The Pak Nam pier offers close up views of the Chumphon fishing fleet coming into
& out of the river.
3 Km south of Pak Nam Pier is the wonderful Siritip
Hotel. Give them a call & they will pick you up at Pak Nam
Pier & / or take you back to Pak Nam Pier. 800Thb water front room .. Gulf
of Thailand view out the 'glass walled room' .. from your king size bed
Both the Andaman Sea (Phuket & Krabi) & the Gulf of
Thailand ( Koh Samui & Koh Chaing) are populated with
tropical islands.
The Phuket - Ranong Thai coast is as unimproved & unspoiled as you
can find in Thailand
Surf trip to remote beach with Elephants .. try to forget that day!
Note beautiful Royal White Elephant in the rear. As usual, the Thai waves were only a small
part of that surf trip
During one twilight swim near Karon (
Phuket Island, 1 hour south of Patong Si via tuk tuk), a Thai elephant
handler & 10 elephants came upon us on the beach.
We were 'alone' enjoying a "10 out of 10" sunset w/ no one else visible in any direction &
here comes a guy with 10 elephants truckin' down the sand .. TIT!
No idea where they were going or why, but quite a memorable
sight. I'm talkin' a "technicolor high definition" memory!
They were just traveling on the beach instead of the road
.. less traffic on the beach, makes sense to me!
Quite spectacular beach front along this stretch of coastal
road.
Tuk Tuk along til you hit a stretch of beach that meets your
immediate needs .. stop at a restaurant or pack your gear to the sand.
Ready to move on? .. out to the coastal road, 100 meters from
the flat beach, & wait for an empty tuk tuk to motor up.
You can have a delicious 3 course gourmet meal (w/ Heineken) for
4, catered on the beach under
palm trees & an umbrella, for 800 THB $20. US
Elephants pass by, jet skis whirrr by, para-sailors fly by .. as
you devour
jumbo prawns & slurp coconut chicken soup.
Or you can get you hair or nails / hair done .. under an umbrella on
the beach! .. 200 Tbt .. $5. US
Pattaya at night 2008 ... & Pattaya in the mid '60s & 2007
.. below Jomtean Beach looking to Pattaya.
Thailand's best beach
(??) is on Phuket Island & the Indian Ocean's Andaman sea.
Leam Sing Beach is about 20 minutes north
of Phuket's tourist center Patong Si (via pick up tuk tuk) .
Chill in the tuk-tuk & enjoy the ride with occasional
hill view ocean vista before you arrive at the Laem Sing Beach trail head.
Enjoy!
On the south side of Leam Son Point... north of Kamala
& south of Surin .. roadside dirt parking area .. poorly marked trail head &
'somewhat unimproved' dirt trail to to the sand.
The road from Patong Si to Liam Sing is kinda
undeveloped with hilly ocean vistas. Few hotels or restaurants for miles!
Laem Sing Si lies at the foot of a 100 foot cliff at end of a 400 yard steep
trail through tropical forest. (excuse me, but,
"WOW"!)
The mostly unimproved beach is wide & the sand beautiful.
Steep sloped sand bottom w/o coral.
A dressing room is behind a boulder &
a shower is the
natural waterfall!
The waves are less somewhat than "killer dude",
similar
to Makapu'u on Oahu's East coast for you surfer types ( better than Sandy Beach
but not the North Shore, thank God & Buddha. :-).
Break
Point Hotel
110/10 Thaweewong Road
tel (66) 19 - 344211 fax (66) 19 - 340718
The beach is busy with tourists and all the jet ski
rental & paragliding any tourist could want.
Burger King, McDonald's, & Kentucky Fried Chicken
franchises are mixed with beach front Thai restaurants.
Phuket Town, on the other side of the island, is the
place to shop & not get totally tourist gouged.
There several disco's that start early & are tourist dominated. Mostly
Aussie, European & Japanese tourist.
Karon Beach is 60 minutes south ( via open air tuk tuk ) of Patong Si, has gentle sloping wide
white sand beaches & gentle surf. The beach road is 100 feet from
the sand & has many good restaurants with sea view. The road
parallels the all but deserted beach for miles, with ocean view restaurants
every several hundred yards & "Club Med" ($$$$) level of hotels every few miles.
There are less expensive ( cheap ) hotels in each small town along the beach.
I personally love rural tuk tuks rides..
Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive.~
Robert
M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
PHUKET, Thailand (Reuters) -
A government marketing blitz and range of cheap room deals are luring tourists
back to Thailand's hard-hit Andaman coast, but visitor numbers are still well
down on a year ago, hotel operators say.
Months after the killer wave,
occupancy rates on the resort island of Phuket, which has 32,000 rooms, had hit
40 percent from single digits in January but were still well under the 75
percent reached last March, Phuket Hotel Association chief Pattanapong Aikwanich
told Reuters.
On Phuket you can get a house near the beach for a month for what one night
at Club Med costs.
Thai Hotels near the beach are under 700 baht, $20. per night as
low as 400 baht, $10 per night.
For 22000 baht ( $600. )per month you can have a 2 bed room high rise
apartment with a sea view in Pattaya or for 500 baht, $15, per night you can have a
small hotel room near the beach.
