Kenting Beach in Summer
If you visit at holiday time without booking a room in advance you may find yourself staring at sign after sign saying “No vacancies.” Take a stroll near the beach in Kenting and you will encounter smiling people, young and old, male and female, wearing brightly colored beach shorts, flip-flops or sexy bikinis, some carrying a Frisbee under their arm on which coffee colored sand still sticks. These happy people, even if they don’t have athletic or beautiful bodies, show off their sunburned skin unselfconsciously. Kenting’s sunlight and joyful laughter are its richest assets.
From the road near the beach it looks like a narrow light brown carpet, stretching as far as the eye can see. All over the beach, visitors are buried in the fine soft sand, their red faces the only part showing, or are reading a novel they have just bought from a nearby convenience store through sunglasses. The more energetic are playing volleyball, knocking the white ball to and fro against the azure ocean backdrop. Here, even a dive to reach the ball seems romantic.
On the beach you will have numerous opportunities to take good photographs. Some people embrace in the surf, their smiles caught forever at the top of a breaking wave. Some have bare arms, letting the sun brand a totem of south Taiwan. Others carry young children on their shoulders; some are lost in thought at the water’s edge, shouting and laughing is too much effort for them, watching the white silk edge of the ocean come and go. The waves have turned the sand a darker color and made the sand soft. The footprints they leave in the soft sand last only until the next wave comes. The beach is a place of innocent fun and frolics and intimate whispers. No matter what mood you bring with you when you visit you will find freedom and feel at ease.
As the sun goes down many people remain, waiting to catch the beautiful red sunset that brings the day on the beach to a perfect end. When they do they will probably go for a seafood meal on Kenting’s main street. Other people, having just returned from a walk to Sail Rock, buy beer and fireworks and will continue the fun of the day into the night.
To enjoy Kenting’s tropical charm you don’t need to buy a ticket, queue, reserve a seat and put up with the interminable boredom of flying. On the Hengchun Peninsula the wind will carry the scent of seafood to you free of charge. Kenting’s palm trees are as sturdy as Bali’s and the sea is a welcoming as that of Thailand’s Long Beach. Visitors can show more public spiritedness than some tourists by, when they take shoes and memories away with them, also taking their rubbish so that the beaches of Kenting are always in pristine condition.