As we didn’t stop in Chaweng during our jeep tour of the island, we decide to go there today as it is reputed to have the best beach on the island. We catch one of the soonthaews, the island’s equivalent of a bus service. These covered pick-up trucks can be flagged down anywhere along the route and providing they are going to your destination you can hop on and pay when you get off. Of course, they don’t run to any timetable so it’s pot luck when one will turn up, but fortunately we don’t have to wait very long. Several people get on along the way and the soonthaew gets quite crowded – a German gentlemen is squatting on the floor between the legs of the passengers seated down either side and people are hanging out the bacjk on the stand plate – this is travel south-east Asian style. We arrive in Chaweng in no time at all, pay our 50 Baht fares and set off to explore. Chaweng is the largest town on the island with a the main street which runs parallel to the beach. Although it is so built up it’s not possible to see the beach from the street even though it is only a couple of hundred yards away. The usual suspects line the street; restaurants, clothes shops, travel agents and between them pathways down to the beach-front resorts. English guys, usually with a Thai girl in tow, cruise the streets on mopeds swooping in on any tourists in an attempt to sell timeshare presentations with the promise of fantastic prizes etc etc – the usual spiel. We are approached by two in the space of five minutes. Both are friendly enough, but when a third approaches later in the day we claim not to understand and walk on. These guys could become very tiresome very quickly.
The beach at Chaweng lives up to its reputation – a soft, white sandy sweep of palm-fringed beach stretching round a long arcing bay. Still windy, but there is the occasional break in the cloud and we get a few rays now and then. The north end of the beach is the most sheltered and picturesque. Here an offshore reef takes the brunt of the waves and the sea gently laps against the beach. This is where the really expensive resorts nestle snugly in amongst the palms with infinity pools and sea view bungalows. All along the length of the beach are restaurants, bars, tour booths, jet ski hire and Thai massage being administered on raised platforms. Towards the southern, less sheltered end, the surf is up and there are a few people surfing despite the red flags.
Back in Mae Nam in the evening it’s like a ghost town. Where is everybody? Hardly anyone seems to come out a night. Happily we find a characterful and reasonably-priced beach-side bar-cum-restaurant just by the Chinese temple which has attracted a few customers and we settle there to enjoy a few G&Ts and a bite to eat.
