Friday, December 3, 2021
6:36 a.m Room 305 Centra Hotel
Mae Sot, Thailand
I’m having trouble focusing again this morning. My mental state isn’t nearly as bad as when I left from the Green Guest House, but I just feel distracted. And it’s actually this room at the Centra Hotel that is the cause. I’ll explain.
I spent one night at the Phannu Hotel, which cost 350 baht. And once I had settled into the room and gotten used to its dumpy quality, I was quite comfortable. Nothing was great there. But everything worked. And the location is convenient and interesting. But even so, I decided to look for an alternative, and I settled on a hotel called the Maesot Siri. I just happened to stumble across a deal on Agoda, and I could get a room at this far nicer hotel (including breakfast) for the same price: 350 baht, taxes and fees included. I booked one night there, and I told myself that if I liked it, I could extend my stay. Or I could then move to a different hotel at a similar price and have the experience of trying out all these different places.
But then a wild card entered my life, and a man that takes an interest in my YouTube adventures contacted me and booked a room for me for two nights at the 4-star Centra Hotel. He’d booked the same night as I had already booked at the Maesot Siri, which was a bit unfortunate. There was no way to get a refund from that room. But, obviously, it wasn’t super expensive, and I would just not show up there and let it go. Instead, I would stay at the Centra for two nights. I knew nothing about the Centra at the time except that it was a luxury hotel and that it had a swimming pool. I didn’t even know where it was located.
I spent the morning at the Phannu working on some YouTube videos. Not surprisingly, I didn’t make much progress. I don’t know what it is with YouTube and me these days, but I seem to be able to spend eight hours on a simple video and still not complete it. The hours just flow by uncontrollably. And time kind of got away from me at the Phannu because it was suddenly getting close to the noon check-out time, and I hadn’t even started to pack up. I leaped up when I realized this and started racing around the room and getting organized.
I had a couple of new ideas over the past day about packing, and I decided to implement them. One of them was quite successful, I think. The problem I was trying to deal with was that my MSR Dromedary Bag was leaking. And that meant I haven’t been able to use it to transport water on my trips. I can’t put it inside my backpack, because everything would get soaked. And I can’t use it normally in any of my rooms because I have to constantly monitor it so that it is hanging properly and not leaking all over the place. That bag has been annoying me for a long time because it is pretty much brand new. It shouldn’t be leaking already.
Instead of using the Dromedary Bag, I’ve been using a regular 4-liter plastic water bottle from 7-11. This bottle just happens to have a somewhat squat shape, and it fits nicely into the helmet compartment of my scooter. So on my trips to Umphang, Tak City, Kamphaeng Phet, and Sukhothai, I’ve been filling it with water and putting it inside the helmet compartment. And that works well, because during the day, I can’t put the helmet in there anyway. The backpack is strapped to the seat, and I can’t open the seat and that means the helmet compartment is inaccessible all day. And I like to arrive at a hotel with that full bottle of water ready to go. With that water, I don’t have to instantly check into the room and then go out and buy water somewhere. It’s convenient to bring that much water with me.
However, I had this idea to try something new. The Dromedary bag has two caps. It has a regular cap and it has a special shower cap. I started to wonder if maybe the cap was the problem and perhaps the shower cap wouldn’t leak. I removed the shower hose from the cap and tried it out, and to my delight, it didn’t leak. So the problem was not the Dromedary bag itself but the cap. It doesn’t fit properly. And now that I could use the Dromedary bag again, I didn’t have to carry the bulky plastic water bottle. And that meant, I could leave the Dromedary bag empty or strap it to the top of the backpack. And that would open up the helmet compartment as a place to store luggage. It’s like a puzzle game, moving luggage from one spot to another to get it to fit exactly right.
And I sorted through my gear to figure out which items were best suited to go into the helmet compartment. The idea is that these items should be small and compact but heavy. The helmet compartment is quite low, and it would be nice to store heavy items there and keep the scooter’s center of gravity as low as possible. Plus, it would be convenient to store items that are packed last. Then I can pack up all the stuff that goes into the backpack and put it inside the waterproof cover and strap it up and put the rope around it. But while doing this, I could still have items available for use. I’m thinking in particular of all my power adapters and plugs and cords and my toiletry kit and things like that. By putting them into the helmet compartment, I am able to leave them out of the backpack and have access to them until the very last minute just as I am leaving the room. If I put everything into the backpack, it means I can’t brush my teeth or charge my phones or do anything at the last minute. All the necessary gear would be packed away. But with this new system, I can pack up my backpack fully while still having a bunch of stuff free to use. It allows for some flexibility.
