Tag Archives: beach bum

It’s our last of 5 days on Tonsai, after wisely relocating here from Ao Nang, which despite my best friend’s suggestion (suggestions which have never, ever led me astray) seemed at this time of year to only offer 50+ European potbellies, an array of Thai prostitutes, and inflated hawker prices on everything from beer to beach towels. Tonsai, on the other hand, is a hippy’s heaven and a climber’s Mecca. We clearly don’t fall into either of these categories, but I still feel like we are right where we belong. The backdrop of our days is men (and women) with ripped, glistening bodies crawling their way up the steep rock faces that hug Tonsai beach like imposing book-ends. At night, the bars along the beach pulse with reggae. Everywhere, at least someone is making a show of their hippy / Rasta skills – fire twirling or slack-line walking –a 1-inch flat rope suspended a couple feet off the ground, taut between 2 trees, on which people walk (or balance, lay down, flip around it, and twirl fire while kneeling on top of it, as one jacked Thai guy did last night).

The beach can only be accessed by longboat and is set back in a bay, the bungalows and bars set up like a horseshoe with the front-side being the expanse of soft sand and bright blue ocean. Our bungalow is a glorified tent, but it gets the job done. The food is good, a better deal than Ao Nang; I think I could eat spicy papaya salad every day for this whole trip. We’ve also eaten way too many Thai pancakes – buttery, square crepes made to order; pineapple, coconut, nutella has really been working for us as a combo. Everyone here is friendly, chatty, and relaxed. There are no prostitutes, and no locals trying to rip you off with overpriced beach cover-ups. Basically this is exactly what I was hoping we’d find on Thai-island vacation (though we are not yet on an island, its just the cliffs and jungle that cut it off from the mainland by car). Yesterday we “walked” (hiked, panted) through the jungle to Railay beach, which is also cut off from the mainland by cliffs. Railay East also draws tons of climbers, who we watched traverse the steep faces before paying 20 baht (60 cents) to walk through the “diamond cave” – an immense, amazingly quiet stalagmite-filled cave, one face of which glitters like bright diamonds. We ate lunch off a boat at Pha Rang beach, which was also beautiful though more crowded than Tonsai. We then walked to Railay West, which must be a paradise for those with fatter wallets than us. It offers a gorgeous, very swim-able beach (Tonsai falters in this regard as the extreme tides limit the times of day you can comfortably swim) lined by high-end resorts which we passed somewhat longingly before “monkey climbing” our way through the jagged rocks and pools of shallow water that clear the way from Railay West back to Tonsai during low tide.

Last night we went to an Indian restaurant on the beach, run by a couple who hail from Missouri and New Mexico, but come by way of Alaska, and insist they are “Alaskan” not “American.” They lead quite a life in this beach paradise, are expecting a baby, and spend a lot of time with a little monkey who has been raised by one of the long-tail boat-men after finding him abandoned as a baby. We were talking about little monkey Ben, napping peacefully on the lap of his sometimes-owner, when his actual owner came to retrieve him. Ben leaped from his baby slumber and tried to jump on me to avoid going home, and proceeded to pee his hot monkey pee all down my leg. So, after 24 long years I’ve finally been peed on by a monkey. They also told me one too many stories about the a) cobras and b) pythons they encounter, quite regularly, slithering behind the mini-marts we have been frequenting. Monkey pee + deadly snakes = more than enough nature for me. As much as I’ll miss it, I’m ready to see what’s up next…