Down Time on Ngapali Beach

After the rigours of Yangon and Bago we're now resting up in Ngapali Beach and loving it here.  We're staying at a small beachside hotel called Yoma Cherry Lodge and it's exceeded expectations. Our large beachfront room overlooks a small deck and then there's the sand and the sea, waves crashing.  We can't be more than 20m from the water. We even have our own permanently reserved restaurant table right in front of our room, overlooking the beach.

Yoma Cherry Lodge on Ngapali Beach

Looking along the beach from Yoma Cherry Lodge sunbeds

It's a short flight from Yangon to Thandwe and worth the journey. Thandwe Airport is tiny, just a small building next to a runway by the sea, and outgoing passengers are seated in the same area as incoming passengers stroll in to.  Oddly, for a domestic flight,  arriving passengers must line up at an Immigration desk and have passports examined and arrival recorded.  The single offical doing the writing (nothing electronic here) looked under pressure as the forty or so passengers formed a long line in front of his desk in the warm building (no aircon here).

Thandwe Airport, Myanmar

The sea right in front of the hotel is home to a cluster of local fishing boats so late afternoon and early morning (very early - pre dawn) there's a lot of activity as the boats come and go, especially early morning when the fish is unloaded.  Yesterday we watched fishermen unloading just one small boat and were surprised by the volume and size of fish that was carried in small buckets to a waiting crowd on the beach. Right on the beach, amid a small noisy crowd, the fish was weighed and the big ones thrown into the back of a pick-up truck, presumably to go to a local market.  But for most of the day the small bay (about 1 km long) is pretty empty, with just a handful of tourists soaking up the sun here and there.  Tall palm trees surround the bay and the whole scene is idyllic.  The weather is perfect, about 30C (real feel 36C says my weather app!) but there's a cooling breeze off the sea so it doesn't feel that hot to us.

A drinks shack on the beach a few minutes walk from our lodge

Fishing boats in front of Yoma Cherry Lodge

Weighing the fish on the beach

Fish!

As in most of Myanmar's tourist locations the cost of accommodation is higher than other countries in south east Asia, probably due to lack of competition in this rapidly developing but strictly controlled country.  But having forked out handsomely (by Asian standards) for accommodation, meals and drinks are cheap. Along the coast road south of Thandwe Airport there's an abundant choice of simple open air restaurants catering for tourists and the ones we've tried so far have offered up delicious seafood curries for less than £3 for a main. Alcoholic drinks seem to be less costly than water, so we've been hydrating ourselves with a variety of cocktails, not all of them matching their menu description when they're served! 

There's something very charming about where we are at Ngapali Beach. Granted we've not ventured out to explore the other beaches north and south of our little bay, but we just don't feel the need.   We have the feeling that Ngapali Beach is not going to stay like this for years to come.  On our evening excursions in the rattling tuktuks we noticed a lot of building along the coast road, so if you want to experience this old world slice of Myanmar, come soon.

The gardens at Yoma Cherry Lodge
and rooms set back from the beach
(beachfront rooms are best!)