My expectations of Maya Bay had already been tempered before I even landed at Phuket airport since it was nothing like the beach in Danny Boyle's film "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio. Even so, I still looked forward to seeing it with the same excitement I had when I first stepped foot on Khao San Road during my first visit to Thailand several years earlier.
Expectation vs. Reality: Visiting Maya Bay in Krabi | Thailand
After spending a day in Phuket where I rendezvoused with my friend Angeline, who lived and taught English in Surat Thani, we traveled to Krabi for another day before setting up our temporary home in Rai Leh Beach for the next five days.
We went island hopping on our second day on the island and stopped at Phi-Phi Don to soak up the sun and enjoy a dip in the azure-colored waters surrounding its white sandy beaches.
Coming from the Philippines and spoiled by the picturesque rocky islets off the coast of El Nido and Coron in Palawan, I was spared from dropping my jaw, as opposed to the sheer amazement of the other tourists on our longboat, whose expressions of "oohs" and "wows" echoed throughout as we passed by the other islands.
Still, I enjoyed the view as if I was slowly finding myself in the pages of Alex Garland’s novel, minus the fleet of tourist boats—including ours—slicing its way through the turquoise waters of Phi-Phi.
Channeling Leonardo DiCaprio. Not.
In the movie “The Beach”, Maya Bay was enhanced by a CGI effect to show a craggy limestone islet covering the bay to create an illusion of an isolated cove that almost no one other than a few locals knew about. In real life, the mouth of Maya Bay opened to the wild sea and, on any given day, received dozens of longboats and yachts filled with tourists.
If one came there expecting the-beach-kind-of-vibe, then one would be disappointed. However, if one had 3,000 THB to spare, one could avail of the overnight tour of Maya Bay that started after the island-hopping hours to enjoy the lagoon without the throng of the other tourists.
My friend Angeline and I regretted not availing of that instead of the ordinary day tour of the Phi-Phi archipelago. Despite having an expectation versus reality that was worlds apart, I was still glad to have seen Maya Bay with my own eyes.
And because “The Beach” was among the few novels I did not mind reading repeatedly, maybe the next time I picked it up, I would have an image of that out-of-the-way nature escape where Richard found his kindred souls, to go along with the book's stirring prose. All I needed to do was channel out from my memory the throng of camera-snapping, happy tourists who crowded Maya Bay that beautiful morning.