I tested this new system yesterday, and it worked relatively well. I jammed a bunch of stuff into my one remaining stuff sack. I made sure to keep it compact enough that it would still fit into the helmet compartment. I put in the full bag of adapters and chargers and extension cords, my toiletries bag, my bedside bag, and a bunch of stuff like that. And that freed up room in my backpack as well, and I was able to pack it up more easily, since the cooking pot is so bulky.
It still wasn’t easy though, because I have more gear with me than is reasonable. The backpack was still heavy. And now I had the Dromedary Bag to deal with as a separate item, and I strapped it to the top of the backpack underneath the bungee cords. And when I got to the Centra Hotel, I now had three items to carry when I returned to my scooter to unpack. I went into the hotel to check in with just my daypack. That’s fine. And on previous trips, I would then return to the scooter to bring in my backpack and the water bottle. But now I had three items to bring in: the backpack, the stuff sack, and the Dromedary Bag. And that was a somewhat awkward and heavy load to carry.
Since this short stay at the Centra is special, I felt like I should document it, so I fired up the GoPro and set about recording the event. It feels like that didn’t turn out very well. The problem is that I’m still so mentally distracted by the backlog of videos I have to finish from Sukhothai. I can’t think about new videos until those are done. And I’m still feeling a bit overwhelmed from packing up and leaving the Green Guest House. I’m suffering from gear fatigue. And just having the GoPro out and having to worry about the microphone and all the batteries and the memory cards while also changing hotels and sorting out my packing problems was a bit overwhelming. And when I turned on the GoPro and started to film and talk, I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know what the story was. It felt like this time in Mae Sot was separate from the arc of my overall story. It’s a pause. And I didn’t know how to easily explain what circumstances would lead me to staying at a luxury hotel inside the city where I’ve been living, when I’m supposed to be heading north. I did try to explain all of that, but it got so convoluted that I just trailed off. And I had no idea if I would include the story of leaving the Guest House. I hadn’t really filmed that. And I hadn’t filmed the trip to Mae Kasa or my return to Mae Sot. My whole YouTube life is a mess right now, and I don’t know how to move forward.
It turns out that the Centra is located right across the busy highway from the Robinson Lifestyle Center. I found it without much difficulty, and I parked my scooter. And after some filming, I went inside to check in. The hotel is large and is listed as a 4-star hotel. However, as I’ve been finding out during my time here, the hotel might have been 4-star when it was built long ago, but it now has some problems. Let’s just say that it is showing its age.
Checking in was fine. The women at the counter spoke excellent English. For the first time, I was asked to show my vaccination certificate. I asked them about that, and they said that if a guest is not vaccinated, they have to report to the local health authorities and register with them. And then they have to get the proper tests. And if they test negative and can show those test results at the hotel, they can get a room. But if you produce a valid vaccination certificate, you don’t have to do any of that. The front desk clerk explained that this all happens because Tak Province is still in the Red Zone, and those are the rules. It’s interesting how only the most up-scale hotels end up actually following any of the rules. I stayed at two different hotels in Tak City, one hotel in Sam Ngao, and at the Phannu in Mae Sot, and presumably they all also fall under this set of rules. But they just ignore them. No one asked to see a vaccination certificate.
The issues with the Centra began right at check in, because the hotel was undergoing some kind of electrical system maintenance, and I was informed that there was no power at all in the hotel, and it would return at around 3 p.m. I pretended that was fine, but it was actually a little bit annoying. The reason you want to stay at a 4-star hotel is so that things are smooth and easy. That’s the whole point. And walking right into a 3-hour power blackout at check-in time wasn’t great. My MacBook, for example, needed power and charging, and I wouldn’t be able to use it. Plus, I had plans to instantly get on the Internet and start uploading YouTube videos, but I couldn’t do that either because there was no Internet.
