t+l journal
| resorts
Island Paradise Clockwise from top left: The resort is set on a remote island in southeastern Thailand; a guest with her “Friday”; original designs using natural materials and a sense of eco-consciousness cross paths at Soneva Kiri; boarding the private flight back to Bangkok.
O
ur journey to Soneva Kiri starts in a windowless private waiting room at the Bangkok airport. Also in the room are our fellow travelers: a genial mother-anddaughter pair from Japan and the younger woman’s small daughter, who has pigtails, impossibly round cheeks and a placid countenance. Outside is a buffet table serving stale cake and a sickly sweet drink masquerading as orange juice. It’s not exactly the sort of scene you’d readily associate with a resort that is, with rates starting at nearly US$1,200 a night, one of Southeast Asia’s most expensive. The pace—and glam factor—pick up when we’re escorted to a van that whisks us to an eight-seat Cessna kitted out in polished wood and leather upholstery. Once we’re airborne, the co-pilot serves us drinks. Each seat comes with a copy of a hand-drawn map showing the flight path to our destination on the southeastern coast of Thailand, Ko Kood, which, despite its abundant natural beauty and its status as the country’s fourth largest island, has escaped the uncontrolled development evident elsewhere in Thailand—at least, so far. About an hour after take-off and we’re landing on a private strip on the tiny, barely inhabited island of Ko Mai-see that’s right across the water from Soneva Kiri. As we disembark onto the tarmac, surrounded by nothing more
88
octo b e r 2 0 1 0 | t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m
than dense jungle, my husband remarks that the setting seems suited for some clandestine meeting between rival drug lords or arms dealers. But instead of a bodyguard in mirrored sunglasses and an Italian suit, we’re met by Chompoo Kiewkarnka—a slight, soft-spoken Chiang Rai native dressed in pale linens who offers the first of many cold towels before escorting us to an electric golf buggy and ferrying us to an awaiting speedboat. Chompoo is our assigned butler, or in the parlance of Six Senses, the company behind the resort, our “Friday.” It’s actually the presence of Six Senses—rather than the promise of unfettered pampering, as embodied by Chompoo’s attentiveness—that brings me to Ko Kood. Known as a pioneer of environmentally conscious resorts,
A SLICE of your bill at Six Senses goes to carbon-offset programs such as building wind turbines in Tamil Nadu