. Fast-breaking after sunset is social and generous, night markets appear, and the month ends with Eid, which is the biggest community celebration of the year.

Ramadan follows the lunar calendar, so it moves roughly eleven days earlier each year and its exact start depends on the sighting of the moon. That means a date printed in an old guidebook will be wrong. Check the year you are actually travelling.

The thing worth saying plainly

None of the above is a warning, and none of it requires anything difficult of a visitor. It is simply information that is oddly hard to find in English, on an island that hundreds of thousands of people visit.

You can spend a week here and never leave a beach that has been arranged for you. Or you can know whose island you are on.

We would like to improve this piece with first-hand voices rather than second-hand description. If you live here and we have got something wrong, or put it clumsily, please tell us and we will correct it.

On August 23, Sawang Ariya Nakhon Nayok rescue center received a report of snakes entering a vehicle and a residential home at house number 085/87 in Soi Maharat, opposite Nakhon Nayok City Municipality in Mueang District, Nakhon Nayok Province. Rescuers arrived to assist a couple, Mana, 64, and Chitra, 60, who were confronted by the reptiles. The first python, measuring 20 inches long, was found coiled around an iron cage in front of the bathroom. Rescuers used tongs to secure it and placed it in a rice sack.

The couple then led rescuers to their Isuzu pickup truck (Bangkok registration 2580), owned by the same person as the house. A second python of similar length had entered the engine compartment. When rescuers attempted to capture it using a flashlight and tongs, the snake escaped into the engine. After spraying insecticide multiple times without success, and with rain complicating the effort, rescuers instructed the owner to start the engine to force the snake out through heat. The owner was asked to call if the second snake was found. The first captured python will be released into the wild.

A 23-year-old motorcyclist was shot twice in critical condition on Nawamin Road after being pursued by a white Toyota Fortuner. Emergency responders performed CPR before rushing him to hospital. His companion says he does not know the attackers.

At 2:30 a.m. on August 24, 2025, police hotline 191 received a report of a gunshot victim on Nawamin Road near Phothikaew intersection in Nawamin subdistrict, Bueng Kum district, Bangkok. Officers from three police stations, the Erawan Emergency Medical Center Bangkok, and volunteers from the Por Tek Tung Foundation Foundation rushed to the scene near Nawamin Soi 58, where they found a white Bangkok-registered motorcycle and an injured man identified as Thanadol (surname withheld), 23 years old, wearing a black long-sleeved jacket, light brown shorts, and a full-face black helmet.

The victim sustained two gunshot wounds to the chest and left side of his body in critical condition. Paramedics performed CPR for approximately 30 minutes before transporting him to hospital.

According to his companion's account, the two had been riding the motorcycle for a delivery job via an app before heading home in the Happy Land area. As they passed the Presat Monkij intersection and turned onto Nawamin Road, a white Toyota Fortuner with unknown license plates began pursuing them. At the Phothikaew intersection, the Fortuner pulled alongside and lowered the rear left window. A man in the back seat then opened fire, firing two to three shots that struck Thanadol before the Fortuner accelerated away.

The companion managed to stop the motorcycle and seek help. He stated: "I can confirm I have never had any conflict with and do not know the people inside the Fortuner, and I have no idea why we were chased and shot at."

Police are reviewing CCTV footage and actively pursuing the white Toyota Fortuner as described by witnesses to investigate further and proceed with criminal charges.