Maya Bay

Maya Bay is on the island of Ko Phi Phi Le, the smaller of the two main Phi Phi islands in the Andaman Sea, in Krabi Province. The island is part of Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park.

The bay became internationally known after the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was shot here. Visitor numbers grew to several thousand a day, and boats, anchors and sunscreen badly damaged the coral reef. In 2018 the national park authorities closed the bay to let the ecosystem recover. During the closure, coral was replanted and blacktip reef sharks returned to the shallow water in large numbers.

The bay reopened in January 2022 under new rules. Boats no longer enter the bay itself; they dock at a floating pier at Loh Samah Bay on the other side of the island, and visitors walk to the beach along a boardwalk. Swimming in the bay is not allowed. Time on the beach is limited to about an hour, and the number of visitors per round is capped. The beach is a strip of white sand enclosed by steep limestone hills.

Visitors pay the national park fee, and most arrive on speedboat or longtail tours from Phuket, Krabi or Ko Phi Phi Don. The national park can close the bay for recovery periods, so check its status before booking.

Coral loss from crowds and boats, and the bay's recovery

Before the closure, about 5,000 visitors and some 200 boats a day crowded the bay, and surveys blamed boat traffic and pollution for damaging or destroying about 80 percent of its coral. The beach itself is small, about 250 metres long and 15 metres wide, on an island of around 2 square kilometres, the second largest in the Phi Phi group.

Thai authorities first announced a four-month closure in March 2018, and the bay shut in June. On 1 October 2018 the closure was extended indefinitely. By February 2019 more than 15,000 corals from several local species had been propagated for replanting, and blacktip reef sharks were back near the beach by December 2018.

The film that made the bay famous was shot in 1999 and released in February 2000. In 2006 Thailand's Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the filming had harmed the environment, and 20th Century Fox was fined 10 million baht, about 273,000 US dollars. The production company said it had removed 5 tonnes of rubbish from the beach.