Testing the waters
y first view of Maya Bay came in 1999, while I was following the cast and crew of Danny Boyle’s as they filmed around Thailand. Back then, no one had yet heard of this secluded cove at Phi Phi Leh, an uninhabited limestone isle in southern Thailand’s Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park. The setting perfectly encapsulated the titular beach of the Alex Garland novel on which the film is based: an idyllic hideaway cradled by sheer cliffs and fringed by a sliver of fine white sand, with water so clear you could spot coral and other sea life from the shore. Gorgeous.
