Paradise Beach
is located in Patong Bay and are becoming increasely popular. More and more tourists find their way trough the forest on the newly paved road.
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| Paradise Beach. Photo: Kjell Engvoldsen |
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PARADISE BEACH
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To get here rent a longtail boat from Patong Beach, a motorbike or a tuk-tuk. Drive past Merlin Beach Resort and follow the road up the hill trough the forest where it ends at Paradise Beach.
With the improved road more and more people go to Paradise to swim in the clear water, relax on a quiet beach, to eat tasty food, and not to forget snorkeling at the coral reef!
Paradise is a nice small beach with white soft sand set against a backdrop of lush green forest and palm trees.
The beach is clean and tidy with lots of green plants around the restaurant.
I would guess the beach is around 100 meters long, but it never feels crowded.
Lots of sunbeds on the beach - it should be more than enough for everybody.
Past some rocks is a smaller beach with less people where you also can rent sunbeds.
Swimming is not so fun as it could have been due to the mostly rocky bottom, except for close to the beach where there are less rocks.
Paradise is still a very good place for snorkeling even if part of the reef was badly damaged by the tsunami. Concrete blocks has been laid down on the sea bottom at some places and small corals are all ready growing on them. Read the 'Coral transplantation' story for more detail.
The reef start 100 meters from the beach in deep water, but you don't have to swim so far out to see fish or smaller corals.
If hungry there is a restaurant serving Thai and international food with tables next to the beach. I can recommend the 750 gram fish chilli dish (525 baht). It was so tasty!
Jet skies are not welcome here. Every time a jet ski from Patong appear outside the small bay, one of the beach staff run down to the waterline and wave with a red flag to stop them getting closer.
One of the thing I like best is that unlike another remote beach, Nui Beach, you don't feel like you need to have 2-3,000 baht in the the wallet for a day in the sun.
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More photos from Paradise Beach
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Coral transplantation Paradise Beach – Patong
During a survey of Patong Bay after the tsunami it was found that the coral reef ecosystem had been badly damaged in some areas. Staghorn coral within Patong Bay were the worst affected and a high percentage were broken into small fragments and were scattered on the bottom of the reef. These small fragments, if left on the sea bottom would die on the underside and if turned over during the monsoon season, would likely die off completely.
Staghorn coral fragments were affixed to approximately 200 pre-drilled concrete blocks (each containing 4 fragments of staghorn coral). The success of these transplanted staghorn fragments will be measured by PMBC staff approximately every 4 months and the findings will be reported to UNDP. The future monitoring of these sites is very important as it will assess the success of the staghorn rehabilitation project for implementation at other sites throughout the Andaman Sea.
Source www.undp.or.th
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5 February 2009