Mae Phim Beach

Mae Phim is four kilometres of pale sand on the Rayong coast, in Klaeng district, with a promenade road behind it and the Mu Ko Man islands five kilometres offshore. It is the register's first record on the Gulf of Thailand coast of Thailand itself.

The distinction worth having is who is on it. Rayong is inside Bangkok's weekend range — about 215 kilometres, two to two and a half hours by road — and the beach fills on Saturdays with Thai families and empties again on Tuesday. Foreign visitors to this province overwhelmingly carry on to Ban Phe and take the ferry to Ko Samet, which leaves Mae Phim as something the Thai coast has very little of at this distance from a capital: a long public beach with a domestic clientele and no international strip behind it. A small Scandinavian long-stay community has settled here, which is visible in the signage and in nothing else.

The calendar is the Gulf's, not the Andaman's, and the difference is the single most useful thing about the east coast. November to April is the dry season and the water is calm and clear; the south-west monsoon from May brings rain and choppy water rather than the rip currents and red flags that govern Phuket and Krabi. Swimming is generally possible through the wet months. The sand is broad at low water and narrow at high, which is worth knowing before a long walk.

Offshore is the reason to keep a boat day free. Ko Man Nai, the largest of the Mu Ko Man islands, lies about five kilometres out and thirty minutes by boat, and holds the sea turtle conservation centre begun as a royal initiative in 1979 and now run by the marine and coastal resources department — a hatchery, tanks and a veterinary unit, open to day visitors and to nobody overnight. Ko Kudi and Ko Khi Pla, the smaller islands off the cape, are the snorkelling.

Four kilometres of Gulf sand at the far end of Bangkok's weekend range, and the nearest quiet one: Bang Saen and Pattaya are both closer to the city and neither is quiet. Come between November and April for the clear water, midweek for an empty beach, and at low tide if the walk matters. The turtle island is a half-day and the boat leaves from the cape.