paTaya

he islanders in the bars are cool - They look like a cross between Jamaican rastas and captain Jack sparrow - corrals and animal bones adorn the wooden bars which are only meters from the sea.

As you walk along the shore in the evening with BBQs blazing and fairy lights hanging from the branches of trees your ears are greeted (and very often offended) by music ranging from on-hold muzak to Thai rock - It’s all so unfinished, trying to find its way as a resort without a long history - you can feel it as you pass the different smells, sounds and sights which aren’t yet fixed and hence have had no chance to become stale. The place is like the hermit crabs we watched scuttling on sunset beach, the tiny ones in shells smaller than garden peas, not yet big enough for that beautiful conch mansion but trying on new outfits along their sideways paths nonetheless.

A few long tail boats chug across the otherwise perfect quiet of the day. With a book in hand your only worry is, “Am I hungry?, thirsty?” - “Think I might lie in the water” - “Oh I just dropped off”

We took a jungle walk to sunset beach on the other side of the island which was even more remote than Pataya (There’s Sandra with the pool to herself)