We decided to go to Tatadohama. It is in the middle of the Ubon holidays, so we didn’t know what the traffic and the crowds would be like. We left our house at around 11:30 pm and arrived at around 2:30 am. As expected, the parking lot was almost full – we got the last parking spot – lucky! It was a good spot near the edge of the paved parking lot across from the beach. We tried to get a few hours of sleep…
Even though we had a good parking spot, I couldn’t sleep soundly. I could hear the sound of an idling diesel engine. Quite annoying and certainly not good for the environment. I think that the majority of surfers respect the environment so I was surprised by this. Of course, it is during summer vacation so I imagine that a lot of people are city slickers making their annual trip to the beach. Anyways, I didn’t sleep so long and was up and about around 5 am.
Here are some pictures I took around 5:30
Not many people in the water yet, but already people are setting up their tents for the day. (Camping is not allowed on the beach). The waves didn’t look so great, but as the tide went out, I expected that the waves would get better.
Here’s a picture that was taken at 6:30:
As you can see, the waves were bigger than they were at 5:30. The waves continued to get better and I enjoyed surfing until about 9:30.
This is a panorama photo taken around 10:30. (Click on the photo to see it full-size – you won’t be disappointed. 😉 )
Here’s a closeup shot of the middle of the beach:
If you look closely, you can see a red and yellow flag. This flag is put up at 9 am. To the left of the flag is the swimming area and to the right is the surfing area. I would estimate that about 70% of the beach is for swimming and 30% is for surfing. (FYI, bodyboarders with fins must play in the surfing area and bodyboarders without fins must play in the swimming area)
Here are a few more photos of the beach:
We’re busy for the next couple of weekends, but we’re looking forward to going again next month.
BTW, when we left the beach at around 11 am that diesel van was still idling.
