On June 23, 2025 I arrived at Ban Bao Resolution Resort to face 4 low season grey days with no hopes of getting good pictures. which brings back 2012.
So I spent four days and nights running Ban Bao’s steep hills and watching a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime video.
But there’s a lot of beauty to be found in Solitude.
Here I was alone with my thoughts. And I had a lot of those. There were several people back in Pattaya who I wanted to avoid. And here there was virtually no traffic. And no tourists whatsoever (thank god), in my small corner of the woods.
The tourists all stay up north of Ban Bao, At places like White Sands Beach which I find utterly boring. The beach there amounts to a straight line of emptiness with nothing to break the horizon. I find my beach here at Wongamat to be far more interesting. Although the water is not that clean. And although there are a lot of beaches between White Sands Beach and Ban Bao, Ban Bao is right where I want to be.
If you are into snorkeling or diving, you must go to Ban Bao. Because that’s where all the dive boats are moored. And it takes at least half an hour to get from White Sands beach to Ban Bao. While once you are on the boat it’s going to take you another hour to get to any snorkeling or dive sites.
But oh well, been there and done that. All that snorkeling and looking at fish. But I still might as well stay at Ban Bao Resolution Resort.
It’s quiet down here and utterly gorgeous. But I’m disappointed. I had been hoping I’d find Narod here. But on my second day here, two of the staff members tell me he had passed away around 9 years ago. Narod was the founder, owner and caretaker of Ban Bao Resolution Resort. And when I knew him 13 years ago he was spry and a total workaholic. Who had been working relentlessly to making Resolution Resort as close to perfect as it gets.
There’s a beach that just might be a lot of fun during high season across Ban Bao Bay from Resolution Resort. But through my Leica binoculars it looks totally desolate. There’s a small boat that takes Resolution’s guests across the bay to this beach three times a d
Same thing goes to the kayak. Which my ex Thai girlfriend and I paddled across to that beach 13 years ago. But it’s low season now and that boat’s not about to make that trip. And as for any sightseeing tours sponsored by Resolution Resort, none of them are running because it’s low season.
But I’ve got an excellent opportunity to do a lot of exercising here.
On my first day I swim in Resolution’s pool for an hour. Then I walk all the way down to the Bon Bao pier, which I figure comes to about 6 kilometers. The next three days I run that 6 kilometers while enjoying all the beautiful trees around me. And the steepness of the roads even though they are killing me.
Hell, I have my own goldfish and can feed them by hand. I do very little drinking and that’s a good thing. Because drinking makes me fat while it rots out the brain. And I have no excuses now for not watching a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime video. Because there’s really nothing I really have to do like doing laundry or doing web site work. Because I do all that on my desktop computer. And there’s no one to drink with. Because I am the only guest here.