Day 44 - Freedom Beach

Woke up at silly o’clock & went to breakfast at 9.30am. We stuck to our plan & had just a coffee instead of the full American. The owner was in the breakfast room & he was in quite a jovial mood relating amusing stories of the ridiculous Thai bureaucracy particularly in these Covid Times.

After coffee we rode down to Ko Tao pier & booked our return catamaran tickets back to Ko Phangan for Tuesday, then we booked a snorkelling boat trip for Sunday. The beauty of being out in Thailand at this time is everyone is fighting for you business. The boat trip was normally 850 Baht, but at the moment it is just 500 Baht per person.

We celebrated our bargain with a baguette from Da’s Sandwiches, which we noticed had a steady stream of customers. I ordered a best seller - a chicken, bacon & cheese baguette, whilst Jackie ordered a healthy chicken & salad baguette. What we didn’t realise was that it would each contain huge slab of chicken which was breadcrumbed & fried. Once several rashers of bacon, cheese slices & salad & mayo were added, mine was enormous & Jackie’s not much smaller.

We drove to Sainuan Beach & tried to eat half of our respective baguettes. We couldn’t, they were way to greasy & the chicken was over fried. Absolutely gutted. Feeling rather queasy, we drove to a 7-11, ditched the remainder of our baguettes & bought a large bottle of water & a pineapple pastry to try & cleanse our greasy mouths.

Our first proper stop was Sharks Bay, where we walked through a resort to the waterfront. We water was quite rough, which made Jackie nervous for tomorrow, because we were returning by boat.

Next stop was Freedom Beach. We paid our 50 baht entrance fee which we felt rather aggrieved about, but that soon changed when we clapped our eyes on Freedom Beach. It was very picturesque with a row of bushy trees growing along the water’s edge. We helped ourselves to two free deckchairs & settled in for the rest of the day.

I apprehensively tried out the new cheap ‘n’ nasty masks & snorkels & I was pleasantly surprised, they worked an absolute treat. No leakage at all. I had at least 5 snorkelling sessions & Jackie had a couple, where we saw some quite big Gar fish & a number of other species, but nothing spectacular.

At lunch we visited the restaurant for a couple of overpriced small cans of beer, but the view made up for it. We remained at the beach until 5pm, when we started to head for home. I convinced Jackie that we must climb up to John Suwan Viewpoint.

The climb started to get steeper & steeper clambering over big boulders & just a thick rope to cling on to. It wasn’t designed for flip flops, so Jackie abandoned half way up & I continued in my more appropriate adventure sandals. I arrived at the top puffing & panting only to discover their were 6 other people already up there. I took a few photos of the lovely view & skipped back down to Jackie like a mountain goat.

That night we stayed local & ate in Yangs Thaifood Restaurant. The owner was a right miserable bugger, but the food was good & probably the cheapest yet. Funnily enough it was frequented by a lot of farangs.

Song of the Day: Freedom by Christine & The Queens.
Beach by Something Happens!Read more