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| Nai Yang Beach 2014 |
We first visited Nai Yang in November 2012 with Trevor's sister, Lyn and her husband, John. We loved it for its laid-back atmosphere, the lack of hustle and bustle compared to places such as Patong, and the fact that we could eat in several restaurants on the quiet beachfront with our toes literally in the sand - see at left.We returned in 2014, and a lot has changed since then. The new government in Thailand has started to implement its policy of cleaning up the beaches - this includes the removal/demolition of any illegal structures on the beaches: restaurants, bars, shops, laundries, vendors, sunbeds, umbrellas etc. A total crackdown! The beach was still in a mess, with a lot of clearing up needing to be done. It really was a shame that we could no longer eat on the beautiful beach and watch the sunset. But, this is progress???
This time we stayed at a wonderful hotel, the Dewa Resort Nai Yang. We had a 1 bedroom apartment, with full kitchen, living and dining area and large balcony overlooking one of the swimming pools. Breakfast was included, and was very good - we had a choice of menu items, as well as a breakfast bar. Service was excellent, and the staff were delightful. The Dewa is located at the northern end of Nai Yang, in Sirinath National Park, but it was an easy walk to the small town area. There were still a few restaurants operating, but not a lot of shops, due to the clean-up.
We visited the local markets, which are always a delight (at least to me) - I love wandering around looking at strange items of food and wondering what they are. I'll even try a few, but I have never got around to trying the deep fried crickets, cockroaches and various other interesting vermin on display. May be one day??? Or maybe not.
We met up with our friend and driver, Kom, who we love to catch up with each time we visit. He took us out one evening to one of our favourite eating places, Kru Suwit Floating Seafood Restaurant, near Ko Maphrao (Coconut Island). We had a top meal there, as usual - snapper cooked two ways, and wonderful chilli mussels. For someone who doesn't really like mussels, I've become a big fan.
The weather wasn't great, quite overcast and a bit of rain, so we didn't get to do much snorkelling, unfortunately. But we took a trip into Phuket town, ate at a lot of the local restaurants, I had another 'fish spa' and we just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
On another evening we went out to Mook Dee with our friend, Kom, and his family. It's one of his favourite restaurants, on Rawai Pier, and is very popular with the locals. We brought 2 snapper, 1 kilo of medium (to us they were large!) tiger prawns, and 1 kilo of calamari for about 1400bt (around $45) from the seafood stall directly opposite Mook Dee. The staff cooked the food for us - 1 snapper deep fried with sweet and spicy sauce, 1 snapper baked in salt, tempura squid, squid in spicy salad with chilli and coriander, tiger prawns in garlic and pepper, tiger prawns in tamarind sauce. We also ordered pineapple fried rice, drinks, a frozen coconut shake. The cooking of the food, rice and drinks cost around 1200bht. So we ended up with about 4.5kilo of seafood, rice, and drinks for 5 people for about $85 AUD! Fantastic value. And the food was just so fresh, beautifully cooked and presented, couldn't be happier. The restaurant was very busy and full of Thai families - a good indication of the quality of the food. Highly recommended! Aroi maak!All in all, another good week in Thailand. Lots of beautiful, spicy food, a little bit of snorkelling, lots of relaxing, catching up with our friend, and practising our Thai language skills. We'll be back....
