Early morning beach walk

This morning, I decided to go for a beach walk around the area below Barefeet Heaven Hill. It was 6.05 and the sun was about to rise.

First I went to the passenger pier of Had Yao to see what activity was going on there. The early boat drivers were preparing their boats, carrying fuel tanks on board, chatting with each other. Most passengers are locals who have business on Koh Libong or on the mainland. For them, going back and forth between the mainland and the island is very affordable. Tourists, of course, are charged a couple of times what the locals pay. There are no signs with prices.

“If you know the regular rate, you may be accepted as a ‘local'”, one boat driver said with a broad smile.

I didn’t, so I was offered the ride for 250 Baht.

On the river, boats were going out to sea with their traps. I thought it was for catching crabs and shrimp, but when I later talked to a fisherman, I was told they were catching octopuses.

From the passenger pier, I walk over to the fishermen’s village closer to the open sea. It cannot be such a bad business, because there were many rather new cars parked between the shabbily looking houses. The area is called Ban Had Yao Chao Mai – here is a link to photos of someone else, who was here in April 2019.

As I walked out of the fishing boat landing area and out towards the open beach, I met the fisherman, who told me he was fishing octopuses. He had traps on his boat and carried sand bags on board his boat to keep them down on the bottom. For some reason, he had removed them from the boat overnight and placed them on the sand next to the boat.

As I continued along the beach, I noticed that there had to be some small huts or bungalows for rent under the pine trees to my right, because there were some canoes pulled in under the branches that are typically only used by tourists.

A bit further down the beach towards the majestic limestone rocks, I met the wife of the Belgian couple, who stays here four to six months every year. We had met the other night at at Ja Daeng – that is a restaurant on the beach outside Ton Tuey restaurant and guesthouse and Chao Mai Resort. We chatted a bit. They are both naturists and have been to many naturist locations in France and elsewhere in Europe and I repeated our invitation for them to visit us up on Heaven Hill.

Her husband, Joseph, regular goes nude swimming on a little private beach around the limestone rock. I tried to walk there, but it was high tide and I decided to come back at low tide, which would today be at 15.30 to check it out.

Walking through the pinewood resort back to the main road I passed by a typical mangrove forest area and a few ruins, reminders of the grim Tsunami in the Christmas of 2004.

Back in the village, I bought some Thai Style Doughnuts (Pa Thong Koh) on the coffee corner below Barefeet Heaven Hill to share at the breakfast buffet. It was 8.15 when I was back up on the hill and out of my clothes.

The whole walk had taken 4500 steps or aprox. 3 kilometers. Do it and you will feel as good as I do now 🙂