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| Sarongs and Beach Dogs at Laem Ka Beach |
Some, like the beach at Laem Ka, is close to well known areas, such as Rawai and Nai Harn. Laem Sing beach is between world famous Patong beach and the beaches at Kamala and Surin. Trying to find these lesser known, but just as beautiful places, even on brochures, travel magazines or the internet is a challenge. Laem Ka beach for example, is not on any of the 8 maps of Phuket we have, nor 15 of the first hits on the web when searching for beaches on Phuket as your search parameter.
Even talking with some expats who have lived here for many years, when you ask them about the beach, they too are unaware. There is an excellent snorkiling beach that has coral reefs 20 meters fromt he shore, but to find it takes some local knowledge, and you need to abandon your western perceptions. At some point I will find the proper name and edit this post to insert it, but it is easiest to describe that you get there by driving past Nai Harn beach and go through a hotel parking lot, where it reconnects to a beach road. Initially I had seen a sandy beach while I was at Nai Harn, across the bay, but I went to go and was put off by security guards and speed bumps that looked like it went to a hotel reception area. Only when I pointed it out to my friend, did he say that you could go there, you just went through gtrthe hotel. Sure enough, on Thunderbird 1 I simply gave a nod and kept going. While 90% of the beach goers at Nai Harn were non-Thai, at this little oasis the non-Thai comprised only about 10% of the beach crowd.
When you go to a beach, you have an option of taking a beach mat, which can be purchased anywhere for very very little money. About the size of a double bed, made of bamboo, it folds up nicely and you simply flap it in the wind to get rid of any sand. Or you can rent a beach lounge chair. So far I see the standard rate, virtually anywhere is 100 Baht ($3.35CDN). To lay out your beach mat, the cost is nothing. For the beach mats, you will probably find yourself sharing the company of Thai people. On the beach lounger, it is primarily non-Thai, except for those who have their Thai boyfriend, girlfriend or ladyboy with them.
Most beaches are accessible fairly easily and without charge. You need to be very careful in Patong as they tend to enforce the parking regulations very stringently and failure to heed the parking signs can find you return from a nice blissful day at the beach leads to many hours of loosing your bliss. You may find a huge chain wrapped around your bike, a parking ticket glued to it and a 3 kilometer treck to get to to a police station to pay the 300 baht fine to get your bike back.
Oh and in case you have not read previous posts, if you fail to wear that motorbike helmet, get ready to shell out another 300 Baht. Oh, no international drivers license? Please pay another fine between 300-1000 Baht depending on the jurisdiction. So it is actually very simple. Wear a helmet and insist that your passenger does and that the person who rented you that motorbike gives you helmets; park where you are allowed to (and there are lots of parking areas where you do not pay to park) ; and get an international drivers license before you come here. Doing that will make that blissful afternoon live long in your memory as a positive experience.
The other thing you will find with many of the local beaches is that the number of vendors trying to sell you everything from massage and pedicure to a new sarong, is significantly less than the more popular and heavily promoted beaches. But with every beach, there is always an enterprising person(s) who have set up a beach stand. Sometimes these can be as simple as a beach umbrella festooned with colourful sarongs, some large cooler boxes selling soft drinks, water and beer, and an assortment of prepackaged food items. Chances are if you need something, the vendor has it in a box somewhere, or they call out on the cel phone and get it for you. And despite the isolation of the beach sometimes, the prices are the same or comparable to buying it in any shop along the roadway. On the beaches where the tour buses tend to congregate, the prices are usually significantly higher and the number of competing vendors is also at a higher ratio. The variety of goods, from an ice cream to multiple choices of beers is also correspondingly higher. And despite what you may think, the prices are virtually the same as the corner store you may have passed along the way to get there. You can always get food and drink. It is what I consider a basic law in Thailand. Anywhere that people congregate, someone will be selling food and beverages. And usually in most cases, there wil be many vendors to choose from.
There is currently a great deal of chat in the local papers and on-line in regards to beach access. I had in an earlier posting talked about the beach access on Kho Samui. Last week, Clive and I went for a motorbike tour to the north of the island in an effort to broaden our knowledge of the island and get better oriented, so that if we get visitors, we have a number of options available to fill the time, but not necessarily those attractions or places that you can easily find touted from the minute you step off the plane. Our journey one day took us to a place called Bang Tao. A nice stretch of beach near to the international airport, but far away from the main tourist destination of Patong. We had looked at some houses, to see if relocation would be an option, that would give us better access to some of the events we like to be involved in. But with all house searches, we are limited by the fact we have dogs and the fact that we spoil our dogs and want to be able to have access to a beach area where we can run them. We found ourselves having a difficult time to find access to the beaches. Many international chain hotels are located everywhere on Phuket, Bang Tao being no exception. What we found was that to access most of the main beach required you to go through a hotel, and they had erected large cinder-block walls from the hotel to the beach front. Somehow wandering through daily with the bassets may not be a welcomed activity by the hotel, no matter how well behaved and adorable the bassets are. I myself would be a bot concerned as most of these places have buffet breakfasts and I just know that when a basset is near the scent of food, all other senses, such as listening get shut down. I am sure these 4 would love nothing better than a morning stroll on the beach and a fully laden table of scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon. I already have found out they enjoy checking out buffets, when someone left a gate open between a local beach and a resort one morning, as I chased after 4 bassets hot on the scent of bacon. Think Homer Simpson with doughnuts, and transfer that mental image to bassets and bacon.
As the seasons change, so do the beaches and the activities there. At this time of the year, the beaches are cleaner and the waves more manageable. The clarity improves and the tourists begin to throng here. In the past 4 months, the beaches have been populated sparsely, and primarily by the local Thai people with the odd expat. Over the past few weeks, I have seen a dramatic increase in people with much much better self-body image than I have, or probably ever will. And the beach attire is not apparently restricted to the beaches. Yesterday in the Tesco Lotus supermarket, I chanced upon a tourist in her string bikini getting groceries. Now, I will admit that she could wear a string bikini and looked fairly good in it. But somehow when everyone else is dressed in a top and shorts in an air conditioned store, it seemed out of place to me anyway. The sight of a hairy man in a thoing bathing siut poised over a slad bar, without a shirt, has me sticking to the prepared food so I am not picking his chest hair out of my food. Clive and I tend to differ on our positions on this beachwear syndrom. He thinks that large people should be proud of the fact that they can go to a beach and not have to be kept out of sight or cover up. I think they need to get some friends who would actually be honest and say" honey you need a one-piece, or a pair of bathing shorts".
Clive went to the dentist the other day and was greeted by the sight of a man in a pair of shorts coming out of the dentist chair. Apparently the wearing of a top was not on his mind. Perhaps he had a very bad tooth ache and at home when it is minus 30 they go to the dentist that way anyway. I am not making judgment, just an observation.I didn't ask Clive if he slid into the same dentist chair with the residual sweat the prior patient may have not left had they put a T-shirt on.
Well the tourist season is upon us. The number of shirtless, helmet-less people is on the increase. Novice motorbike riders hit the streets of this foreign land wobbling across traffic amazed at how much easier it looks that it is, many sporting fresh bandages on their arms, legs and feet. And the newspaper will again fill with the number of drownings from people who do not listen to the lifeguards and can't read the billboard sized signs explaining the flag system or warning about rip tides. But except for these few people, most will love the water, have a great time, enjoy fresh seafood and take in some of the most wonderful sunsets to be seen anywhere.
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| Your own private swirlpool |
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