Rustic elegance surrounded in Koh Tao’s natural beauty

PARADISE RETREAT: Top to Bottom: Sunset behind fishing boats; Chris Conrad with (l-r) Ben Dronkers, Ravi Dronkers, Alan Dronkers, and Tracy; The Romantic suite; Sensi Paradise front desk staff. Oaksterdam News photos by Mikki Norris.

I’ve known Ben Dronkers since before I stayed at the Sensi Seed Bank’s Cannabis Castle in Holland with my wife Mikki Norris or curated the Hash, Marihuana and Hemp Museum in Amsterdam.

For the past five years or so, he’s been telling us we have to see his resort on the island of Koh Tao in Thailand. In February, we finally took Ben up on that offer, and quickly found out how the family could be so enamored about the tropical gem called Sensi Paradise Beach Resort, where guests are greeted at check-in with a fruity “Welcome Drink” bedecked in flowers.

Koh Tao is famed for its scuba diving and snorkeling amongst incredible coral and tropical fish. Although cannabis is illegal in Thailand and consumers should be discreet in public, medicine can be found on the island, and the Sensi Paradise staff takes an easy-going attitude toward how people enjoy their holidays.

Sea cucumbers and dazzling fish abound in the warm waters among a rainbow of living coral. There is a fairly large shipwreck not far from the shore, and exploring it at both high and low tides gives you two very different experiences.

In addition to some of the best snorkeling around, free resort amenities include such a lending library, use of snorkel equipment, beach towels, mats, and sarongs, in-room coffee, tea and fruit, and access to its beautiful gardens, benches and platforms. Winding walkways are sprinkled with intimate spots to sit on a rock or a bench and talk throughout this romantic resort.

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The island is famed for its  snorkeling, and the resort is friendly to patients’ needs

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At night and periodically throughout the day the island erupts in the cicada’s high-pitched hum. We saw kingfishers soaring during the day and fruit bats flitting about at night. The sky was pastel blue during the day and starlit at night.

Sensi Paradise also has a wonderful, reasonably-priced restaurant and a massage service, for people who don’t ever want to leave the grounds. The only things it doesn’t have are hot water (which isn’t really needed in this climate) and a sunset view — for that you have to walk down the beach a short distance.

The resort offers more than forty guestrooms that are beautifully and individually decorated, with artsy touches and mosquito nets over the beds, mostly situated on stilts amongst the gardens  with rates ranging from mid-range to luxury for Thailand,  from 1,100 to 13,900 Bhat ($34 to $430) per night. The bungalow we reserved, the Romantic Suite, was nestled among crags of granite with a small private beach at $150 per night.

We were impressed at how helpful and gracious the staff were and even better, had the good fortune to be there when Ben was there along with his sons Ravi and Alan.

There are a lot of good reasons to go to Thailand, and Sensi Paradise rates right up there very high among them.

For online info and reservations visit sensiparadise.com.