September 8
It's hard going down when you've been up.
We had to find new accomodations since our days of luxury coming to an end. It was glorious while it lasted - and we haven't left yet but by this time tomorrow we'll be someplace else.
Jon isn't feeling well - maybe it's the Bird Flu. I started him on the Tamiflu we got from the Safeway travel clinic back home since he was exhibiting the tell tale symptoms of the flu. I think the jetlag just evolved into something more miserable. We had planned on taking the boat out to Koh Lanta Island but I would feel more comfortable taking the four hour ride once Jon is feeling better. We looked into the next beach down Kata Noi for accomodation for at least one night. Jon was feeling up for the walk over the steep hill by late afternoon so we checked it out. The beach is even smaller than Kata Beach and was virtually deserted which was cool but everything was either too run down looking or too expensive. Now some of the places we looked at in person and online we would have stayed in without too much grumbling a week ago but now we have higher standards and I personally am finding it a little difficult go cold turkey back to cheap rooms.
We walked back from Kata Noi with nowhere to stay and I was nearly ready to ask Jon what he thought about staying one more night in luxury when we stopped to look at some pictures of a villa set up on the hillside of the south end of Kata Beach. We walked the hundred meters up a steep driveway. We were thinking we would strike out again with the price but since we'd gone this far we might as well check it out. The gal behind the desk said they were having a low season discount of 50% - wow. First she showed us the cheapest rooms going for about 30 US dollars. It was perfectly acceptable, clean, perfectly habitable but it was a little run down, kinda shabby and dreary. A perfectly good room. Then she took us to the delux room which was about one thousand baht more. The room was updated, had a little more privacy with it's own balcony looking right over the beach, an updated bathroom, updated flooring - it was really nice. I think the tv was bigger too. We couldn't resist - we made a reservation for tomorrow night. Maybe we'll just slowly downgrade ourselves as the days go by so that by the time we get back to Bangkok we'll be ok without the a/c, private bath, satellite tv and balcony...
