Peaceful night out at sea hunting crabs and squids off the coast of Rayong
KARNJANA KARNJANATAWE, PHOTO BY SUPAWADEE CHAROENPIPATPIMPA AND KANRNJANA KARNJANA TAWE
About 500 metres from the shore and within convenient distance of the pier at Phae in Rayong Province that connects tourists to Samet Island by shuttle boats, there are a row of floating houses along a rocky dyke that belong to fish farmers. Among them are two private properties - Piyapan Tok Muk and Phaae Phayom - which offer homestay service and a chance to take in fresh sea breeze, scenic view at sunset and a peaceful night under the stars out at sea.
Piyapan Tok Muk is owned by Piyapan Hongnark, 57, who's been operating five floating houses for a couple of years. "I am an architect and my wife is an interior designer. We combined our skills to turn our fishing farm business into things that we enjoy," he said.
He used to raise grouper for export to Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. In those days, his farm was a stop where local fishermen would come to sell their catch of small live fish.
"My fish farm was like a floating market. I would buy small fish, feed and raise them until they grew to the right size, fit for export. After a while I got bored with the business. The profit wasn't good and operating costs were rising, so I quit fish farming," he said.
Piyapan Tok Muk is famous for one activity - squid baiting - where it claims to be a pioneer, to which it later added homestay service just for the sheer "pleasure" of entertaining, initially friends visiting on a holiday, and later tourists arriving on weekends.
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| Panoramic sweep of Ban Phae coast seen from the floating houses. |
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| Homestaying guests don life vests before taking a plunge. |
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| In the absence of strong wind, you need to propel the surfboard with your legs. |
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| A tranquil moment for this tourist as she waits for the sun to slip below the horizon. |
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| Tourists try their luck trapping squid. |
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| A boat delivering tourists to one of the raft houses that sit behind a dyke (in the background). |
Piyapan redecorated the houses with the aim to take things close to nature by going for unpolished wooden floor, bamboo walls and thatched roofs. Woven mats adorn the walls that have windows that open to the outside using sticks for support. Some houses are decorated with fishing nets while sea shells dangling from the ceilings twinkle like stars at night. The houses have an entrance but no doors.
Each house has a veranda with a dining table made from glass under which you can see schools of fish and krill swimming. The toilet has no roof and human waste is disposed of in tight woven sacks. Fresh water is readily available.
All houses are connected by a wooden walkway along which are pits containing young cobias waiting to grow to their full size, about two metres long. Visitors can feed them too. The front of the common kitchen had a green mussel farming area.
"You can collect them yourself and eat as much as you like," he said.
The farming area comprised bamboo poles arranged in a rectangular grid to which were attached ropes suspended in water. Visitors pulled the ropes wearing gloves and plucked mussels fit for eating, after a female chef had shown them how to do it.
Phaae Phayom, on the other hand, is famous not only for mussel farming but also winged shells or hoi chak teen, grouper, snapper and squid. Owned by sexagenarian Phayom Nasboot, guests staying at her raft houses can look forward to a delectable seafood menu of dishes like cobia and squid sashimi and BBQ dinner late into the night.
Phaae Phayom started catering to tourists just over a year ago. Its main line of business, however, is supplying fish raised at its farms to resorts and hotels on Samet Island.
"We are locals. I and my husband have been in the business six years. We live on this floating house so we decided to extend our experience to visiting tourists," she said.
She operates two floating houses, serving her guests fresh seafood for dinner and boiled rice with fish and coffee for breakfast. Activities on offer include fishing, swimming and snorkelling.
There is no television or refrigerator and electricity, which it generates itself, is only available from dinner time until close to midnight, but bookworms will find plenty of space to indulge in their favourite pastime. There are no games as well, until you are carrying your own form of entertainment, and if it is music make sure you don't play it too loud.
Piyapan Tok Muk, meanwhile, provides its guests with a rather rare experience: crab hunting. We, about 15 of us, set out in a long-tailed boat and five minutes later arrived at a point where the boat assistant cast a fishing net and after a while gently began pulling it. Once the net was hauled on board we spotted some blue and brown crabs among its content. Some of us volunteered to untangle the crustaceans from the net.
It was then that I noticed that the limbs of some of the crabs were tied with elastic band. Perhaps the crabs were dumped there by none other than our host who wanted to make sure we didn't fail on this mission.
At night it's time for baiting squid. Piyapan Tok Muk has a rest area decorated with green lights to attract squids, while Phaae Phayom offers guests a chance to bait them in a pit using a hook to eliminate time waiting. "We sort of guarantee that they will certainly nail a squid," said Phayom.
The floating houses are fully booked on weekends but their owners have no plans to build new ones. "What I have is already enough and I kind of enjoy doing it," said Piyapan, while Phayom said that servicing a small number of visitors was both fun and more manageable.
Echoes of sufficiency economy!
MORE INFO
Rayong is around 220 kilometres east of Bangkok and Phae sub-district is 19 kilometres from Rayong town.
- To get there go to the Ekamai bus terminal. Chertchai Tour operates hourly bus service from 5am to 8:30pm. The trip takes around four hours. Call 02-391-2237 for more information.
The state-run Transport Company also operates buses from Ekamai and Mochit bus terminals between 6am to 8pm. Call 02-793-8111 for more information.
- If driving there, take the Bang Na-Trat Road (Highway 34) and switch to Highway 3 at Km 70 that connects Rayong and drive on to Phae. Or you can take the Motorway to Pattaya and move on to Highway 36 that leads to Phae. You can park your car at the pier and take a boat to the floating houses.
- Bangkok Airways flies daily from Phuket via Samui to Pattaya (read U-tapao Airport in Ban Chang district of Rayong). For more information, call 02-265-5555 or visit http://www.bangkokair.com.
- Visitors need to book in advance. Both Piyapan Tok Muk (02-542-4046 and 081-337-8422) and Phaae Phayom (081-862-7147) charge 900 baht per head for a night's stay, including meals.
- Ban Phae market near the pier hawks fresh seafood, dried fish and shrimp, fruit, souvenirs and home decoration items.
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| A visitor on crab hunt admires the catch. |
Mussels can be dodgy, always wear gloves. |
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