A Thai “Beach” that Won’t Turn You Krabi

A Thai environmental activist I know in Bangkok has long lamented the way that Mayo Beach in Phi Phi, near Krabi has been exploited as the setting for Danny Boyle’s movie The Beach. She was living there when Hollywood invaded sometime around 1996. Before the film was shot there were no palm trees on this once remote island; hundreds were planted to satisfy the not very interesting whims of studio executives who had a clear idea of what “Thailand” should look like. Now, Mayo beach is a line of palms, which thousands of tourists crammed into longtails and speed boats photograph as they are whisked around its cove. A place which human beings cannot quite destroy, but one that has been sculpted to look like a movie rather than the other way around. My activist friend, whose name is Ing K, explodes with rage at Bangkok dinner parties whenever Mayo beach and Danny Boyle are mentioned. The word “rape” is uttered, and it has to do not with the cutting down of trees but their artificial implanting.

This coastline in Thailand’s south-west, at the edge of its Muslim regions, suffers, you could say, from being too beautiful for its own good. It was used as a background, just as famously or infamously, for the Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun. Thus, as you first enter the marine parks by boat from the town of Krabi, there is an instant feel of déj

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