NEW HUT

The New Hut bungalows are best viewed from the water, a peaceful reversal of the maritime tableau typically enjoyed by those who prefer (even if just for the moment) blankets and beach umbrellas to surfboards and swells. Those on the shore naturally take on the role of the observer as their more energetic counterparts willingly or unwillingly put on a show, the ocean a vast stage on which body-boarders and backfloaters perform (involuntarily or otherwise) for a sandy audience — but take a sunset dip near the far north end of Lamai Beach in Koh Samui and the gauzy pink spotlight is turned onto New Hut Bungalows & Restaurant, a smattering of brightly painted oceanfront shacks punctuated by a wood-framed, metal-roofed eatery advertising BREAKFAST - LUNCH - DINNER - ALL COCKTAIL - FRESH FRUIT - ALL WAFFLE - FOOD TAKE-AWAY - FRESH COFFEE - SOFT DRINK - SHAKES - JUICE.

From the street side New Hut is a mystery, passersby (who will make a note to return but never actually do so) peering curiously down the length of the bridge that connects the hotel with Route 4169 — the soft neon glow and twittering of zebra doves (inexplicably caged on either side of the tunnel-like resort entrance, unbothered by the monitor lizards silently slithering through the saline channel below) catching their attention as they walk by. But from the ocean you get the whole picture — French tourists and Russian expats drinking iced watermelon juice at their slightly askew beachtop tables, enigmatic tattooed solo travelers seated inside under the ceiling fans where they can more easily flag down one of the petite yellow-jerseyed waitresses whose rhinestoned hair bows bob between the restaurant’s thin wood columns as they flit from table to table delivering plates of scalding French fries and sweaty pad Thai, dozens of windchimes and parasols and lily-shaped lanterns dangling from the ornately edged restaurant roof to flutter in the constant breeze, reggae music creating an appropriately relaxed atmosphere from six in the morning till ten at night seven days a week. Elephant-patterned clothing hangs in the window of the sizable gift shop (visible from well beyond the wave break) and a long row of liquor-store style refrigerators makes up the entire back wall of the restaurant, hawking a neverending supply of Coke Zero and Chang beer in immaculate rows. You might have been a resident of the New Hut bungalows for a week, for a summer, for a spell longer than you planned — but floating and meditative atop what passes for waves on most Lamai days it's as if you're seeing it for the first time from the shore side, instead of having arrived sweaty and irritable on the heels of a eight-hour journey consisting of a violent speedboat ride, a sullen jaunt across the southern Thai mainland in a minivan with four strangers, a final ferry that delivered you to the Samui port an hour later than the ticket promised, and a car to shuttle you from the west to the east side of the island for which you paid double as retribution for initally trying to bypass the taxi line in favor of an app.

As the sun slowly converges on the mountaintops to the south, a folding table of presumably fresh seafood (most memorable are several rows of large speckled blue crabs that stare lifelessly up at you with beady eyes as you walk by) is laid out for evening diners just below the restaurant's front steps — or are they the back steps? Colored bulbs flicker awake to illuminate the wood elephant carvings of assorted sizes that march along the restaurant's railings, the sound of the blender from behind the bar grows ever more frequent, and the last of the day's beachgoers — in twos and threes — gather their belongings, dust the sand from their feet and disappear inside their diminutive A-frame cabins, only to reemerge half an hour later with wet hair and a daiquiri in hand, dodging the final remnants of high tide.

New Hut sits as close to the ocean as possible without actually being situated in the Gulf of Thailand, the outdoor tables and chairs in continuous peril and the staff tasked with daily reconstructions of our front steps, which each night are slowly sucked inches into the wet sand as we sleep. To return to New Hut the earthly way, retiring to your bungalow at the end of the day after dinner at the night market, almost missing the inconspicuous (but for a sign reading WELCOME TO…NEW HUT BUNGALOWS BAR & RESTAURANT THAI STYLE & WESTERN FOOD & SEA FOOD ⬅️ THIS WAY TO THE BEACH) doorway and swerving in at the last second is no doubt to take part in the rhythm of the place. You'll dodge the busboy emptying a bag of glass bottles into yet another bag and the waitress who knows to order your papaya salad with no chilis as you tiptoe through the restaurant en route to your room, you'll fall sleep to the sound of the crashing waves that fight for beach real estate all night with hundreds of translucent crabs who only show face after dark, you'll blind yourself with sunlight the next morning as you swing open your door to make sure your wet clothes from the day before weren't swept from the clothesline by the unruly dawn tide, and the next day you'll do it all over again. But to arise from the ocean straight onto hotel property is to feel you are entering earth for the first time, like a mermaid who's suddenly grown legs, like you might be a different person now than you were eighteen minutes ago when you left your crumpled jean shorts and hopelessly stained T-shirt on the beach and clumsily waded into the surf. Something about the sand flashing red and purple to the sound of a Bob Marley cover, your back to the horizon, and the fading sun softening the harsh blue of the bungalow roofs as underneath them your British neighbors say good morning to their families back home, makes you feel like everything you need to know is right there on the beach in front of you.