Downtown Nakhon Si Thammarat is quiet on a weekday evening, and restaurants sit empty awaiting customers. The southern Thai province, devastated in parts by tropical storm Pabuk earlier this year, is struggling to keep its rubber and fishery industries alive.

Trying to tighten their belts are people like Mr Narong Srirodon, who keeps a second job as a factory worker because income from his 1.6ha rubber plantation is too meagre to support his family.