Bamboo

As elsewhere in the world, basket making in Thailand started among agricultural people who spent their free time making basket articles to facilitate themselves in their everyday life both at home and at work. To begin with, their products were very simple, an expression of natural beauty fashioned by human intelligence and independence of spirit blended with an understanding of the material used. Later these works have, with time and new technologies, undergone such variations and developments that they now appear in large quantities and a variety of designs.

Categorized according to their functions, basket in Thailand fall into five main groups as follows :
I. those used in agricultural occupations and ordinary households, for example the various types of aquatic animal traps, containers, food covers, and fruit picking tools.
II. those used for seating and reclining purpose, also for building construction. Examples of these are varieties of mats, house walls, ceiling and gables.
III. those used of used covering for protection against the sun and rain such as various kind of hats.
IV. those functioning as furniture, for example tables, chairs, shelves, food cupboards ect.
V. those used in sport like takraw or rattan balls.

Bamboo is a natural plant in Thailand and has had a special place in Thai daily life from time immemorial . Many rural people in Thailand have, since the old days, built their houses and made their household utensils from bamboo.

Rattan

Unlike bamboo, this plant of the PALMAE family grows naturally in forest areas where the climate is both hot a damp with heavy rainfall. In Thailand it is mostly found in the south, for example in Surat Thani, Songkha, Ranong, Krabi and Pattani provinces.