Perturbed by Paradise

After planning our trip I wanted a pic with some plumeria blossoms that had
fallen off the tree behind me - I am holding one and there is one in my hair
that Gavin assured me you could see in the photo...

Since he messed up on letting the blossoms get seen in
the photos of me, I made him pose with one in HIS hair
next to the plumeria tree.  :)

Today we spent the morning sitting at a table at the resort and planned the rest of our trip; we had only planned the first week from home.  Then we rented some mopeds again and headed out.  Gavin wanted to take me to a “secret, secluded, romantic beach” called Paradise Beach.  He had found it on a map and thought it looked like a nice, hidden beach.   So we drove our mopeds there, making wrong turns several times and also passing an elephant walking down the road.

No biggie, just an elephant walking down the road.  :)

As we were driving along the road and were within about a half mile of the beach, we were suddenly stopped by several Thai people that directed us where to park our mopeds.  We were then told we had to pay a $15 entry fee to use this supposedly “secret” beach.  After paying the fee, our bags were searched and we were loaded onto a shuttle to drive the last quarter mile to the beach.  So much for secret…  :)

Paradise Beach evidently wants to be the new up and coming resort.  There was a TON on construction going on, which would eventually be 70 shops and 4 restaurants, of which only one restaurant and zero shops were actually open.  There were a few little kiosks selling drinks, and plenty of nice lounge chairs (free with admission), and also a little stand to borrow all kind of swim/snorkel/SUP/kayaking stuff (also free with admission).  The one restaurant managed to mess up the atmosphere of the beach by playing loud, crappy electronica music.  We grabbed a couple of lounge chairs and relaxed in the shade for a bit (as much as we could with the bass thrumming in our ears), then took some stand up paddleboards out into the water.  It was SO WINDY that we couldn’t get the boards to go anywhere but back to shore or toward crab-covered rocks (crabs freak me out, too, go figure…), so we returned them after only a few minutes.

Paradise Beach.

Attempting the sexy wet hair toss.  :)

Look! Now I can be an Instagram yoga cliche, doing
handstand in a bikini on the beach!  :D

After eating lunch at the one restaurant, we noticed some steps leading off into the jungle.  We followed them and came to another part of the beach, far enough away from the first beach to be blissfully quiet with no electronica.  There were fewer people there, but two groups of people appeared to be there to be entertained by Thai “escorts,” both male and female.  Both groups had a giant pink floatie next to them, so we joked that the giant pink floatie must be the signal for Thai prostitution. :)  We played in the water for a bit, trying out some lifts a la Dirty Dancing.  Pretty soon the beach only had us and the groups with escorts, so we took that as our cue to leave.  :)

After a quick shower, we took the shuttle back up to our mopeds and drove to Patong and walked around for a short time, then we headed back down past Kata to the Sabai Corner Restaurant, which was recommended in Lonely Planet for both the views of sunset and the food.  Sabai Corner was set high up on a cliff facing almost west, and we could see several miles up the coastline to Patong as well as “almost” the sunset – it was blocked by a lot of jungle.  Over our piña colada and mai thai, we also watched a thunderstorm rolling in over the ocean; I was worried we were going to have to drive our mopeds back through the rain AND in the dark, but the storm didn’t come to us, luckily!

Gavin enjoying a mai thai at sunset at Sabai Corner.

Beautiful view from Sabai Corner.

After dinner we headed back to Kata, and I insisted we go back to Oriental Massage; when am I going to be able to get massages for less than $10???  Tonight we tried an “oil and foot” massage, which was much more gentle than the Thai massage.  I enjoyed it and was able to relax more; I almost fell asleep several times, until she started working on the knots in my shoulders, which woke me up right away…  They used a strongly eucalyptus-scented massage oil, which we joked was to cover up the smell of sweaty, dirty tourists.  :)

Back at the resort we went right to bed completely relaxed. Tomorrow we leave Phuket for the island of Koh Phi Phi.