Six months have now passed since 20th Century Fox finished shooting 'The Beach' in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Le island in Southern Thailand. We last visited the islands with Sarah Clark, the film publicist, and Ross Palmer, the film greensman, in late March 1999. We were happy with the condition of the beach then and the work done on the reclamation area. The production team had installed collection points for garbage, built a fence to stop people trampling the new plantings and reinforced the dune with bamboo poles. However, this was pre-monsoon and many people were worried that the dune wouldn't survive the rainy season. Also, some people believed that once the movie people left in early May that they would no long be interested in completing the restoration.
'The Beach', starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is not expected to be released until January/February 2000 at the very earliest. Although there is still a long time to go, there is already starting to be a lot of interest in the film locations. Most people visit the Phi Phi islands as a day trip from Phuket or Krabi. The big tourist boats cannot enter Maya Bay itself, where the shooting took place. They can only pause at the entrance. The boats then go round the corner to Viking Cave to see the bird nests and then on to Phi Phi Don island for lunch. The tourists are then given the option to go snorkeling or sunbathe on the beach. However, there is time to rent a long-tailed boat for a couple of hours and head back to Phi Phi Le island and Maya Bay. When we were there in August 1999, we met up with some Japanese tourists who had rented a long-tailed boat just to go and see where Leonardo filmed "The Beach"
[ Phi Phi Le Island in Thailand ] [ Footsteps on the Beach ]
