Ko Phi Phi Le

Ko Phi Phi Le is a small island, only about 2 square kilometres, but it is almost entirely wall: a ring of near-vertical limestone cliffs, streaked grey and orange and hung with vegetation, rising straight out of the Andaman Sea and enclosing a handful of bays. Nobody lives here. The island belongs to the Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, and it is seen from the water, from boats that nose in under the cliffs, which gives the place its particular feeling of being walled off from the world.

Its most famous corner is Maya Bay, a short arc of white sand, about 250 metres long, held in by cliffs on three sides. The bay became a global image after the film The Beach was shot here in 1999, and the crowds that followed, thousands of visitors and around two hundred boats a day, destroyed most of its coral. In 2018 the bay was closed, first for a few months and then for nearly four years, and when visitors were let back in 2022, boats were kept out of the bay itself and visitors began landing on the far side of the island, at Loh Samah, and walking in along a boardwalk through the forest. In the clear shallows of Loh Samah, blacktip reef sharks patrol close to the boats.

On the east side, Pileh Lagoon cuts deep into the island, a long, narrow inlet of shallow, astonishingly green water between cliffs about 100 metres high, where boats drift in silence. Further north, at the foot of a cliff, is the Viking Cave, named for drawings of ships on its walls, which were most likely scratched by sailors sheltering from monsoon storms rather than by anyone from Scandinavia. The cave is also a working site for the harvest of edible swiftlet nests, built by the birds from their own saliva and gathered from bamboo scaffolding high in the dark.

Getting there

Ko Phi Phi Le lies just south of Ko Phi Phi Don, whose Tonsai pier is the usual starting point; a longtail boat covers the distance in about 20–30 minutes. Day trips by speedboat also run from Phuket, taking roughly 50 minutes, and from the Krabi coast. The nearest airport is Krabi International Airport (KBV), about 52 km away.