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Published: February 19th 2023
The name Beautiful Beach congures up pictures in your mind of a palm fringed, crescent bay with soft white sand and an aqua marine blue sea.
That's exactly how I would describe Beautiful Beach.
It's a few kilometres along from Long Beach, where we're staying, and the easiest way to get there on foot is along the beach.
Of course you can get there on the road if you hire a motorbike or take a tuk tuk but, as usual, we chose to do it the hard way!
After a hearty breakfast of fruit, museli and yoghurt, or in Stan's case an egg, bacon and cheese muffin, We set off before the temperature rose too high.
A half hour of walking gets you to the far end of Long Beach and then it's a rock scramble followed by a bit of a jungle trek over the headland to Relax Bay.
Here we hit the first problem. We've done this walk a few times in previous years so expected it to be plain sailing.
However when we reached the ' jungle path' it was no longer there. We could just about make out where it should
be but it was very overgrown. Not to be out done we decided to go for it anyway. We know from experience it's quite short and the only alternative would be to head back to the road and get to Relax Bay from there. That would add on a few extra kilometres.
After dodging under huge spider webs, with their equally resident huge spiders sitting in the middle, then stepping over fallen palm leaves and brambles we emerged onto the service road for the main hotel/ resort on Relax Bay. Now it was a case of walking down the steps to the restaurant on the beach there and we'd be on our way.
Problem number 2.
The entrance to the steps down was completely blocked so we decided to follow the very steep service road. We soon became aware that this hotel/ resort had not survived the covid pandemic. Everything was shut up and in a state of disrepair.
Netting enclosed the whole area making it seem impossible to actually get onto the beach itself.
One lady was busy there sweeping up leaves on the pathway. ( Who know why and who was employing her!)
But anyway
she showed us a discreet opening in the netting and we were on the beach. Result!
By now the temperature was rising rapidly.
We trudged along the bay to the end where a small estuary crossed the beach. The tide was out so the longtail fishing boats were all grounded and looking a bit forlorn. It did make it easy for us to cross though.
Once across we were on a dried up grassy area dotted about with wild flowers and swaying palm trees. This led onto another low lying rock scramble then another small bay.
Here we stopped to rest for a while under the shade of an overhanging tree before jumping into the sea with our snorkels. It was quite difficult negotiating the rocks to get in and a lot of sea weed floating about so we just stayed in long enough to cool down.
As we sat on the beach drying off we heard a load crashing sound. Two trees fell at the same time, one knocking the second one as it fell. Luckily both trees narrowly missed the path that lead over to the next bay- Beautiful Beach.
Duly rested and
cooled off, we set off to Beautiful Beach and headed straight for the large patch of shade in front of the cafe. It was fast filling up as the sun rose higher in the sky making the patch smaller and smaller.
The snorkelling straight from beach here was quite good and we vowed we'd have to return one day.
After a long cold beer, served up in pot cups (but still hit the spot), we set off back.
Once back on Relax Bay we took the path off to the main road with the intention of hailing a tuk tuk.
As we passed a local school , a man collecting his child offered us a lift in his tuk tuk and didn't want to charge us. Of course I gave him 100 Baht and he looked so grateful.
He dropped us off near Lanta Castaway resort. A posh American affair. We've stopped off there before at their beach bar - Mad Bull, for cheesy chips with bacon and were looking forward to repeating it.
We were not disappointed and think we deserved a bit of indulgence after such a long walk.
From here we
walked back through the resort to the main road and soon had a tuk tuk driver wanting to take us to wherever. We jumped in and sped off back to Besthouse for a much needed cold shower and a siesta.
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