After checking in, I went out the back door to look at the pool. The pool is nice, but it wasn’t nearly as nice as I was expecting in terms of the setting. I was expecting beautifully manicured lawns and gardens with a nice poolside cafe and some nice tables and chairs with sun umbrellas. I guess I had visions of tropical paradise and luxury resorts from movies dancing in my head. The pool itself was fine, but the area around it was quite overgrown and jungly. And I don’t think there was any kind of poolside cafe or drinks shop at all. Maybe there used to be and they had to close it because of the pandemic. I also learned that the exercise room was closed. That’s something else one generally expects at a 4-star hotel. At least that is what I’ve learned from movies. All the rich and high-powered people that stay at these places work out every day and they need access to a gym everywhere they go. But the gym here was closed for repairs. I was told that the roof had started leaking and then parts of the roof caved in.
The room key was interesting. At first, I thought it was a typical electronic key card, and I wondered how it would work, since there was no power. But it is actually a physical key. It’s a cross between a normal metal room key and a punch card and a modern key card. It has the shape of an elongated key card, but rather than having a magnetic strip, it has a series of about twenty holes punched through it. And those holes line up with the locking mechanism pins, just as the grooves and edges of a metal key line up with locking pins. I had to insert this card fully into the slot and then turn the door handle. And if the holes line up with the pins, the door opens.
From this point, I have to say that my experience of the room was almost entirely negative. On the positive side, the air conditioner worked. I found that out once the electricity returned. However, it’s a vintage system from the seventies. By that, I mean that it has central air coming out of a vent in the wall. And the controller looks exactly like an old-fashioned analog thermostat you see in houses from the sixties and seventies. There is no remote control at all. To make any adjustments or turn it on or off, you have to physically walk over to the wall where the thermostat is mounted and move physical switches and spin a physical dial to raise or lower the temperature. It’s actually quite cool, and it works well. But it does mean that you can’t control the air conditioner from the bed. You have to physically get out of bed and walk to the wall if you ever want to adjust it.
Also on the positive side of the ledger is the fact that there is good water pressure in the bathroom. And the bed and pillows and comforter and towels are good quality, as you would expect from a hotel listed as 4-star accommodation. Plus, the room has a mini-fridge, a TV, a kettle, and a hair dryer. But the conditions went off a cliff after that point.
The biggest problem by far is that the Internet is miserably slow. It is one of those systems where you have to sign in to some kind of a hotspot using a login name and password. It’s complicated and clunky and confusing. And these hotspot systems always seem to be much slower than regular systems. And this one at the Centra is the worst I have ever come across. Websites won’t load. Videos won’t play. The signal is so weak that my phones and laptop and tablet often don’t even try to connect and just say that there is no Internet at all.
I’ve been trying to upload just one video since I arrived yesterday, and it still has three hours to go to finish. It was uploading for all of yesterday afternoon, all through the evening, and then all through the night. And it still requires several hours to complete. Photo uploads keep failing, and I have to upload the same photos over and over and over. Even regular YouTube videos at the lowest possible resolution won’t play smoothly over this Internet connection. It’s so slow that it freezes and lags constantly. It’s strange that the most expensive hotels seem to have the worst Internet. It was the same at the Soho in Tak. It was a very nice hotel, but it had the worst Internet of all the hotels I’d stayed in other than the Centra. Now the Centra is by far the worst.
The electrical system is also a big problem in this room. One of the first things I do when I move into a new hotel room is plug in my power bar and all my chargers at a convenient spot. And that is impossible to do here. There isn’t a single electrical outlet anywhere near the bed. In fact, there isn’t one electrical outlet anywhere in that half of the room. There is a bedside table on each side of the bed. And there is a lamp on each table. But these lamps are hardwired into some bizarre and complex system inside the bedside tables. And the lamps don’t even work. There are switches on the front of the bedside table and there is a dial on the lamps. But no matter how much I play around with these, I can’t get the lamps to work consistently. Sometimes one will work. Sometimes both will. Sometimes they will flicker and buzz. And sometimes neither will work at all. There is also a large floor lamp with a foot pedal switch. I couldn’t get that lamp to work either. It turns out that the bulb has burned out. Luckily, I was able to replace it with the bulb I carry with me in my backpack. There is an electrical outlet on the wall next to the TV, but it is very hard to access. The best I could do was plug my power bar into that outlet behind the TV and run the cord across the floor to one side of the bed. And then when I need to charge anything, I put it all on the floor.
