Stunning, White, Perfect.
It turns out that the beaches in Thailand are as spectacular as everyone said they were. The views? Stunning. The water? Warm, and the colour of light jade. The sand? Powdery, white, perfect. But with so much paradise at hand, we seemed obsessed with beach comparisons. As many as we visited, we were never too tired, or too satisfied, or – thank goodness – too sunburnt to visit yet another. Someone we would meet for two mintues would swear up and down that the best beach they’ve ever set eyes on is ‘xyz’. So, we would promply make plans to go to ‘xyz’ and agree that it is beautiful, but maybe the sand isn’t quite as powdery as ‘abc’ or the snorkeling not exactly as clear as ‘def’. At every stop, we had no reason to ever move on but I’m glad we did, if only to prove that all and none of the beaches here are perfect.
Worth mentioning are a few outstanding ones upon which we baked.
Long Beach on Koh Phi Phi [ed. Koh means island in Thai] provided our first taste of snorkeling in Thailand and Marc’s first snorkeling adventure ever. I saw more fish in five minutes than I’ve ever seen and Marc spotted a couple of harmless black-tipped reef sharks in the distance. In fact, we didn’t really even need to swim because the curious little zebra-stripped-yellow-backed fish would come to visit as soon as we were knee deep into the bay.
Of course, we made a special stop on our snorkeling tour at Maya Beach, also known as “The Beach” from the movie of the same name. Those location scouts really know how to pick a brilliant site to shoot a film. The colour of the water here is unbelieveable and our pictures could never do this place justice. Maybe the pictures taken by the hundred or so other tourists who were there at the same time would paint a better picture.
Kata Beach on Phuket island is near the top of our list because it had the best swimming. Oddly, we don’t seem to have a stupendous photo of this place…
Rai Leh Beach at Krabi is where we spent Christmas. (Actually, we stayed at the cheaper beach next door, Ton Sai, and just walked over to the posh beach at low tide each day.) Nothing wrong here with the long, wide swath of sand and the clear, tepid water which is the perfect depth in which to sit and drink a cold beer. The sheer cliff faces and small, off-shore islands made for some especially dramatic scenery.
We have just one more day to spend in the Land of a Thousand Smiles. Guess where we’ll be smiling.