Occasionally in life you encounter someone who makes you realise that you should appreciate what it means to be alive.

We met Mai (we pronounce it Miya) in Thailand during the tsunami. She works for the Holiday Inn on Phi Phi Island and despite the awful circumstances, we found her to be perhaps the nicest and happiest person we had ever met. We took these pictures one year on, in 2005. She is completely potty. She is the Tequila Queen. She is the Dancing Queen. She is the Karaoke Queen. Just being around her makes you feel good. If we could bottle her spirit, we'd sell it and make a fortune. We want Mai's happy spirit to rub off onto the people who come to stay at Villa Miya and the best thing we could do was to name it after her.

If her mother is reading this, she doesn't really drink Tequila and has no idea what a Margarita is...