Goodbye Maya Bay
The Maya Bay Thai beach is a clear example of how an enclave can die of success . This little corner of the phi phi island It didn't take long for him to rise to fame when the well-known movie The beach of Leonardo Dicaprio . The bay soon began to be overcrowded with tourists, even becoming an unpleasant place. And worst of all: lost part of its coral reefs and its fauna.
“When I visited Maya Bay it was super crowded. It gave the feeling that instead of going to relax I was on the beach, overwhelming”, describes his experience in the bay Hector Rodriguez , a Spaniard living in bangkok .
A feeling shared by Patricia Rodriguez , another Spaniard who lived for a long period in Thailand . "I traveled to Maya Bay twice a couple of years ago and it was full of boats and tourists," he says. "The last time I went with my mother and I didn't even get off the boat. They even queued to anchor and unload the tourists. You couldn't even sit on the sand with a towel."
what we look for
Reality
Tourists arriving at thai shores help boost the local economy, but also leave tons of waste and threaten the natural beauty of these places , especially when moving on ships.
The Thai government has got its hands on the matter by announcing the indefinite closure of the beach until it recovers its natural resources, thus prolonging a measure that began on June 1 and was initially scheduled to end this October.
The objective pursued by the Government is stop the hustle and bustle caused by the daily arrival of 200 boats and around 4,000 tourists, an exaggerated figure considering the small dimensions of the bay. In Thailand, some marine parks tend to close every year around the same dates, but Maya Bay, due to its popularity, had not taken a break since DiCaprio's movie was shot in 1999.
paradise, crowded
The closure of Maya Bay concerns boats and not tourists, although access will now be somewhat more complicated because it will be through the back of the bay.
The reality of Maya Bay has nothing to do with the idyll of the movie
Maya Bay is not the first beach to which access has been restricted in the Southeast Asian , a region suffering from acute tourist overpopulation. Thailand's environmental authorities had already closed the island of Koh Tachai in 2016 because it was "oversaturated" and tourist activities seriously harmed the environment.
In mid-April the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte , also ordered to close the popular Boracay Island for six months after rating it "sewer" . The contamination of its waters had become excessive, especially since many companies had been discharging wastewater directly into the sea for years.
The 'idyllic' arrival on Koh Tachai
Saving coral reefs is a necessary task. These ecosystems are not only a tourist attraction, but more importantly, they help protect coastlines from storm surge and erosion, and are home to 25% of marine species.
*This article was initially published on 06.06.2018 and updated with new information