The following reports were sent out on the internet every day during our visit to Phuket and Phi Phi islands. We also took along with us digital cameras. We would like to thank the owners of Sriwittayapaknam School who again paid for the this trip.
It is now Saturday morning and we are still on Phi Phi Don in Southern Thailand. We are about to go by boat to Phi Phi Le where they made the movie The Beach last year. Last night I was talking to some of the tour operators here. They take people to Maya Bay every day so I thought they would be the best people to talk to in order to get some idea of a comparison between then and now.
"Make sure you take plenty of tissues," the first tour guide told me.
"Why?" I couldn't quite work this opening comment out. According to the newspapers the film-makers visited the Bay only a couple of weeks ago and Andrew Macdonald is quoted as saying everything is "perfect".
"It is complete devastation. It will take years for the dune to recover," the tour guide told me. "I have been working here for three and a half years and it has never been as bad as this. The film-makers should never have been allowed to bulldoze that dune. The dune has a really fragile eco-system"
When you think about it, the tour operators shouldn't protest. "The Beach" movie will be good for business as more people will be coming here to see the real beach. But, the fact is, many of them are concerned about the environment. A badly eroded dune doesn't look good. If it is true the beach has been ruined then people will not want to make the trip there.
It is interesting that they don't actually want to lay blame in any one corner. More than anything they want a dune expert to come in and advise on the best course of action. They charge that the so-called "expert" brought in by Fox is not properly qualified. He's in fact the "greensman" for The Beach movie. A greensman is a person employed to dress the greenery in the background of a shot - plant pots etc.
Soon, we will be renting a long-tailed boat to head out to Phi Phi Le and Maya Beach. I think it is important to point out at this point that we are not pretending to be environmental experts. We want to go there for two main reasons:
- Compare the state of the dune between pre-monsoon (March 1999) and post-monsoon (February 2000).
- To document Maya Beach the same weekend the movie is released in order to give an accurate comparison to what happens to it 12 months later. Our Beach web sites will remain open over the coming years as we intend to keep a close eye on this area.
We will be going to Phi Phi with an open mind and we will bring you our report hopefully later today.
Phi Phi Le island is visited by hundreds of tourists every day. Many come to swim in the sparkling clear water of Maya Bay or relax on the beach. (Pictures: thaistudents.com) It is difficult to estimate the number of boats that go to Phi Phi Le every day. Hundreds would be a conservative estimate. If you stay overnight on Phi Phi Don, you have two choices on getting to Phi Phi Le. Either join a day long tour for 500 baht (35 baht = $1) which circles both islands and also visits Bamboo island. (This latter small island, together with Mosquito island are the two islands that Leonardo, Virginie and Guillaume swim between in the movie.) On this tour you get about 1 hour free time in Maya Bay to snorkel or relax on the beach.
The alternative is to rent your own long-tailed boat. The price for this seems to be fixed and starts at 600 baht for 3 hours.
Maya Bay is on the southern end of Phi Phi Le and the journey by long-tailed boats takes less than 30 minutes. We entered the bay at 9 a.m. and it was already starting to get crowded. At the entrance I counted about 4 private motor boats and one yacht. On the beach there were already seven long-tailed boats.
My first impression was, "Where is the dune?" There is no doubt there has been considerable erosion. It is also obvious which sections of the dune were disturbed by the film-makers. The parts that they left un-touched are thick with foliage.
A once almost vertical dune has been flattened in many sections. Also, 2-3 metres of the dune face has gone. Eaten away by the tide during severe storms last year. A large amount of the roots on the dune are now exposed and some of the bigger plants, which no longer have any sand beneath them to give support, have toppled down.
The sections of the dune reconstructed by Fox have little vegetation left, plants are falling down the bank and the roots are exposed to the air. (Pictures: thaistudents.com) To be fair to the film-makers, it is true that the section they didn't touch also suffered some dune erosion but not so severe. It is also true that some of the vegetation has fallen down, but again not so serious. These areas remain thick with vegetation.
The million dollar question is, of course, would the erosion have been just as severe even if the film-makers hadn't bulldozed two sections of the dune? It is true that last year some really bad storms hit this area. The last one in about November coincided with a high tide which resulted in the waves coming right up to the top of the dune.
