At the end of the touristy bit of Cha am beach, after a short stroll at the very end of the beach through some dusty scrub, you get to where it all would have started, the original fishing village. I love the sign to it "Cha am jetty - drawbridge of blue crab pulling".
As well as where they land the catch with the rough looking painted boats, the market and fishermen's houses are crowded together with a very rickety foot and motorbike bridge joining the two.
There is also a very long breakwater fairly recently built to protect the harbour area. It's a nice walk along it in the cooler evening. It's about half a mile long and apart from two very large squid to keep you company at the end you feel like you are really the middle of the sea, hopefully as near to being in the middle of the sea as I'll ever get! It's a favourite for the youth of Cha am to get together and for line fishermen to see wha they can catch from the edge.
And the one benefit the locals here have over the holiday makers is that from the village they can look West and see a glorious sunsets and the distant hills, the beach itself faces resolutely East.
I've liked Cha am, it does what it says on the tin, seaside and buckets and spades. But there are signs that changes are afoot. There have been a few new boutique hotels opened in the last year or so, all clearly targeted at Western tourists and not Thai overnighters. And there are also a lot of beach road areas that have already been cleared ready for new buildings. A big new condo is just about finished, branded Lumpini Park Beach with Lumpini Park being a swish area in Bangkok, so obviously targeted at the moneyed Bangkok middle classes for investment. But at least with this they've done a good job, it's low rise, only four storey so at least the development hasn't gone the awful way of Pattaya and Phuket with huge high rises. But the new shopping area being developed behind it of coffee shops and chi chi bakeries and boutiques will never be affordable to or probably even attractive to the current day trippers. But I think the danger is that the more swishy places that open up, the less they will want to put up with the three miles of old fashioned stripey deckchairs and umbrellas supporting the Thai holiday maker and will want the beach opened up. They've done this in Phuket and banned all sunbeds and umbrellas. But if that happens here not only will the current economy collapse but the one beach place in Thailand that I've ever found that still "belongs" to the Thai people may disappear for ever and that would be wrong.
I found this Lonely Planet piece which I think sums current Cha am up perfectly, I just hope it doesn't change...
"Cheap and cheerful Cha-am is a popular beach getaway for working-class families and Bangkok students. On weekends and public holidays, neon-painted buses, their sound systems pumping, deliver groups of holidaymakers. It is a very Thai-style beach party, with eating and drinking marathons held around umbrella-shaded beach chairs and tables. Entertainment is provided by the banana boats that zip back and forth, eventually making a final jack-knife turn that throws the passengers into the sea. Applause and giggles usually follow from the beachside audience.
Cha-am doesn't see many foreigners; visitors are usually older Europeans who winter here instead of more expensive Hua Hin. And there are even fewer swimsuits on display as most Thai's frolic in the ocean in T-shirts and shorts. But Cha-am’s beach is long, wide and sandy, the grey-blue water is clean and calm, the seafood is superb, the people-watching entertaining and the prices are some of the most affordable anywhere on the coast."
