Koh Poulo Wai

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Koh Poulo Wai, also known as Poulo Wai or the Wai Islands, are two small, wooded, uninhabited islands in the Gulf of Thailand. They lie about 95 kilometers southwest of Cambodia’s coast and are part of Kampot Province.

The Khmer word Koh means "island." Poulo Wai comes from Malay and Cham, so the name roughly means "Wai Island Island." The two islands are about 5 kilometers long in total and up to about 1.5 kilometers wide, and they sit roughly 1.4 kilometers apart in a channel about 40 meters deep. The west island is small at its southwest end, while the eastern island is rocky and slightly larger.

These islands have a history of border disputes among Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam because of different ways countries measured their waters. In May 1975, the area around Koh Wai and nearby Koh Tang was the site of the Mayaguez incident, the last combat action of the Vietnam War. About a month later, Vietnamese forces briefly seized Koh Wai, fighting Khmer Rouge troops; they evacuated the island in August.

For a long time the Koh Wai islands were off limits to tourists, but they can now be visited on organized tours. Because the trip is long, visitors usually stay overnight on one of the islands.