The Andaman Coast, at the hour the water turns gold

A beach pool villa with the sea twelve steps away

A villa on a bay with eleven others, each hidden from the next by frangipani and old rain trees. Your own butler, your own stretch of sand, an outdoor bath under the palms. The staff will remember how you take your coffee by the second morning.

Dinner on a sandbar that vanishes at high tide

One evening we set a table for two on a sandbar in the bay, lit by lanterns, with a cook grilling the afternoon’s catch over coconut husk. You are rowed back before the tide comes in.

Other nights: a southern Thai curry house in the old town that has no English menu and needs none.

A wooden boat, a cooler of cold coconuts and Champagne, the engine cut off in the middle of the bay. The light does the rest.