Conde Nast Traveler
Date: September 1999

On the Beach

"Thailand's emerald islands are laid-back, idyllic-and coming to a multiplex near you. Will these pristine archipelagoes survive Leonardo DiCaprio and company? As shooting wraps on The Beach, Douglas Cooper reports from a paradise on the brink of stardom."

Here's an exerpt from the article:
..."take a taxi to Tamarind Retreat, about twenty minutes away in Lamai", to "a gorgeous day spa. Here you have a choice of traditional Western and Thai massages, as well as herbal steam treatments. The walls are an ocher stucco, the massages are offered in an open-air rotunda, and the soundtrack is an obligatory New Age Fusion of local flutes and blissed out Euro-pablum."