The Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach that came out in 2000 about a fictional island utopia hidden from the outside world helped make Thailand’s Maya Bay very popular.
Too popular, it turned out.
By the time I visited eight years later, Maya Bay was still undeniably gorgeous, but also undeniably overrun with tourists and the distinctive longtail boats that brought them — spewing smoke, churning up sediment and dragging their anchors through the coral. Passengers jumped over the side to wade or swim to shore, fouling the water with sunscreen and trash.
Park ranger Suthep Chaikao says that by 2018, things were even worse — with the once pristine bay, the crown jewel of the Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, hosting upwards of 5,000 visitors per day.
“Back then, I’d wake up at 5 a.m. and there would be boats in the bay…
