ON THE ROAD: At the risk of sounding in need of some kind of help, perhaps a head examination, I'm going to say that island-hopping in Thailand has been by spades the lowest point of my journey so far. Put it this way: the islands in the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand have become so over-developed they make Pamela Anderson look like Twiggy.
Undoubtedly, there was a time when Ko Samui, Ko Tao, Ko Lanta, Ko Phi Phi Don, Ko Phi Phi Leh, Ao Nang and its surrounding beaches were paradise themselves, but a couple of weeks scampering around the above put me more in mind of the other after-life destination. As for that mythologised Eurotrash playground, Phuket, I met nobody who'd been there who didn't groan when they mentioned its name.
Thailand had a whopping 12 million overseas visitors in 2002, according to a report last week in the Bangkok Post. That's a lot of people in search of paradise. Perhaps I should have known better and gone instead to the as-yet apparently unruined islands and beaches of Ko Chang, Ko Jam, the Smilians, Rai Leh and Ton Sai, names told to me en route by other travellers clearly more tuned in than myself. But hell, I thought that the places I did go to were world famous because they were reputedly beautiful.
I finally realised I was not having the good time I'd expected on Phra Nang beach. Phra Nang is weirdly lovely: a contrast of immense limestone cliffs, narrow beach, turquoise water and a shrine in a cave at one end of the beach where fishermen have long made offerings for a good catch. It's such a spectacular place, it is under the supposedly sacrosanct protection of the National Parks.
Thus, among the many things that might spoil the place and which are forbidden there, as listed clearly in both Thai and English on signs everywhere, is "doing business, vending, selling or offering any kind of service." Surprise, surprise, within a minute of my arrival, a succession of cheerfully illegal vendors trotted my way, offering postcards, henna tattoos, sarongs, massage, hair-braiding, jewellery, beer, fruit, soft drinks and flutes.
I refused them all. Five minutes later (it's a small beach), the entire parade showed up again, clearly suffering from amnesia. I already know my abiding memory of that gorgeous place will be of wanting to do injury to the flute-seller, who piped tunelessly in my ear every five minutes. And since Phra Nang is supposedly officially protected from such commercialism, it takes little imagination to guess how much worse it is elsewhere.
And some of the islands are very grim indeed. Like franchises in some hamburger chain, most of the beaches I went to all looked the same. Each had restaurants offering the same menus, in Swedish, German and English, and most of them doubled as ad-hoc cinemas, showing pirated DVDs all day; every Internet cafe's home page is Hotmail; on every corner you hear the whine of "Thai-mass-age"; and there is always a bar offering drinks in a bucket (the straws come free). Any traces of indigenous culture or charm has been edited out of these now soulless places.
The Thai version of Spain's high-rise beach-front apartments are bungalows, or huts. The original ones (of which some remain) were well-spaced out and made of bamboo and thatch: the new ones are concrete air-con boxes, built an arm span apart from each other and looking like little suburban housing estates. Both on Ko Tao and Ko Phi Phi Don, I saw large areas of beach-fronted land being cleared of coconut trees, with the cement mixers already lined up in the background. Overcrowded Ko Phi Phi Don already has a chronic water shortage and an ongoing sewerage problem that is difficult to ignore, unless you lack a sense of smell, so how it will support yet more tourists is anyone's guess.
It seems obvious that the number of overnight visitors to the islands should be restricted, but in Thailand as everywhere, money always talks in the end. As yet, access to these islands is completely unrestricted, as it is to their surrounding coral reefs, which boats day-trip to by the score.
I finally found my own piece of paradise, snorkelling for the first time in coral reefs off Ko Phi Phi Leh. The water was clear, the coral phosphorescent and mysterious, the iridescent fish blue and yellow and green. I loved it so much the boatman could hardly get me aboard again.
Yet even that amazing day also had its hellish elements. I counted 64 boats, most with diesel engines, in Maya Bay, which featured in the movie The Beach, and which is pristine and unvisited no longer. Every day, literally hundreds of boats circumnavigate the smaller islands, and every day, when they drop anchor, more coral is broken.
How long can this reckless squandering of a natural beauty last, before it is completely destroyed? It seems to have accelerated in the last couple of years: I met people who had been to these same islands as recently as two years ago and who said they couldn't believe how much they had changed since. I dread to think of what they'll be like in another 10 years, but I sure as hell won't be going back to find out.
Next stop: Cambodia
