Beach Bums

Day 9  Sunday, April 8, 2018   Pattaya

We spent a leisurely day on the beach of an island just off the coast.

Commercialized fun, here in Pattaya. We shuttled from our hotel right after breakfast down the beach a ways to where a big speed boat was awaiting to zoom us across the bay.

The entire curved bay had this wide walkway and palm trees. We're waiting for our speed boat to load up. They had to steady the boat as best they could from the incoming wavelets, so that we all could step up the stern ladder and into the boat. It was pretty dicey if you weren't athletic!

Check out all the para-sails out there! And that's our island we were headed to, on the far side. The bay was jam packed with speed boats going every which way, each with their lines pulling the parachutes. I thought for sure there would be entanglements.

 We got up-front chaise lounge chairs to enjoy the relaxation and ocean views.

Janet pulled her chair out into the sun. Nice long, wide beach, yes? I don't do too well just lying still, so I took a photo walk...

In the tree behind our beach spot.

One of the kids of the restaurant workers there. Notice they rake up all the beach litter and junk and just leave it back there.

Not too crowded at our north end of the little bay. The other end, which could be reached by rental scooter or 4-wheel drive buggy from the other side of the island, was much more crowded, as we learned later when we took a walk there.

Our excursion included a lunch. See the soup container in the center? That tasted great. My plate is in the foreground, and here's an up-close:

This grossed Janet out!

We both went into the water to get refreshed. Just as with the three heads in the background, we pretty much just stood there watching all the water sports going past, like jet skies and speed boats pulling banana boats full of people.

 This is during our walk to the south end of the bay. See that bridge walk to the left of my head? Here's a shot I took from there:

Of course, this section of the bridge has been replaced!

We're on the bridge looking back to the north end of the bay where our beach spot was. What a perfect day, huh?

The end of the island had several of these beached boats that had been overrun with "jungle". Pretty amazing.

Looks like the ancient temple we visited in Ayutthaya!

We eventually returned to Pattaya, boarding and disembarking the boat's stern steps in a precarious fashion. But all ended well, and we were shuttled back to our hotel. Nice day!

A bit later, we went walking to find a restaurant that accepted credit cards. Lo and behold, we came to a sidewalk cafe showing the Paris Roubaix bicycle race on TV live! And they accepted credit cards. "Yes, please seat us right here with this view of the TV!" The race still had a ways to go when we were finished, so we went back to the hotel room to watch it on my computer (and see Peter Sagan win).

We did not need to pack yet because we would not depart the hotel until the next afternoon. Most others were heading off to the Bangkok Airport during the night or early the next morning. We got a good night's sleep!