Wednesday, December 1, 2021
9:12 a.m. Green Guest House
Mae Sot, Thailand
The day of my departure from the Green Guest House has finally arrived. At nine in the morning, I would normally already be packed up and on the road, but there are still some formalities to take care of, and I decided to turn the day into a relaxed one. My landlady still has to calculate my electricity and water bill for the past month. And, as she told me yesterday, she will deduct that from the 2,000-baht deposit I left long ago. There might also be a 300-baht cleaning bill. I remember seeing that on the rental contract I signed long ago. I doubt that I will get very much of my 2,000-baht deposit back. To be honest, I’m surprised that my landlady even mentioned it and that I’m getting anything back at all.
And since I have to deal with this this morning, and since I’m exhausted, I’m treating today like a casual day. In fact, one of my ideas was to simply ride my scooter across town and check into the Phannu Hotel right here in Mae Sot. I figured that it would be enough for one day just to pack up and leave the Green Guest House fully. Then I could spend the day at the Phannu relaxing and working on videos. And then I would be able to mentally adjust and be better prepared and more rested for officially leaving Mae Sot the next morning. I even dropped by the Phannu yesterday to check to make sure that they were open. But I didn’t have a good feeling about the place. They have small rooms for 350 baht per night and larger rooms for 450 baht. I asked to see one of the small rooms, and the one they showed me was quite unpleasant. It seemed like they were using it as a kind of dumping ground for broken extra furniture and other debris. It didn’t seem ready for guests at all. I don’t mind staying in rough conditions. I actually like places that are rough around the edges. But I do expect the price to reflect that. And at 350 baht, this room was very overpriced. I would feel like a dummy to pay 350 baht for that room, especially when I compare it to the 350-baht rooms I’ve gotten at other places, such as the P. Resort Hotel in Kampaheng Phet.
An alternative I’m considering is to ride to a place called Mae Kasa. I went there before on a day trip to boil some eggs in the hot springs. I liked the town of Mae Kasa, and there was a funky homestay right beside the hot springs. I don’t know exactly how much a room there would cost, but if it was in the ballpark of 350 baht, it would be a much more interesting place to stay than the Phannu. A funny thing is that I’m hesitating about going to Mae Kasa precisely because it is interesting, and I would feel like I should shoot a YouTube video of the experience. And I’m way behind in my video projects. It feels weird to start recording more videos when I still have a large backlog of videos from Sukhothai to deal with.
I will probably end up riding to Mae Kasa. I think that makes the most sense. But I’ve also been thinking about just staying at a different hotel in Mae Sot. I’m so tired, as I said. I can hardly even think straight. And it’s an appealing thought to just check into a hotel and go to sleep for as much of the day as possible. I was just checking hotel listings on Agoda, and I was tempted by a deal at the fancy Centara hotel. One issue is that with a fancy hotel and online bookings, they do tend to show you quite a low price to hook you. And then they add another 20% in fees when you actually book the room. It’s a bit of a bait and switch.