Tannon Patthong Lunch Sunday 5th April

Had a great day. Went to work for a few hours and then lunch on the beach. Tawachai suggested we go to this little restaurant on the beach about 6 kilometers from work. It was on Tannon Patthong. Just outside Rayong. I say restaurant. But really it is just a shack set on the beach along with a lot of other shacks. All selling fresh sea foods, shells, mussels, squid etc. They seem well organized with one group doing the selling, one doing the cooking and one supplying the beer and ice. So with us doing the buying then someone else cooking and another delivering the cold beers and ice it's quite an operation!.. But fortunately the end game is simplified in sofaras you only get one bill.

So we chose a variety of shells and some fried squid. Rice is surprisingly another extra. Not sure who supplies than. Maybe there’s a forth party to the business? We could have opted to sit at a table but the mat on the beach seemed a much better idea. Sure sitting out made the food taste even better. We even got a free toilet roll for our hands (serviette substitute!!) and a couple of plastic buckets and trays to drop in the shells once we have eaten the goodies.
It really did seem a remote spot even though we could look across the sea and could see at our work and site office. And knowing that Rayong a major industrial town was only ‘just’ up the road made it all a bit surreal.


So what, the company was fun amongst friends, the place was great and the food unbelievably good. In spite of or because of the number of people involved. Who knows which?
Around us were all the signs of a busy fishing community with ladies fixing nets and wooden boats laid up ready to go back fishing. Atmosphere was truly memorable. Just hope it retained it over the coming years. I’ll be back sooner than that to check.

Surrounding us were the various bits and pieces of fishing life. Nets, floats and of course boats. Several people were working and yet there was a very calm laid back air about the place. There were several women working and few men around. Maybe they do the fishing and leave the women on shore. Also laying around were the traps and bits and pieces. Just made for a really wonderful time relaxing in such surrounding. One girl looked like she had just finished school and was down there to help out. Pretty young thing with a lovely shy smile. One other thing that caught my eye was a small tender boat laying on its side. It had a blue plastic water pipe wrapped round it. The pipe makes for a great floating arrangement and is so simple and cheap. Our little tender boat could have done with that. Next time.