Oh Samui!
One morning, a few weeks ago, I found myself on the deck of Dining On The Rocks, the signature restaurant of the Six Senses Hideaway Resort on the northernmost tip of Koh Samui. It’s a view you need to drink in nice and slow— giant sky, faraway islands, wispy swirls of cloud and the gentlest of seas turning every shade of blue all the way to the horizon.
Then a rather manic Englishman jutted into the frame wearing white overalls and jabbering urgently into his cell phone. He hung up and introduced himself.
“Morning! I’m James, I’m the head chef here. Just having a nightmare trying to get hold of some xanthium, you know how it is,” he said. “See, I decided this morning that for an amuse bouche I’d do a pumpkin milkshake. But you need this chemical, xanthium, to make the pumpkin puree blend seamlessly into a shake and not separate into bits. It’s called molecular cuisine.”
A former personal chef for Mick Jagger, James knows a thing or two about catering to the highend palate. And at Dining On The Rocks, he’s created probably the most inventive restaurant on the island—the menu’s full of surprises and never stops evolving. We ate there the previous night—items like bacon foam and slow-cooked quail yolk and a cleverly deconstructed tuna sandwich, which we ate out of a can. All the while an orange moon cast a shaft of cool light across the inky water straight to our table—one of six set out on a wooden deck leaning over the rocks, directly above the waves. It’s got to be, hands-down, one of the most enchanting places I’ve ever eaten.
But that’s what luxury is about on Samui these days. For a small island, it’s extravagantly endowed with top-end resorts, many of which were built in the last decade or so. A high luxury density, you could call it, the product of a tourist boom. And what this amounts to for the upscale traveller is plenty of healthy competition, which is good news—it means better deals, downier pillows, softer towels and bigger breakfast buffets; fancier spa treatments, prettier masseuses, posher restaurants and ultimately, more xanthium.
“I know it sounds mad,” said James. “Isn’t xanthium the stuff that Superman’s allergic to?”
The Six Senses Hideaway has a double-pronged approach to the luxury Samui experience. On the one hand it’s self-consciously minimalist, eco-friendly and back-to-nature—the villas are large and brown, with wooden fans and rugged rope-andbamboo chairs; there are outdoor rain showers, all the pencils and pens are designed like trees and the toiletries are in large dispensers, marked simply “shower gel” or “shampoo” without the finicky business of labels and little miniature bottles.
And yet, all this outward simplicity masks an immensity of choice lurking beneath the surface — the shelves are stacked with a multiplicity of ring binders for the in-room dining options, the spa menu and the scores of possible excursions. You can ride elephants or speedboats; dine up a hill or on your own private island; take a mountain bike tour of the island, or try any number of cooking classes and wine tastings. Unless you’re staying for weeks on end, it’s all a bit bewildering. So we did our best to keep things minimalist—after all, the best things about Samui are the simple pleasures of a private beach, a dip into a personal plunge pool, a good book on a comfortable lounger.
It’s a seductive property—a series of villas sprawled over a rugged cliff face, each one looking onto the sea and linked by coiling, picturesque little pathways, chirping with birds and fragrant with flowers. It takes a bit of puff to walk around, more like a nature hike, but if you’re feeling lazy, there’s always the little golf-buggies that zip around the property picking up and dropping off residents as they go.
As far as I could tell, it was just us and a bunch of European honeymooners whom we saw only in passing, often at mealtimes. We’d hear French accents at the gargantuan breakfast buffet, or Italians at dinner asking whether this or that dish was spicy. But we never actually met anyone properly. It’s not the done thing. This kind of luxury is about private moments and personal space, and not having to share it with anyone else. The exclusivity is architectural— the villas, the tables at the restaurant, the loungers by the pool are all so separated that it’s near impossible to interact with other guests. It’s romantic, I suppose, but in a somewhat alienating way. Outside of your perfect honeymoon bubble, the only people you interact with on the property are in uniform and smiling and serving you, in that wonderful Thai way. It’s a vaguely alienating experience.
We tried a couples spa thing— bowing Thai girls washing your feet and offering herbal tea that matches your star sign and then kneading you for an hour as a glorious sunset unfolds outside. But as with all these kinds of exotic spa rooms, with sea views or out in the woods and so on, I can’t see what difference it makes when you’re face down on a bed with your eyes closed.
We took the buggy back up to Dining on The Rocks afterwards where we saw James again, buzzing around about his latest plan. “I’m trying to source some liquid nitrogen that freezes at minus 196. It’s so we can make the ice cream here and it will remain ice cream by the time we’ve sent it over to the next island by speedboat…”
After three nights at Six Senses, we checked out and moved into the Four Seasons at the other end of the island. It’s another luxury resort, and clearly conceived along similar lines—again with the sea-facing villas, interconnected by steep, winding paths, blooming with plumerias; each villa with a private plunge pool and lounger, a capacious minibar, and no toiletries miniatures to steal when you leave.
On the face of it, the experiences in the two resorts are difficult to distinguish. They both offer a similar sense of the luxury experience, one of quiet privacy, personal space and extravagant scenery. In both resorts, luxury is a plunge pool with a fountain; it’s golf buggies and bowing staff with film-star teeth; it’s tinkly spa music wherever you go; it’s the biggest breakfast buffet you’ve ever seen; it’s honeycomb, never simply honey out of a jar; it’s $2 to launder a pair of pants; it’s a choice of showers—rain or power.
Where the Four Seasons differs is that it’s a more recently built property and somewhat more polished by design—it lacks the overt eco-consciousness of Six Senses, the sense of rough woody edges; there’s not so much bamboo going on, which actually helps with the mosquito situation. While the Six Senses villa lacks a clock to remove that sense of deadline and rush from the vacation experience, the Four Seasons has a digital alarm by the bed, and also the modern touch of an ipod docking station. It has more “mod cons” in that sense—the gym’s a little better equipped, the air conditioner isn’t so noisy and the sand is a little finer on their private beach.
It seems nit-picky to even notice distinctions like this, but this is the level at which resorts like this operate, a plane of detail and finesse that justifies tariffs like $1,000 per night. But the Six Senses has its own advantages—it’s a more walkable property, less steep, and the restaurants are more distinctive and adventurous, Dining On The Rocks standing head and shoulders above the rest.
We found that after a few days of such exquisite luxury we longed to wander the main drag of Chaweng of an evening. The liveliness of Samui’s backpackers was a refreshing change from all that hush and privacy. But equally, after a few hours in the heat of the town, we would long for the luxury of ice cold towels, wrapped around shafts of lemon grass. It’s enough to make you wonder, is happiness possible in this life, even on the paradise island of Koh Samui? And then you shoo the thought away, order another daiquiri and return to your beach novel.
