Friday 26 February 2010

Kamala Beach

Did you know that Kamala “is one of the most beautiful, and still largely untouched, beaches on Phuket”? So we are told in the Phuket Explorer magazine. Well, it’s a nice beach…

The outward ride to the beach was a nice experience in its own right. We hopped onto the back of a local bus, which looked just like a gigantic tuk-tuk and headed out of town. Typically Thai, the bus driver tended to drive about the town on the prowl for more customers before actually putting his foot down and getting us to where we wanted to be in the correct amount of time. Once we got going, the cooling breeze was a relief from the tropical midday heat and we managed to see a small dose of Phuket’s marvellous countryside. Jagged hills lined with dense rainforest was such a contrast to the light, golden sands of Kamala beach, as we found out for ourselves as the bus stopped to let us off.
The cool sea breeze was deceptive: the refreshing airs disguised the fact that the sun here is fierce! It is certainly a good job that we brought along sun lotion, otherwise there would have been nothing left of us but cinders. Having used the sun lotion, we are appearing as two large rare steaks! Not funny!
Our lunch was really fantastic. Simon ordered Chicken Satay, and what arrived was almost as good as the Chicken Satay we always rustle up in Mevagissey. This time the chicken lollipop skewers were bright yellow-orange from the turmeric colouring. Did you know that turmeric is a root of the ginger and galangal family, looking almost identical to ginger? Well neither did we until we saw it in Burma. The peanut sauce that came with today’s dish was smooth, with plenty of yoghurt, just like a lassi. Very tasty in the hot sun! Later in the afternoon, Jon hailed an icecream vendor so that we could indulge ourselves with refreshing ‘feast’ lollies, one vanilla and one chocolate.
After lunch, we chilled out a little more and swam in the sea. Is it the warmest sea I have ever been in? Or is the Seychelles still winning on that one? Perhaps we’ll have to go back to the Seychelles one day, just to check. And how about that blue and turquoise water? Does Mauritius win, or the Maldives? We also looked out to sea. “What’s out there?”
Well, we were probably looking towards Sri Lanka, where we’ll strangely be in a couple of weeks’ time! Will we look back to Phuket?

As the time came to get back to headquarters, we waited for the bus, which the driver of the one we took to the beach told us to catch at 4pm. No show! So the outward journey cost just 40Baht each, whereas we each had to fork out 300Baht on the return.
It was an awesome day though, and what was really amazing was the fact that the 2004 Tsunami had hit Phuket really hard causing so much destruction. The majority of buildings and landscapes had to be rebuilt and it has come a long way to become, once again, a beautiful location.

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