Victoria Cliff Hotel & Resort

Set above the rock bank at Kawthaung, the hotel looks straight out over the Andaman Sea with no building breaking the line of water. The main property spans 24 acres and holds 86 rooms across ocean-view wings, hillside villas, and a lake-view cluster where swans and koi share the grounds. Its sister site, Victoria Cliff Resort on Nyaung Oo Phee Island, sits inside the Mergui Archipelago on more than 500 acres of shoreline, with nine forest tents, 28 rooms, and 27 villas set among tropical trees just back from the sand. It is a private island. There are no cars, streetlights, or paved roads to interrupt it. Guests reach the reef straight off the beach for snorkelling and scuba diving, and the resort runs its own PADI centre alongside a coral-planting programme aimed at the surrounding waters. A sea kayak trip east reaches the calmer stretch of Madame Beach, and longer boat excursions push further into the archipelago's other islands. Back on the mainland, the Kawthaung property adds a spa, a swimming pool, and a fitness centre to the same sea-facing outlook. Evenings on the island close with a fire show performed on the sand, part Myanmar tradition and part Thai.