On the morning of April 14, 2024 a friend sent us an e-mail with an attachment about a kite festival not far away. Sure, why not, and we can find a sweet place to eat too after beach combing.
We saw some amazing kites that afternoon . . . but we couldn't stay all day.
We learned that there is a big kiting community who travel from festival/event to event to fly and show off their kites. Most participants had several kites.
The event organizers were first to put up a kite with the locale banner.
The first decorative kite to go up was this amazing stingray kite. Some kiters told us this kite was made in Germany and was very expensive, several thousand dollars. It was 40 metres long!
So beautiful flying above the blue sea and sky!
The detail on these kites was remarkable.
Launching one of these amazing kites took considerable technical skill.
I thought launching one octopus kite was quite a feat, but two!
Two octopus kites up and flying.
I thought launching two octopus kites was quite a feat, but three!
All three up and flying . . . but wait!
WOW! These guys put up four octopus kites tethered on a common rigging with an auxiliary kite to keep it all airborne. WOW!
It was an oppressively hot and humid afternoon . . . so we stayed under the trees . . . and left early for lunch.
A memorable afternoon of flying octopus and stingray kites!
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We went on for lunch and a shore drive.
We had a fantastic Thai lunch at this old wooden hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Food photos were posted on-line (of course!).
On our way back to the car, we passed these squid drying on the sidewalk . . . with amazing shadow patterns!
These are going to be tasty!
We drove south on a small rural road that hugged the seaside and arrived at Khao Kalok Beach. Beautiful.
Such a sublimely beautiful place.
We will come back to this place . . . .
We bought water at this beach side eatery . . . it was just too hot and humid to beach comb much. We went back. It was a good day.