Mae Nam, as well as being a beach area is also an old village, nestled between the island ring road and the sea. Looking at it, and the high Chinese origin population, I think it was originally a sort of supply place for seafarer's. Unlike a lot of other Samui seaside places, there's no evidence of a fishing community, rather a collection of really old, and very interesting Chinese Thai shophouses ranging from food and pharmacy to ship's chandler's. The shops look like they have been there for years, dark, dusty and full of stuff I have never seen before. Chinese incense jostles for space with drugs (i.e. legal antibiotics!), alcohol, tiger balm, dried fish and fruit. But of course, there are a few 7 Eleven's on the main road in case of need...... A few restaurants and tourist bungalows for rent in between, but mostly this feels like a real village. Even the beach, although it's lined with bungalow type hotels, has none of the wandering, pushy salespeople hawking their manicures, massage, food and clothes.
The restaurants are a mix of local, an Italian, a French, but the hotel restaurant is also nice, right on the sand. Loads of Thai stuff and fresh seafood cooked on the barbie. It feels rather Enid Blytonish of an evening, sitting with my toes in the sand, a why why (of course....) as grown up's eat and the kids play at the water's edge.
The short walk from my hotel to the village area is through a small residential area where a few small stilt houses, smaller than the villa I had at my last hotel, sit proudly on their individual plots of land. Every morning the women sit out on the little bamboo pavilions in the garden gossiping and peeling and finely chopping mountains of vegetables. Local dogs bark as I wander by and a huge bull water buffalo chomps away on the patch of ground opposite where long grasses, coconut palms and papaya trees abound. I speed walk here..... The Chinese influence is really evident in the huge ornate pagoda at the village centre. Oh, and the proliferation of good Chinese laundries!
So I settle into the rhythm of village life. Having given up on the hotel uber processed breakfast, I settle in the About Cafe for my latte and wholemeal toast. Life goes on in the village as usual. The ice man delivers to all the places along the road, the fruit seller's van calls out his prices on the tannoy, some days pineapples at just over a pound for five kilos, today, lovingly wrapped apples at ten for 60p. The old lady, daily at 10am being pushed in her wheelchair by her daughter from the laundry to the old shop to while away the day. She may be frail in body but does her daily work as the cashier, sitting clutching two plastic bowls, one with coins, one with notes as she takes the cash and counts out the change. The ancient "dog walker" rides past on his pushbike with his small lapdog charges sitting in the basket on the front as he takes them to the beach. I catch up with Thai national life by reading the day old Bangkok Post newspaper. How different from Europe, they seem to have a labour, rather than job, shortage here. I have noticed it everywhere with job adverts outside all the hotels looking for staff and now the papers report that the car industry is suffering from this labour shortage. One way the Government is looking to change this is to raise the retirement age from the 60 that it is currently. So the same plans as the West, but for different reasons. But one thing not on the cards it seems is to solve the issue by raising wages. In order to help employers with costs, there is a plan to include all service charge tips given to hotel workers in to their salary. There will be a minimum wage here, starting in April, for all including hotel workers in a few of the provinces, mainly the tourist areas of 300 baht a day (£6), so by including tips in this, the employer can reduce the 300 baht he needs to pay by the same amount. This means that regardless of service charges levied, the employee still just gets the 300 baht..... Apparently it's planned that this will only apply to service charges that go through the hotel accounts system, so the lesson for anyone coming here, is give any tips in cash. I knew people in hotels didn't earn much, but I am still surprised at how little it actually is. I was chatting to Toi, the girl who does the rooms and she was telling me that her sister married a Brit seven years ago and now lives in London. When I asked had she ever visited she looked at me as if I was mad! Now I know London is an expensive city, but given she has a sister to stay with and all she needed to find was the airfare, to me it seemed possible. But when I read she was earning such a small amount, I suddenly realised why. But even with labour shortages, the job ad's are still picky and would never get through the PC censor at home. One ad was looking for a marketing executive. Specifics, apart from the usual qualifications were that the applicant needed to be female, under 35 and pleasant looking.....
Quiet as Mae Nam is, every Thursday evening it comes alive with Walking Street. These Walking Streets happen on different days at all the main beach areas and Thursday is the turn of Mae Nam. It's a sort of tropical version of the Button Street car boot sale but with more food. The village roads are closed off and stalls set up in the early evening. Everything is sold from second hand clothes to trinkets and souvenirs. The food stalls have stuff from all corners of the world, but of course, lots of Thai. But also several "wurst" stalls, for some reason, the Russians haven't got here yet, most people are from Austria.... Fish on sticks, fruit on sticks, sticky rice, Indian samosas, full on Thai curries, you name it. The one I wasn't sure of was the fish on a stick stall that had a small Tupperware bowl with tiny turtles swimming around. I didn't see any on the barbie... and then I spotted the small reassuring sign, "For company, not eat".
But my personal favourite are the mobile cocktail bars, all with Tom Cruise types shaking up a variety of oddly named concoctions and blaring out loud music. Every barman appears to be a national or international winner of "Bartender of the Year". More Thai fakes perhaps? But it is fun to wander around the stalls sipping an excellent Mojito... And to stop and sit on the steps of the Chinese temple and listen to the live music.
The good news also is that the wifi here is generally ok, as long as the power is on of course.... which is a necessity, not the power, the Slingbox! The Apprentice has started at home, so Thursday mornings sees me loading up Slingbox to catch the latest episode before Twitter gives away who got fired!
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