Khlong Ao Mae Mai

If think that might be an oxymoron.

I woke up having had the best sleep on this trip by a mile, but surprise surprise Jackie claimed she hadn’t slept at all. Mind you she did go to bed dressed as a coal miner, with her torch containing a dying battery strapped to her forehead, but wasn’t bright enough to read her book.

Around 9.30am we hauled ourselves out of our comfy bed & went down to the breakfast area for coffee. I finished off by blog, whilst Jackie tried to sort out our onward transport to our next destination with James the owner. It resulted in us saving ourselves about £30, by getting the slightly slower bus back down to Khao Lak rather than a taxi that we were considering. This new plan was a win win, because he also made a few Baht commission for booking it.

We also rented a scooter off James who tried to guilt trip us into having it for the remainder of our stay. Understandably, he is doing his best to make money because he hasn’t had the best of it in the last 2 years. He has had virtually no visitors, hence no income due to Covid & he had a baby with his wife, but they are now separated. Chin up!

Just after 11am we hit the road on our new 125cc scooter to try & recreate the lost photos. Our first unscheduled stop was to Phayamas Private Beach Resort that we had nearly previously booked & had been recommended by Jan & James. It was down a very long path & after parking up, we took a wander through the resort. The accommodation huts looked luxurious, but despite there being in excess of 30, it was clear that only three were occupied. The resort was so remote & soulless that even Jackie agreed that she was glad we didn’t book to stay there.

We then continued to Kwang Peeb Bay, which we now know to be known locally as Monkey Bay & the resort was abandoned by the owners when Covid hit struck Thailand. On our previous visit there was not a sole around, but now there was a row of scooters in the parking area & about 10 people down on the beach. We took our photos & left.

Next stop was the ‘Beautiful Rock by the Beach - Ko Phayam’s Top Attraction’ or “just a hole” as Jackie described it. It had a Thai courting couple that kept getting in the way of our crime scene reconstruction. I am pleased to say that they took the hint & moved, but it annoyingly clouded over at the very same moment ruining our photos.

We accidentally took the same couple of wrong turns ending at dead ends before we finally arrived at our intended destination - the northern end of Aow Yai Beach or Long Beach. It was after 1pm, we (I) were (was) starving so we plonked ourselves down at Long Beach Bar & Restaurant. We ordered a couple of Changs & I ordered a chicken & cashew nuts, whilst Jackie went off piste & ordered Pad Thai green curry with pork. Jackie’s was sensational, whilst mine lacked the wow factor.

After lunch we sat on the complimentary sun beds & marvelled at how beautiful this beach at Long Beach truly was. We don’t normally like wide expanses of empty beaches, but the sand was firm & spotlessly clean & the water was crystal clear with a flat sandy bottom with no rocks to stub your toe on.

At 5.00pm, the mosquito witching hour, we ordered more drinks & waited for the famous sunset. After an hour & now a couple of drinks the sun slipped below a cloud without even a whimper.

We celebrated avoiding any mosquito bites, only for a lone little bastard to bite me three times on the foot & Jackie once in her armpit. We drank up & scootered home at dusk, but it had already got too dark to spot potholes on the path.

We got home surprisingly in one piece & had a quick shower, which was unsurprisingly still cold. As soon as I was ready I had to go outside to leave to Jackie to moan endlessly to herself about the temperature of the water.

We went to our ‘authentic’ restaurant for dinner. Embarrassingly the cook, cum waitress shouted “2 large Changs” the moment we stepped across her threshold. Jackie ordered pork & chilli with rice, but asked for it to be spicy. It seems I got tarred with the same brush, because my macaroni with chicken & green curry blew my socks off. In fact I could only eat half of it as my mouth was on fire.

When I settled the bill, I managed to procure a couple of plastic glasses, then we visited the supermarket to purchase some essential provisions. We returned to our cottage & polished off half our bottle of Hong Thong, whilst listening to one of my favourite albums - Meccano Mind.

Song of the Day: Deja Vu by Roger Waters.
Pride by Syntax.
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