The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Yes! I’m living the billionaire dream in Phuket...
At the Residences, scale and an illusion of simplicity are the keynotes. There are 15 in total, comprising from three to nine bedrooms, spread over between 18,000 and 24,000 sq ft. Ceilings are high, windows are large, with expansive views of Sirinat National Park, Layan Beach and the Andaman Sea. There are some subtle Siamese or, at least, south-east Asian flourishes – silk, finely carved wood – but the style is otherwise mild and decorous to the point of diffidence.
I had hoped I might bump into Heinecke while I was there. A naturalised Thai, he lives in Bangkok but likes to spend his weekends in one or other of the two Residences he set aside for his own use at Layan.
He was travelling for business so I had to settle for a copy of his book The Entrepreneur: 25 Golden Rules for the Global Business Manager. This I consulted by the side of my 69ft pool, in the shade of my sala, a hint of frangipani on the breeze, my butler making occasional appearances to refresh the ice in my glass.
To an observer who didn’t know me any better, I might have looked like the sort of person who’d read the book several times before, gone forth and applied its principles in the bruising but remunerative arena of global business, and profited accordingly. Perhaps it’s not too late.
“The principle is the same from Bangkok to Silicon Valley: success in business operates on the principle of finding a vacuum and filling it.” Fair enough. I made a mental note of that.
One of the nice things about the Residences, I thought, glancing out towards the Andaman Sea, is the sense you get of being connected to and separate from the main hotel. From your Residence high on the hillside you look down at the neatly AstroTurfed rooftops of the lower-down villas. This patchwork of verdant rectangles gives you the odd sense of looking at a steep and challenging golf course, where players must chip the ball directly from one green to another, with no fairway in between and little margin for error.
I’m sure if you really wanted to do that, something could be arranged. Practically everything else is possible: guided beach walks, paddle boarding, jungle cycling tours, yoga, Muay Thai boxing, cooking lessons...
And if you feel like getting out of your bubble for a bit, the delights of Patong are, for better or worse, not far away. Nor are the charms of Phuket old town, with its Taoist shrines and SinoPortuguese shophouses, many hiding one, two or even three inner courtyards behind their elegantly dilapidated exteriors. In recent years, locally driven conservation initiatives have seen many of these fine old buildings restored, tidied up and given a fresh lick of paint.
I strongly recommend an excursion to Khao Phing Kan, the island made famous by James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. The sight of that geological oddity, as sheer and emphatic and unlikely as an exclamation mark, is no less wonderful in real life than it is on film. A fantastic place for a villain’s lair, but tricky to keep such a place top-secret if you’re having to ship in your building materials, electronics, solar panels, state-of-the-art laser weaponry and other instruments of evil from the mainland, as well as relying on local tradesmen to hook up your broadband and sort out your septic tank.
Still more enchanting, however, is the nearby mangrove forest – the largest concentration of mangroves left in Thailand. To get among them, you must downsize from your yacht, speedboat, long-tail boat or launch boat to a humble canoe. I was surprised to see otters cavorting among the tangled roots. It was dense, sheltered, at once teeming and serene. The air was different, too – thick and humid, of course, but, like the air in all forests, enriched, charged, noticeably better composed, more nourishing.
For a few minutes, I lay down in the hull of the canoe and closed my eyes and drifted, listening to the cries of unfamiliar birds, the chatter of monkeys, the dragging swish of wet leaves against the side of the canoe, the background thrum of the forest.
I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about ignoring Heinecke’s advice to would-be billionaires. I’d found a little vacuum, but I deliberately didn’t fill it. I was content simply to glide through it, at peace, without saying a word.
Residences from £2,600 per night (0066 76 317 200; phuket-residences. anantara.com)