Maya Bay

Ko Phi Phi Le, in the Andaman Sea off Thailand's Krabi province, is a small island made almost entirely of steep limestone hills, arranged in a ring around two shallow bays. Maya Bay is the more famous of them: a beach of pale sand about 250 metres long, enclosed on three sides by sheer limestone cliffs hung with vegetation, with a narrow opening to the sea. The effect is of a hidden amphitheatre, the water inside glowing turquoise over sand and coral.

The limestone walls give the bay its drama. They rise straight from the water with overhangs and notches cut by the sea, and they change colour with the light as the day moves on. At night the shallows can shimmer with bioluminescent plankton. Because the bay is so shallow and full of coral, boats cannot come in directly at low tide; they anchor in the deeper Loh Samah bay on the far side, and visitors cross to the beach through a short passage of rock and jungle.

The bay's recent history is a parable of fame. In 1999 it was the setting for the film The Beach, released in 2000, whose producers bulldozed and replanted the sand with non-native trees; mass tourism followed, with thousands of visitors a day. In 2018 the national park authorities closed the bay, first for a few months and then indefinitely, and began what was described as the largest coral rehabilitation project in the world to rely only on natural means: more than 15,000 corals had been propagated by early 2019, and blacktip reef sharks returned to breed in the shallows. Visitors came back in early 2022, now on foot along a set route with limited time on the beach, which suits a place best seen quietly.

Getting there

Maya Bay lies within Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park and is reached only by boat, usually on day trips from the neighbouring island of Ko Phi Phi Don or by speedboat from Phuket, about 50 minutes away, and from Krabi. The nearest airport is Krabi International (KBV), about 52 km away; Phuket's Ko Sire district is about 44 km across the water.