Six Senses Yao Noi

Phang Nga Bay is a sheet of green water studded with limestone towers, and the view of it from the hill at the north-eastern end of Koh Yao Noi is the reason Six Senses Yao Noi exists. The resort opened in 2007, in the first wave of Six Senses properties outside the Maldives, on an island that had until then been a place of rubber plantations, rice paddies and fishing villages. Koh Yao Noi sits in the bay between Phuket and Krabi, and the resort's speedboat from Ao Po pier on Phuket's east coast takes about 45 minutes.

Architecture and design

The 56 villas are built of timber with thatched roofs in the vernacular of southern Thailand, set on stilts where the slope demands it and spread up the hill among the trees so that each has a private view and little sense of its neighbours. Every villa has its own pool. The public buildings, including the reception, the restaurants and the spa, sit at different levels of the hill and are linked by paths and electric buggies. The design is the early Six Senses manner: open walls, natural materials, no air conditioning in the public spaces and the landscape left as it was found.

Rooms and suites

Villas range from one-bedroom hideaways on the hillside to the beachfront villas at the bottom of the slope and multi-bedroom retreats with larger pools. The largest, the Hilltop Reserve, stands at the top of the property with its own infinity pool, several bedrooms and a view across the whole bay, and is the one usually photographed. Interiors use dark teak, rattan and cotton, with outdoor bathrooms and daybeds on the deck.

Dining

The Living Room, with its terrace facing the bay, serves breakfast and lunch and is the social centre of the resort. The Dining Room is the evening restaurant, with Thai and Western menus. The Hilltop Reserve restaurant, at the summit, serves dinner with the widest view on the island, and a chef's table in the kitchen garden takes small groups. The resort grows its own herbs and vegetables and keeps its own bakery and ice cream kitchen.

Wellness

The Six Senses Spa is built in open-sided pavilions in the trees with a sequence of treatment rooms, a yoga pavilion and the brand's screenings and sleep programmes. The main pool, a long infinity pool near The Living Room, faces the bay. Activities go out from the resort's beach: kayaking among the karsts, longtail boat trips to Hong Island and the lagoons, snorkelling, and bicycle rides through the villages and paddies of Koh Yao Noi, which is still largely a Muslim fishing community.

Weddings and events

Weddings take place on the beach or on the Hilltop Reserve terrace, with dinners at The Dining Room or in the garden. The resort takes small corporate groups and buyouts and has no conference rooms; meetings are held in villa living rooms and the restaurant terraces.

Location

Koh Yao Noi is a 30-minute speedboat ride from the east coast of Phuket, the usual route for guests landing at Phuket International airport, and about the same from Krabi. The resort's own boats meet guests at Ao Po pier. The island itself has a small town, a few guesthouses and a ring road, and the resort is on the quietest side of it, facing east over the bay. As a luxury resort on Koh Yao Noi it is the only one of its kind, and the view it was built for has not changed.