Today we kept off the highway and travelled along the Royal Coast Route. Thailand has been developing this road for several years renewing it and installing bicycle paths with the intention of promoting it as a tourist destination, It is a very quiet road that hugs the coast and is a pleasure to drive along it, although, in places, it twists and turns through hilly areas. The drive is so rural and quiet that you have to be aware of dogs asleep in the road, hens and their young crossing the road, and, today, even a rather large monitor lizard attempting to cross the asphalt. There are many places to see on the route, but unfortunately, the weather today was in the grip of the North-East Monsoon which particularly affects this area so we did not stop at any. As we have done the trip many times before, it was not a problem for us.
Rocky Point, is also well known to us as we have stayed there several times in the past including 2 nights in 2020 with Katie. It has nice villas surrounding a swimming pool next to the sea. It is particularly good value at the moment costing only THB 1215 including a good breakfast.
What we have noticed already, is that these areas are quite clearly suffering due to the ongoing pandemic. Many small resorts, hotels and restaurants are closed and the ones that are open seem to be finding it hard to attract any clientele. It would appear that these areas have not benefited from the opening up of Thailand to foreign visitors as areas such as Phuket have.
As the weather today, was bad, we have raided our archives for some of the sites along the route we have travelled.
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| View from Rocky Point, Thap Sakae |
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Swimming Pool at Rocky Point, Thap Sakae
 | | The Royal Coast Road |
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| Dawn at Sanamwan Beach |
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Thung Maha Bay, Chumphon
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| Collecting coconuts
STOP PRESS. It stopped raining and we got a sunset! |
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| Fisherman at sunset, Rocky Point, Thap Sakae |
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