Traveler's Pantry: Bottle Beach

I will remember Bottle Beach. It will stick out in my head years later when I think of Thailand. It's not so much what happened there, what happened there was not much at all. It's the feeling of the place, the people of the place, the pace of life there.

I arrived by way of as many methods possible. From Surat Thani, I took a minibus to a bus, a bus to a ferry, a ferry to Koh Phangan Island, a tuk-tuk to Chalok Lum beach and finally a longtail boat to the secluded cove of Bottle Beach. Phew!

A man who calls himself "50 cent" or "Alex" greeted me as I stepped into shallow water and onto shore. He told me it was "happy hour" for his bungalows, and led me to a hut with a porch overlooking the ocean. It cost $5 a night. I settled in and met "50 cent," who by then took to calling me "shorty," at the restaurant.

Over masuman curry, he explained to me that all my expenses would accumulate on a tab instead of paying as I went, just one more thing to make life as easy as possible. I walked along the beach, marvelling at the longtail boats, picturesque, yet oddly named. Boats with names like "Snoop Dogg" and "No Money, No Honey" lined the shore, swaying gently in ripples too small to be waves. I sat atop large rocks overlooking the water and watched the clouds turn pink from the sun setting somewhere behind the mountains. I revelled in the quiet surrounding me; only a few other beachgoers dotted the sand. There wasn't a store or annoying tuk-tuk driver in sight. Instead, I could see only a handful of resorts tucked behind coconut trees.

With peaceful sleep in mind, I drifted off, only to be awakened by a terrifying thunderstorm shaking my hut. Lightening pierced through the shutters, through the curtains and through my closed eyelids. Less than one second passed between thunder and lightening. My fingers went numb from plugging my ears. I even prayed to a god I don't believe in. I tried not to think of how tempting my tin roof must have seemed to the lightening. All was calm and sunny the next morning as I walked, barefoot, to eat breakfast in a bamboo gazebo on the beach. I remained barefoot for the next week.

At once, the pace of my life slowed to a halt. Bottle Beach demands you relax simply by limiting your choice of activities. Among my options, certain things repeated at least once a day: sipping coconut shakes, swinging under the shade of the trees and swiming in the warm, calm waters. I spent the rest of my time walking the beach, writing and laying in the sand. I finished a book and started another. Once, I even killed a coconut with a picnic knife. It was by far the most strenuous thing a did all week. By night, I ate dinner with other travellers. We sat around bonfires, watched the Thai guys dance with fire, played poker and Connect 4, sipped awful rum and cokes, laid around in hammocks and played silly games to keep our minds from wandering too far. The Thai guys that worked on Bottle Beach always kept us entertained. To the ladies, they were constantly calling, "I love you long time!" To the guys they would say, "you my brudda from anudda mudda!"

Bottle Beach is a place you can find yourself long after you intended to leave. I managed to pull myself away after a weeks time, and headed inland, bound for northern Thailand. I stopped in many places along the way...details to follow shortly! To find more pictures, click below.