We began searching for good beaches shortly after we arrived. The quest proved more difficult than we had anticipated, considering that this island is dented with numerous, lovely coves. Good road maps are hard to find and road signs are erratically placed and, of course, mostly written in Thai script. We were looking for a particular beach when we made a wrong turn and followed the front wheels of our Nissan down a narrow lane that ended smack-dab on a very small beach in a gorgeous setting almost at the southernmost tip of the island – about fifteen minutes away from our house.
Finding Ya Noi Beach was serendipity. It's not marked on any of the maps I've seen and no one we know recommended it. It's a small treasure. We go there as often as we can. A snorkels, swims with colorful fish and takes dozens of pictures, while I sit at a plastic table and scribble on a legal pad with a pencil; idylic for the both of us.
As if this hidden little beach with warm, clear water isn't enough, there is also a marvelous Thai outdoor restaurant in a thatch hut on the little knoll overlooking the beach. It has a terrific menu (in Thai and English), so we eat our big meal of the day there for less than what it would cost to cook at home – not to mention the pungent, spicy flavors that we could never learn to combine properly.
Because few tourists find their way to this beach, there are no vendors hawking gewgaws and touristy take-home items. It's truly a laid back beach and oh, so peaceful. There is one Thai massage mat laid out under umbrellas in the sand and you can get one of those famous Thai massages from a trained expert for cheap.
There is a small collection of rental bungalows in the hills near the beach. I'm guessing, from the languages and accents I overhear, that this little beach is probably an insider secret for a handful of European and Australian vacationers. (I've never heard an American accent.) Topless female bathers, in the European style, are common.
You can rent goggles, snorkels and fins for about two bucks if you like, and also a kayak by the hour, but no one ever approaches you or tries to sell you anything.
The tsunami hit Ya Noi Beach hard and lives were lost here. It's easy for me to look out on the bay and allow my imagination to drain the inlet – fish suddenly flopping on the sand under their vanished sea and mystified swimmers gleefully running out and towards exactly the thing they should have been running away from. How many millions of people heard the word 'tsunami' for the first time after this disaster? How many people on this island accurately read the signs that a monstrous wave was about to roll in?
The wave crashed through a simple restaurant on Ya Noi Beach, leaving an odd sculpture in its wake that looks like a Miro.
Nature changes itself always, destroying and rejuvenating. Life and death, life and death; it's the wonder and the horror of a system we are part and pawns of. The tsunami crackled and cracked a beautiful coral reef fronting Ya Noi Beach. The living coral left behind understands what is expected of it and is in the process of rebirth and rebuilding. The same system that decimated it expects nothing less than a heroic effort to rebuild - and rebuild better.
There is an inconspicuous memorial plaque embedded in the rocks of a cliff on one side of the beach.
The ghosts of this tragic event will live here as long as those who experienced it, or heard about it, remember the moment. I feel their presence hovering over this secluded, natural spa, if only in my own mind. In an odd way, the presence of ghosts reminds me to face the inevitability of change and the temporary nature of all things, but most of all, it reminds me to live now.
(click on pics for larger view)