I spoke to one of the tour guides on the beach for his opinion. In particular I wanted to know how this beach compared to others.
"The monsoon last year was really bad," he told me. "Other beaches that I take the tourists to suffered damage but none as bad as the beach in Maya Bay. Even now, several months after the monsoons have finished, the dune is still collapsing. There is nothing to keep it together now and the wind is blowing the sand into the bay."
I also asked about any damage to the coral in the bay. He said there is no coral near the beach and hasn't been any for a long time. The place where people go snorkelling is near the entrance to the bay in deeper water.
Another noticeable absence are the fences put in by the film-makers at the bottom of the dune last year. These were put in to stop people walking up and over the dune anywhere they liked. I believe that part of this fence was washed away. But anyway, even if the fence was still there, it would be in the wrong place as the dune has lost 2-3 metres. The only fence that is left is at the top which is useless. A number of signs along the dune ask people in Thai and English to use the steps provided towards one end of the beach. However, the dune is no longer steep to climb and you can see in a couple of places the dune has been worn away by people climbing up and over. The need for a new fence and some proper maintainance is urgent.
At the eastern end of the beach we found the small snack bar that we saw last March. This sells things like soft drinks and packets of crisps (chips if you are American). They also now provide a cooked menu of fried rice, noodles etc. Before there was only one small hut and a couple of people there. Now there seems to be an extended family living there with an extra small wooden building/kitchen and two tables and chairs. There is also now a public toilet and shower! None of these "temporary" buildings are encroaching on the beach so they don't spoil any photos taken by tourists. However, they are already using a larger area than this time last year and if no-one does anything about this then the number of snack bars and then souvenir stalls will increase.
At one end of the beach there is a hut and a stall selling refreshments and snacks. There is also a cooked menu of fried rice, noodles etc. (Pictures: thaistudents.com) We next climbed up and over the dune using the provided steps and walkway. The top of the dune seemed to be okay as it has a thick green covering that wasn't there before. However, I am not in a position to compare this with what it was like before the film-makers arrived. We then climbed over the rope fence in order to inspect closer more of the area. In one patch we found a lot of dry and dead vegetation. How they died I don't know but the irrigation pipes that the film-makers put in are no longer there. However, about 12 large water tanks are still in the centre of the island - some on their side and all empty.
There was one area in particular that we wanted to check. This is the top part of the dune that collapsed last year. We have pictures of this in our August 1999 report. The film-makers tried to deal with this by levelling the sand again and putting in rows and rows of bamboo fencing. Well, all of this is still there and some vegetation has grown back, but the dune is very uneven in this patch compared to elsewhere on top. More work needs to be done in this area but as far as we know the film-makers have now left. It also looks like the Royal Forestry Department (RFD) might be giving Fox their bond back as their one year obligation to work on the island is now up.
From the dune we walked further towards the interior of the island. At the halfway point the film-makers had set up a green room. A place where the cast could rest while they waited to be called for their shot. Here they built some toilets, which the RFD asked to be kept after the shooting finished. However, about a week before our visit in March last year, a group of islanders from Phi Phi Don pulled down this toilet together with a pontoon walkway around the back of the island that the RFD had also asked to be left. The islanders argued that there shouldn't be any permanent structures on the island also the film-makers should put the island back to the way they had found it as in the agreement.
On top of the dune a lot of the vegetation has grown back though in some areas it is very uneven. (Pictures: thaistudents.com) It was difficult to find but the remains of the toilet are still there hidden amongst the vegetation. We first spotted a blue pipe sticking out and then some concrete blocks. We are not sure, under the circumstances, who is responsible to clear this up. It looks like it has been forgotten.
Back on the beach, there were now 12 long-tailed boats and a further 14 could be spotted in the entrance to the bay. When we went out there ourselves we could see that people had come to snorkel as the coral and fish are very beautiful. As we left the bay one of the first big tourist boats from Phuket had just arrived and was circling around the entrance to the bay. We could just make out the words "Leonardo" and "The Beach" over the loudspeakers so it was obvious that the tourists were being told about the main location for the movie. None of these people could land on the beach as the boat is too big. However, once they reach Phi Phi Don they have about 2 hours free time. So if they want they could hire a long-tailed boat for a quick trip.
[ February 2000 Reports | Footsteps on the Beach ]
