When it comes to hotels, there's luxury and then there's luxury.
There are properties that gift you with a fruit basket upon arrival, then there are properties that lay out a platter of bite-sized miang kum, savory snacks wrapped in fresh betel leaves.
There are resorts that boast of Olympic-sized swimming pools, then there are resorts that neatly outfit their individual suites with private pools overlooking the ocean.
There are concierges who can suggest activities for you, and then there are the hotels that arrange for baby elephants to visit their beachside patio bar at sunset.
Guess which category Krabi's Phulay Bay falls under?
Krabi is an almost comically paradisiacal destination on southern Thailand's Andaman coast. Mysterious karst peaks and jungle-covered cliffs just out into the turquoise-blue sea, with miles of white sand beach rimming the seaboard. Unlike nearby Phuket, which has been developed to the teeth, Krabi remains comparatively undiscovered, with a handful of widely-spaced high-end properties dotting the shore. Of these, Phulay Bay is one of the most opulent. Secluded and stunning, it's popular with honeymooners and film crews—the wedding scene in The Hangover 2 was filmed there.
With 54 individual villas spread across 55 acres at the end of a winding coastal road, the hotel is entirely self-contained, with a sprawling, fortress-like layout—so sprawling, in fact, that I was given a personal butler with a golf cart to help ferry me around the property. At first I shied away from the hyper-attentive staff, slightly unnerved by their desire to cater to my every whim, until I realized it was easier to let them to do their job: people come here to relax. In fact, the most taxing activity I was subjected to was waking up in time for the hotel's daily longtail boat trip to snorkel and sunbathe at nearby Hong Island, which comes complete with a picnic lunch of curry chicken and papaya salad. This proved slightly difficult, as my cavernous villa (so large I had to call the concierge to help me find the light switches), with a private garden, pool and triple-wide king bed, was difficult to tear myself away from.
But hunger eventually drove me out, and because Phulay Bay is so remote, guests take most of their meals on-site. There are three restaurants: Jampoon, the all-day option with a broad Continental menu; the Thai-specific Sri Trang; and Lae Lay, which specializes in Mediterranean-accented seafood. Lae Lay is the hotel's marquee name, and indeed, the meal I had there was very good, especially the tender locally-caught red snapper encrusted in Andaman blue crab meat and dashed with asparagus veloute and the single large ravioli stuffed with tiger prawn and black truffle.
But the sleeper hit was my dinner at Sri Trang, which spins out upmarket interpretations of Thai classics, including, to my pleasant surprise, some regional specialties rarely seen outside of Southern Thailand. A fiery, acidic starter of pomelo salad with dried shrimp and herbs was followed by a soothing bowl of coconut milk soup with prawns and pak mieng, a kind of local spinach; my main—the uninspired-sounding southern spicy stir-fry with minced chicken—nearly stole the show, thanks to the garlicky, sweet-hot dry curry the meat is cooked in. The cutesy sushi-themed play on mango and sticky rice for dessert made for a sweet ending.
After dinner, I took the long way home (read: no golf cart), walking past the beachside bar (which somehow manages to capture every evening's sunset at its finest) and the glittering oceanfront pool. My villa was very quiet, on the edge of the property, with the sea's waves and the moon visible from my bed. I slept with the door open that night, humid tropical air seeping into my dreams, taking a bit of paradise with me.—Jamie Feldmar
In the area
Many guests never leave the property itself (or they opt for one of the hotel's myriad activities, ranging from sailing to a cooking lesson), but the town of Krabi, a 30-minute drive away, offers a few minor attractions:
The morning market behind the Shell station is one of the largest in Southern Thailand, with a seemingly endless display of fish, produce and prepared foods like chicken biryani and rice noodles with mild fish curry. Note: due to the area's large Muslim population, pork is kept in a separate room.
There are also two worthwhile night markets in Krabi town: one open-air one on the riverfront, which is picturesque but slightly touristy, offering the usual manner of fried noodles, grilled fish and jiggly Thai sweets. A few blocks away, near Maharat Soi 8, locals flock to another market, this one covered, for rich coconut milk curries and the incendiary fish soup gaeng som.
Roti redux: In the evenings, Krabi swells with streetside roti vendors, who acrobatically pull the flaky dough into a wide sheet before frying them up in versions both sweet (topped with sweetened condensed milk) and savory (alongside a small bowl of rich chicken-potato curry). 
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