Overall, the room is just dark. There aren’t enough lights even when they work. The lights just aren’t bright enough. The bathroom is particularly dark. It has one light on the ceiling and then a bank of fluorescent lights over the counter and sink. But both are dim, and it takes a long time for the fluorescent lights to even come on. There is a separate shower stall with a curtain, but once you close the curtain, you are inside a dark closet. There is one light in the ceiling of the shower area as well, but it is also quite dark and dim. I end up squinting and just always feeling like I want to turn on the lights. But they are already on.
To my surprise, this 4-star hotel doesn’t supply anything in the way of complimentary soaps and shampoos and toothbrushes and toothpaste. The only item in the bathroom is a plastic dispenser mounted on the wall inside the shower. According to the label, it contains some kind of substance that serves as both body wash and shampoo. In order to dispense any of this wonder substance, you are supposed to push in on a plastic frame on the front. I tried to do that, and the whole thing just snapped off and fell to the floor. And even if it worked, there is no soap available at the sink at all. If you want to wash your hands at the sink, you have to go into the shower and push on this broken container and try to get some soap there. There were no toothbrushes or toothpaste. No shower caps. Basically, there were none of the usual items you find in even a two-star hotel. My room at the no-star Phannu was better appointed than this room.
There is a kettle in the room, which is nice. And there are a couple of coffee mugs and a couple of tea spoons. But there is no complimentary coffee. Being a luxury 4-star hotel, I was expecting a type of upscale coffee brand and perhaps an elegant tea. But they didn’t even provide little packets of Nescafe instant and Coffee Mate. There was nothing at all. Luckily, I always have my own. In fact, I don’t even use the supplied instant coffee that hotels put in the rooms. But it was still quite a surprise that the luxurious Centra was the one hotel I’ve stayed in that didn’t provide anything at all. What’s the point of the kettle if you can’t make coffee or tea?
Inside the large closet with the sliding doors, there is a small safe. And I guess that is useful for most people. But I can’t figure out how to use it. There are no instructions that make any sense. I was amused to find a long old-fashioned form in the closet for laundry service. It really did look like something you’d see in a movie set in the seventies. The prices were certainly 4-star. This is not the type of laundry service that charges by the kilogram. It cost 85 baht per buttoned shirt, 60 baht for a T-shirt, 50 baht per pair of socks, and 110 baht to wash a towel. They even listed prices for such old-timey items as a handkerchief, a vest, a silk shirt,
And I was amused to see that you could choose how much starch you wanted in your laundry. I’ve heard about this starch business my whole life from movies and TV shows. Everyone is always discussing starch. But I have no idea what that really means. I’ve never seen starch or heard of anyone in real life ever having to consider the amount of starch to be added to their laundered and ironed clothes. But at the Centra, you can choose from Light Strach, Heavy Starch, or No Starch.
With this laundry service and its prices, the Centra just seems to have an inflated sense of its own value. In the lobby, there is a small drinks cabinet. And they charged 50 baht for a small can of Coke or a small bottle of water. Crazy high prices.
The location of this hotel is also not something to get excited about. It’s on the far side of the main highway on the corner of a busy intersection. And the entrance and exit to their parking lot are quite inconvenient. It’s a real pain to go to the hotel and then leave again. To exit, you have to turn onto a busy highway, and then you have no choice but to drive away from Mae Sot until you reach a U-turn on the highway. And you’d have to drive to go anywhere. It’s not like you can just pop outside and grab a snack at a local shop. There is nothing out here at all. I think this is my least favorite hotel of all the ones I’ve stayed in so far. And yet, with its 4-star rating, it is supposed to be one of the best in Mae Sot.
However, breakfast remains. Perhaps the breakfast will be so astonishing that it will make up for all the failings. I’m kind of at a loss when it comes to video and breakfast. I feel like I should take video of the breakfast experience, but I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of any kind of experience that needs documenting and reporting on. I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of a trip. And I just don’t know how I’d find the time to edit the video anyway. Perhaps I will just go enjoy breakfast and not worry about recording the experience.
My plan for the day is to come to grips with YouTube videos. I want to get a ton of work done. But we’ll see how that works out. The move from the Phannu to here and all my struggles with the room and the poor Internet meant that I didn’t get as much done as I expected. Hopefully today will be better.