Sitting in the bumpy hour-long speedboat trip to Koh Kood I was squeezed up against a man typing – against the odds – into his Blackberry. He was a project manager on the newish Six Senses Soneva Kiri. This resort appears on few of the maps of the island and is not mentioned in the guidebooks as it operates at several leagues above the rest of the island.
There’s a special offer on their website at the moment for the basic level of villa that throws in a free night, a night in the Four Seasons in Bangkok as well as the private air transfer to a small strip on a neighbouring island for about £850pn B&B.
I asked him who are the clientelle for a resort that makes the Aman chain look cheap. He pointed out their key villa – “3000m2 of accommodation” – as we sailed past. “We had Madonna, Beyoncé and Gwyneth Paltrow staying at our Maldives resort at Christmas, but others are the nameless rich”.