‘Old Thailand’ Found on Sleepy Islands

[CrazyExpat]

Under a blazing midday sun in late 2013, Allen Stewart surveyed the scene before him: The Gulf of Thailand, a spectrum of blues, stretched out as far as the eye could see. To the west, the jagged, emerald-hued peaks of Koh Chang emerged; the Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia rose to the east. Thick swaths of palm trees hugged empty white sand beaches below.

 

“I looked around for years for something like this,” Mr. Stewart, 60, said of the heart-stopping view. “I grew up outside of Yellowstone — how do you match that? But when I saw this, it took about three seconds to say, ‘Yup, this is what we’ve been looking for.’ ”

 

Mr. Stewart began sharing that affection in 2011, when he and his wife opened Thaidaho Vista, a guesthouse on petite Koh Mak island. And it’s that sort of impassioned search for tranquillity, beauty and an off-the-grid feel — for the “old Thailanf.” one that’s fast disappearing — that’s luring entrepreneurs like Mr. Stewart and travelers to Koh Mak and its sister island of Koh Kut, an hour’s boat ride away, in the northeastern Gulf of Thailand, not far from the Cambodian border.

 

The crowds of Thailand’s big-name beach destinations — Phuket, Koh Samui, Koh Chang — are worlds away from these palm-tree fringed, sleepy gems, where you’re more likely to encounter dogs and pigs sauntering along the road than traffic jams, and to have a stretch of sand and sea all to yourself, rather than elbow-to-elbow sun beds.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/travel/old-thailand-found-on-sleepy-islands.html