On the Sunday it was decided to visit and picnic on the beach in typical Thai style. The chosen venue was a military base which had a publicly accessible beach, about 25km south of Pattaya - from google maps, it looks like Chumphon. The bulk of the Thai family traveled in their pickup, and I took my sedan, with a number of locals, including my Thai wife.
As background, we had visited the same place a couple of months previously, but had been turned away because they were conducting "exercises", and while Thais could still enter, it was closed to farangs at that time.
This time, we entered without any problem, and took up our spot on the beach, with chairs, mats, food, drink etc etc. After about 30 minutes, I stripped off to my bathers (boxer style), and took several of the kids into the water, where we stayed for about 20 minutes. When I got back to the picnic spot, I hung my T-shirt and wet towel over a nearby rope conveniently strung between 2 trees, and relaxed into my deck chair.
Some 30 minutes later, a couple of uniformed personnel (I guess MPs) came over to our group and said I needed to put on my T-shirt, and remove the towel. Putting it down to local quirkiness, I complied without discussion.
20 or so minutes later, the same 2 came back, walked past checking that I was suitably covered up, and then 10 metres later walked past a Thai bloke who was topless - not a word said. I naturally noted that.
Move on about an hour, after we had mainly finished eating, and here they come again - this time with the message that their "boss" had instructed them to tell us to leave, as "he didn't want any farangs on the beach", and "it was for Thais only". This naturally sparked some animated conversation, but very little action by the family after the MPs departed.
However, they returned a further 45 minutes later, with a different guy, who I assumed was a little more senior, although not the "boss". They were clearly embarrassed, but non-the-less, we had to pack up and leave. This time they got a earful of quite heated chat from the group, including being told their boss was a racist, and it was no wonder Thailand was in the ----. They left, and it seemed that passive resistance was about to become the order of the day, as my group did nothing for about 15 minutes.
At this stage, I decided that it was best that we did leave, as the MPs could only cause trouble for me if they wanted to persist. The family were not happy, but agreed, and leave we did.
While it was not a pleasant feeling, the incident did not particularly concern me. What it did cause me to do, however, was think about the feelings and difficulties for people who experience racism in their life every day - and certainly of a more forceful variety than I experienced.
