special feature | TRAVEL
FOUR SEASONS RESORT Discover Thailand’s laid-back island life at Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui. Here, you can spend your days exploring pristine sandy beaches bordered by tropical greenery and calm blue seas, lounging by the infinity pool with a cool drink, or relaxing on your private deck overlooking the idyllic Gulf of Siam. Words by David J. Constable
I
have fantasies of checking out in a tiny shack on one of Thailand’s rural islands. Something small, but charming. Nothing elaborate. I want comfort and class, but not too vast that I have to walk a mile to the bog. The city is hot, stifling and noisy, but the islands offer something other-worldly, as if they’re not part of Thailand at all. Do you get the picture? What Joseph Conrad wrote about. So it was that I left Bangkok and landed one hour later at Samui Airport, and into a place far removed from the traffic-chocked absurdity of the big city. The little strip of cement bubbled in the tropical heat, an undulating ripple of canned heat. Ah, cool weather and fresh air. That’s the thing with these islands, they’re suspended in a daydream, a sunny, spectral place
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that bobs over the computer screen and shimmers in the exhaust fumes of rush hour. I’m filled with a sort of giddy happiness, a silent chuckle, laughing at all of those morons back in Bangkok; office-bound, stuck in traffic, sweating profusely on the BTS. The islands of Thailand exist only on shiny paper and in winter brochures, yet here I am, mingling in arrivals with a reverie of prickly sunburnt shoulders, salty lips and the exotic feel of a sandal strap between my toes. This is Koh Samui, an area of three-course breakfasts, luxury spas and slippery somnambulant siesta sex; a special island lapped by the imaginations of proto-brides, honeymoon-hangouts and housewives deep in holiday reading—tales of Mr Grey for tonight’s inspiration. NOVEMBER 2018 | 65