A day at Karon Beach

From our villa we drove to Karon Viewpoint. The viewpoint has a great view of Kata and Karon beaches from the mountain lookout.  Then we continued on to Karon Beach. The traffic wasn’t bad, just on the wrong side of the road for 2 Canucks.  It takes both of us driving – Linda watches the map and road for hazards and Gary keeps us between the two lines and is constantly scanning the road for other vehicles and particularly motorbikes.  We had one motorbike pass us on the wrong side which is rather unnerving.  We’ve tried to stick to the more quiet roads but those are very twisty with tons of tight corners and switchbacks so you really have to be on your toes!

We arrived at Karon beach okay!  There was plenty of parking.  This part of the island is much quieter than the area we are in.  It is way more of a tourist area and with no tourists the majority of shops, restaurants and hotels are still closed.  Many of the hotels are looking a little run down – almost two years of sun, rain and salty air have taken their toll on the paint.  No one is going to do a ton of maintenance when they have no income!  We parked and walked back to a side street that sported a big sign “We are Open.”  It was a walking street, lined with shops and restaurants.  We found a lonely tailor shop that was open and we chatted with the owner for a while.  He said we were the first customers to be in his shop in almost two years.  He was desperate for a sale and “some luck.”  We exchanged What’s App contact info and he was in touch with us all day hoping we would come back and order a shirt!  We actually were in search of food and all the restaurants down the street were closed, one only opens in the evening.  We finally found a small little restaurant around the corner that was tucked under a roof.  The owner was excited to think we’d stop for lunch, we inquired what was on the menu and asked about Som Tum.  Gary asked if they had a washroom and there was a major discussion that no they didn’t but she took him back around to the walking street where we just were and to a small drugstore that let him use the washroom.  When we got back to the little restaurant she was already shredding the green papaya for the Som Tum!  We ended up ordering one Som Tum, one chicken Pad Thai and a couple bottles of water.  The food was amazing, some of the best we’ve had.  She also had large bags of roasted cashews that she sold for ฿ 200  each and we bought two bags.  She and her husband were so excited with our purchases and that we told them it was delicious and she brought us two large bananas as a parting gift when we were ready to go. Where else can you get a gift for dining in a restaurant?  Think we’ll stop there again.  The portions were generous and the food was amazing for such a tiny place. The whole washroom problem was a result of flooding down the street caused by the heavy rain overnight.