Artists in coastal Thailand copy images and designs onto canvas and human body with the patience and dedication sorely missing in souvenir shop assistants on the waterfront. The daily repeating reality for livelihood by the sea is the ebb and flow of tourists at the beach.
So what’s it like, where the river meets the sea?
The locals in Thailand know India for two reasons, the Mumbai film world (globally nicknamed Bollywood), and the IT industry. The Thai people don't have these skills but, taxi-driver Feiy boasts with twinkling humour, they're number one at copying. When they’re done with the job, you can’t tell the original from the fake!
The artists at work
We believe it, when we see it, on the way to the beach!
The tattoo artist glued to the computer screen, downloads intricate designs from the 'Net to transcribe onto human canvases…and there could be plenty of customers waiting to be adorned with new creations.
The painter with his careful colour mixes and magnifying lenses recaptures on a different canvas the minute details of a small photograph, blown up to many times its actual size.
The quality of patience
Watching them at work, we’re impressed by their dedication, and their extreme patience with tasks that may seem tedious. For the chess players concentrated on the board, verbal language similarly becomes redundant in making meaning or intent clear.
But everybody is not so blessed with patience and job focus, we soon discover. Near the waterfront, the souvenir shop assistants posted on plastic chairs out on the sidewalk, probably develop little or none at all of these qualities. 
Their livelihoods depend on sales, but the shops have few customers. Their frenetic strategy to get business is to jump up to greet targets who look moneyed - the westerners.
But these tourists usually brush past them, moving on to other interests. Their frustrations, rocketing by the end of the day, display poorly with visitors genuinely attracted by ethnic handicrafts, thus defeating their own purpose. End result: they go back to their plastic perches with poorer attitudes to restart their 'customer service' cycle with!
Life by the sea
The coastline at Pattaya (in the Gulf of Thailand) is called Samut Songkhram, we learn from the atlas. The locals guess Andaman Sea, which actually is on the other side, to the west of the Malay Peninsula.
Tourism, we mentioned before, drives the local economy. People leave and people return - this is the daily repeating reality to be adapted to.
Not everybody on the beach can be there for fun and games. For many locals it means going to work - lazing is alright only for the tourists. 
Members of all ages in the family, have to pitch in to ensure that the ambience is just perfect for the tourists to spend as much time as possible on the beach - and to continue to buy their services (starting at 30 bahts per!) throughout the day, on the sands or in the waters.
Being there is the scheduled routine, catering to people’s needs from daybreak to sunset, especially during tourist times. Toddlers socialize into the process early as well.
The setting sun signals the time to bring the water sport machines and other paraphernalia ashore, pack up, load onto trailers, and head home.
The beach at night looks deserted, though sands and sea seem to bathe in shimmering fluorescence. Neon lights draw away much of the human activity, while silent rows of drooping beach umbrellas await another day…
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