Day 26, February 13

We set off to look for beaches. As always, we had several options in reserve. Wolf keeps all our travel routes on his phone. We found the route from our previous trip here and drove to where we had once swum 2 years ago — to the very edge of the jutting little peninsula, not far from Patong.

We arrived. Everything here had somehow changed. A parking lot, some men walking around who were far too friendly, and a little farther on they had built a “checkpoint” to the beach; clearly, it was no longer so easy to get in there. While walking to the ticket booths, we were thinking about the entrance fee, but we guessed wrong — the price exceeded all our expectations: 370 hryvnias per person just to get onto the beach. A Thai girl rattled off what we would get with the ticket — an umbrella, a sun lounger, a welcome drink. A beach with the proud name “Paradise beach” — that’s what the once sparsely visited bay had turned into. If it weren’t for our route from 2 years ago, we simply wouldn’t have believed that this was the very same place where not so long ago we could swim freely and for free.....

We turned around, said goodbye to the overly friendly guards, and drove to the next beach. On the way, we decided to stop for a swim at an unplanned spot — we had simply noticed a road heading toward the sea. There turned out to be a pretty decent beach there, with Russians everywhere — but in principle, you can swim there.

After swimming, we drove on. The next beach was farther away; we got there along a dirt path, and imagine our surprise when we saw that it wasn’t free either. This one was simpler, though — just a little booth and a woman collecting money — 150 hryvnias per person for entry. No umbrellas or sun loungers for you — but it was cheaper. Still, we didn’t go in; we were somehow at a loss, it was unexpected that you had to pay to enter a beach.

Then we drove to Patong’s city beach. It was pure “Crimea No. 2” here — people were lying packed together like sardines under the umbrellas.

Overall, if you don’t pay attention to that, it’s quite nice here — a path along the sea, lots of tourists, numerous cafés. A real resort town. But swimming there seemed impossible.

In the evening we went to the night market, where they usually serve tasty and cheap food. But not in Patong. The market looked somehow too civilized, there were only tourists here — clearly everything was made for them. And the prices matched — everything was exactly twice as expensive as at real night markets…

We were hungry and saw a line of equally hungry people waiting for one Thai guy who was very skillfully making pad thai. We joined the line and waited quite a long time — but it was basically worth it. Although the pad thai was expensive for a place like this, it turned out to be delicious, and the portion was huge; the two of us could barely finish it. Wolfy even complained afterward that he had overeaten.