Welcome To Ya Noi Beach

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)

Walmart Eats our Hearts Out

There are two grocery shopping experiences available here. The modern shopping centers are as vast and varied as any found in the US, although, as you might expect, the shops hawk a much broader collection of goods from around the world - especially from Asia. Hi-tech to low-tech, ipod to back-scratcher, it's all there, encased in echoing, loud, pop Thai music. And, of course, there is a western-eyes-user-friendly-aisle-after-aisle super market embedded in the mix - although the special section, where one can buy saffron sarongs, candles, incense, buckets of basic food stuffs and shaving supplies to use as donations to the monks, might make a westerner scratch his head (as I did the first time I laid eyes on it).

The more affluent Thais shop the supermarket's aisles and the less fortunate roam the aisles out of curiousity, but the real grocery shopping for the majority of Thais still takes place in the wonderful, open air markets where they buy the good-stuff-for-pennies foods and staples. Open air markets can be found every few kilometers along most major roads. They are curiousities and just a bit culinary/scary for most westerners because of their apparent invitation to every bug, parasite and bacteria found in these germ-friendly tropics. Open air markets have FDA CONDEMMED stamped all over them. We love them, but you have to use a whole bunch of savvy when you take their tasty delights home with you. Never eat unpeeled fruit - always wash leafy greens (and then wash them again) - and trust in The Force if you bring home a dish with cooked meat in it. Our bodies are wonderfully adaptive mechanisims, so once you have undergone a bout of dysentary chagrin, there is a good chance that microbe warriors have been installed in your stomach to prevent it happening the next time they encounter the onslaught. We think we have our warriors in place (having already undergone our toilet terrors), so we love the open air markets and all the goodies they offer. A, not being able to resist a pungent, fresh apricot, put it in her mouth this evening before washing it, but caught herself and didn't swallow it. (Her morning ablutions will reveal whether or not she caught it in time.)

Below is a series of photos A took at the market we visited this evening. This is the real-deal-good-stuff-cheap. The foods are fresh and mouth watering; you can buy a shirt for two bucks and a rose to place as an offering in your spirit house for less than five cents. The poor are so, so simply rich and Walmart eats our hearts out.

Open Air Market