More than a million British travellers visited Thailand last year, a record number, but this journey went beyond the familiar beaches. The trip began at Amari Koh Samui, a beachfront resort on the quieter end of Chaweng Beach, and moved to tiny islands off its coast before a catamaran crossing to Koh Tao, a renowned diving destination.
Amari Koh Samui: A Polished Tropical Retreat
Amari Koh Samui's 193 rooms are spread between the Beach Wing, Thai Village, and Garden Wing, threaded through frangipani, bird-of-paradise flowers, palms, and glossy jungle foliage. From the room, grass and red parasols gave way to a bay enclosed by tropical green headlands, with kayaks and boats moving across water that shifted from turquoise to darker blue.
The airport is barely five minutes away, and Chaweng's restaurants, shops, and nightlife are within walking distance. Yet in the gardens there was the hush of wind moving through tropical trees and birdsong in the morning. Guests in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, some returning for weeks or even months, mixed with families, honeymooners, and twenty-somethings. The resort offers three pools, a kids' club, spa, and gym, plus beach yoga, Thai boxing, meditation, and ice baths. At Prego, its Italian restaurant, pizzas and pasta come alongside Ossobuco alla Milanese with saffron risotto.
Pig Island and Koh Tao's Diving Paradise
A small boat carried the traveller south to neighbouring Koh Tan for snorkelling above coral and tropical fish, before the short hop to Koh Madsum, better known as Pig Island. Here enormous black pigs shoved and fought as they searched for food and water while tiny black piglets raced around their feet. Twenty-somethings tried to film TikToks on the white sandy peninsula as pigs barged through the shot.
A little over two hours by catamaran brought the journey to Koh Tao, one of Thailand's great diving destinations. Arrival was gloriously chaotic: red and blue boats jostled around Mae Haad pier, fishermen worked beside arriving tourists, and people manoeuvred trays of eggs through the crowds. Twenty minutes later, at Haad Tien Beach resort on Koh Tao's south-east coast, it felt as though somebody had turned the volume off.
Underwater Wonders and Conservation Efforts
Koh Tao's waters produce large visitors, including whale sharks reaching around 12 metres, which feed on plankton. Luiz Dias, an underwater photographer, oceanographer, and diving instructor, has spent years studying fish behaviour here. Swimming among great shoals of fusiliers can become so disorientating that even he gets dizzy. "It's fun," he laughed. The only thing he is afraid of is the triggerfish, which has bitten him. "They look mean."
This underwater paradise is fragile. Luiz wants to develop partnerships and data banks that universities can use to study marine life. Machinery was seen lowering concrete structures pierced with holes into the sea, creating places where coral can establish and marine life find shelter.
From the surface, a mask revealed a constantly moving world of giant clams, hard corals, bannerfish, batfish, parrotfish, clownfish, and extraordinary blue-spotted stingrays. Thousands of yellowband fusiliers streamed through the water in dense shoals, sweeping one way and another in flashes of yellow and blue-green. At times, the whole view was fish.
British singer Taio Cruz once named Koh Tao his favourite escape and Haad Tien his favourite place to stay, praising its seclusion and tranquillity. His preferred journey was remarkably similar: Samui first, then a boat to Koh Tao. The aptly named Castaway Beachfront Villa resembled an enormous luxury yurt, its soaring, wigwam-shaped roof trussed with wooden beams, with natural timber and glass looking towards the sea.
Days seemed to stretch here, with yoga, swimming, and ice baths, but also long meals mixing European dishes with Thai comfort food: green curries and tom kha gai fragrant with coconut milk, lemongrass and galangal, and rich massaman curry. Haad Tien keeps pulling attention back to the sea. Every morning divers carried tanks towards boats and heading offshore. Koh Tao has become one of the world's best-known places to learn to dive.
The journey ended with a reminder of the effort required to protect what appears effortlessly natural. Thailand may be an old British love affair, but perhaps that's precisely why it's worth doing differently. Don't stop at the first island. Take the little boat. Board the catamaran. Keep going. And when you finally think you've reached paradise, put on a mask and look down. There may be another one underneath.
