Jostling for space at Maya Bay

Huge attraction: Tourists arriving for an hour-long visit to Maya Bay beach, through a new pier constructed over a reef in Loh Samah Bay beach, at the Phi Phi Island National Park, on Phi Phi Leh Island, Krabi province. — Reuters

On any given day in Thailand’s Maya Bay, up to 40 blacktip reef sharks cruise in the cyan shallows while about 4,000 tourists visit its white-sand beach flanked by towering cliffs.

Shark numbers have improved since almost every last one was driven from the bay by the influx of tour boats and tourists keen to see the uninhabited idyll that was made famous as the set of Leonardo Di Caprio’s 2000 thriller The Beach.The sharks returned after a tourism ban and the Covid-19 pandemic between 2018 and 2022 halted all visitors to the bay.