So I end up in Rayong, a few hours south of Bangkok. Here I will spend the last days in a glamorous hotel called Kanthary Bay, let's see if I like Rayong's lazy life.
You can turn it around as you like, but forcing yourself to remain still is more difficult than you think. After one day at the latest, it begins to twitch. Nervousness sets in, restlessness, the urgent need to do something.
On the other hand, this was exactly the intention to spend the last days reading and sleeping at the pool and lazing around.
But not my Cup of Tea
So due to the lack of alternatives, I lie down at the pool - at the beginning grumpy and with little euphoria.
I have ended up in a huge glamorous hotel called Kanthary Bay, already the view from afar is terrifying. And just the entrance hall: about the same size as the last few hotels put together.
Not that I feel uncomfortable, I know these hotels well enough in connection with business trips. But I'm not sure if my current outfit (hipster beard, dusty and dirty backpack like everything else on me) fits in here.
The hotel
The young men at the reception, career awareness written on their smooth faces, give me a very critical look. But what can you do, a guest is a guest, even if he does not look like that.
Well, a few of the benefits are undeniable. There are all sorts of things (gym, rooms where you can get (for free!) Coffee and sweets, a jacuzzi and other things). Some of them are more than welcome (eg the lounge with English language newspapers).
However, what I find extremely questionable and annoying is the fact that only in the public areas (entrance hall, lounge etc.), a free Wifi is available.
If you want to use it in your own room, it costs a small fortune every day. Even the most shabby, cheapest place in Myanmar has always, ALWAYS, provided a free Wifi, only here, in this not exactly cheap place, it costs extra.
On the lazy skin
Like I said, it's a strange place. It is located directly at the sea, on a long beach that stretches to the horizon, but there is absolutely nothing else here. In the evening, a kind of restaurants are installed directly at the sea in which one gets excellent seafood. During the day, they are gone and there is only one single nothing.
Rayong's lazy life - a myth?
Not a single restaurant where you can eat something, not a decent place to shop. There are two shops in a garage-like hall that offer all kinds of odds and ends, including edible ones, but the stuff tastes so horrible that I prefer to go hungry.
Eenie meenie miney mo
After all, after a long search I found one or two suitable establishments where it might be possible to eat (of course there is a hotel restaurant, even several, but somehow old hippies don't fit in).
So I am welcomed with delight and a hundred bows in a restaurant, just half a kilometre from the hotel, and guided to a table with even more deep curtsies. The Chef de Service, apparently also the owner, speaks a few words in English, just enough to tell me that the restaurant has only been open for 5 days. Is that good or bad? I don't know.
The real problem arises when he puts the menu card on my table. It is written exclusively in Thai. The funny ornate letters have their own beauty, but unfortunately I can do about as much with it as a cow with the Bible.
Normally, the problem is solved in a simple way by decorating the menus with images. Not this time. So I'm in the dark with blindfolded eyes about choosing a suitable meal. So it remains only Eenie meenie miney mo. I close my eyes, leaf through the pages and point with my finger ... yes, to what?
I don't know, but the boss looks excited. I am less euphoric and hope that I will at least be spared innards, boiled monkey eyes or elephant testicles. And since we are at the sea, shark fins or cooked squid eggs could also be on the menu.
So I'm curious to see what delicacy I'm getting, but what's finally served makes a pretty good impression. There' s some rice, indefinable vegetables and something like meat or fish. It tastes good, but I have no idea what it could be. In any case, I am glad to have escaped elephant testicles and monkey eyes and lean back calmly, drink my beer and pat me on the shoulders ...
Hasta la vista, Baby
And so, the story ends ...
There is not much to add to that, Rayong's lazy life is coming to an end. I'm still sitting by the pool in Rayong, still in my shorts and still in my sweaty T-shirt, but all of this will be over in the next few hours at the latest in Bangkok at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Then I have to wear long trousers, a warm pullover and my fleece jacket, which until now has been used almost exclusively in the terribly cold buses. I'm heading towards winter, which I honestly can't really imagine yet, but it will leave its business card very quickly and very intensively as soon as we land in Zurich.
Time for a summary? No. Everything has been said. That's why the last words belong to the Terminator as usual, but this time not "I'll be back" but
HASTA LA VISTA, BABY!
P.S. Matching Song: Radiohead - Paranoid Android (one of my all time favorites)
And here the next journey starts …
