Saturday, March 21, 2020
Sometimes cheaper hotels not only have disadvantages… so in the morning we were happily surprised that, in contrast to the SGS, very hot water was available within seconds !
At around 9 we went down for breakfast, and, as expected, it didn’t meet our requirements, just toast, sweet breads, jam and coffee.
(you can’t expect more when you paid US$ 27/room incl. breakfast)
So we decided to leave the hotel, visit a nearby food stall,
where we had a rice-noodle-soup at US$ 1/each instead.
It wasn’t a fantastic soup, but at least better than toast with jam and filling.
Before 10 we loaded our luggage back into the car, but we were told not to leave… Strange ! After less than 5 minutes two doctors arrived at the lobby, asked if we would have some symptoms, measured out temperature and told we would be fine to go.
We drove through the very well-developed smaller Thai city, back towards highway 4.
First Stop: ‘Amazon Café’
for a iced Macha-Latte, iced Cappuccino and my favourite Thai cookies with pineapple filling.
Valentyna brought us 200 km south,
to the city of Chumphon,
where just outside a viewpoint is located,
on a hill overlooking the complete area,
including the ‘Venice-style’ city.
After a few minutes of watching the impressive scenery around, making some photos,
we decided driving down to the city, to have a closer look.
We parked the car at the end of the road, crossed a pedestrian bridge,
which was heavily used smaller motorbikes, walked further through the narrow alleys
towards the river leading to the Gulf of Thailand.
I can’t say that the river nor the ‘city’ was clean as Thailand normally is, but this might be due to the conditions living on water.
It was interesting, colourful, very authentic – but not the place we wanted to have lunch.
We left the city towards the beach some kilometres north – but it was quite dirty, lots of plastics and other rubbish, not even worth to get outside the car.
TripAdvisor recommended a small restaurant off the track, which should serve typical local food. Since the restaurant was heavily visited, we decided to give it a try.
We ordered a Tom Yum Goong as well as a local yellow fish-curry.
I didn’t like both, everything was extremely sour, the yellow curry having a heavy vinegar smell and taste. While Valentyna ate the Tom Yum Goong with some rice, I decided better to go for the cookies.
Back to highway 4, where we refuelled the car (5.1 litres of diesel for 100 km or 46 mpg)
– not bad for a small SUV with a decent engine. In addition we refulled ourselves, iced Matcha-Latte & iced Espresso.
The road conditions changed excellent to fair, but still 2 lanes per direction. After a while the we reached the mountains covered by jungle, the road got winding, with lots of construction work going on.
A very scenic drive I have to admit.
At a certain point we reached a checkpoint, where was mentioned that body temperature would be measured. Valentyna stopped, opened the window. The officer just had a look and told us to go on. Maybe he understood that we wouldn’t be such nicely tanned if we would have just arrived a few days ago.
At 1630 we reached the city of Ranong, the capital of the region. We did have two choices where to stay, one hotel outside town, one inside. We first checked out the one outside, very stylish – but at US$ 85/night a bit expensive for such a small and not very popular city.
Into town where hotel SOOK is located, which just opened in December 2019.
The offered a standard room at US$ 50 including taxes and breakfast, which was fine with us – especially because we liked the style.
Registration- and Covid-19-forms had to be filled, breakfast selected (no buffet served due to Covid-19) before they guided us to our room – much nicer than the one we had the night before.
My Danish friend sent me a message, that we would be staying at a decent hotel near SHA airport, including some photos of the room – really okay. Even breakfast
and fast internet would be included, other food he could order at own expenses.
Thailand has some news: The government decided to close all Shopping Malls from March 23 until minimum April 12. Therefore, also our plans are uncertain, we’ll have to arrange with the actual conditions.
At around 2000 it was time for dinner. We left the hotel, walking on main street, checking out two recommended restaurants. The first one was a very basic Thai bistro with mostly deep-fried chicken, the second a tourist spot with a mix of European and Thai food. Mixed kitchen normally means: neither is good.
Back to the hotel, where we took our Beamer, drove to an Italian restaurant off the city centre.
It didn’t look bad
– so we decided to stay, ordered a pretty good Caesar Salad to share,
Valentyna went for a pan-fried fish (dry), me for some pasta with meatballs, gratinated with cheese.
The food was pretty tasteless, nothing to recommend, but maybe good for Ranong.
Back to the hotel, where I had a two-hour phone call with a friend to who I wasn’t talking for ages.