Return of the Thai Hobbit: There and back again

Someone had the idea to do a coast-to-coast walk across northern England, from the tiny town of St. Bees on the west coast to the tiny town of Robin Hood’s Bay on the east. Along the way, there would be other tiny towns, comprising a total of 190-or-so miles over 12 days. The original person to undertake this walk was Alfred Wainwright, an illustrator who also wrote a series of guidebooks, presumably all about walking. I didn’t know who Alfred Wainwright was. I only knew that it sounded like I’d be traveling from pub to pub, eating lots of English food along the way and magically shedding pounds like I had nearly 15 years ago on the Camino.

It turns out, English food is not like Spanish food, and 15-years-ago-me is not the menopausal me of today: coarsened, stumpy, and prone to weight gain at the whiff of a carb. I did not lose weight, but gained it. But at least I also possibly permanently messed up my ankle! At the very beginning of the walk, full of hope, my friends would sing a song I presume came from the “Hobbit” trilogy, because they thought I looked like one from the back (and probably the front). “Chawadee Baggins,” they would call me, and I was fine with it. Later, with all of my injuries, the Hobbit became “the Hobblit”, my walk more of a hesitant lurch. I did not like to be called “Chawadee Baggins” after that.

The food didn’t help. This is something I didn’t know but kind of wish I knew at the time: pub menus are all pretty much the same. There will be a lasagne, for some reason, and a curry of the week, because of course. There will be a steak and ale pie, and fish and chips. There will be a soup, and if it is “fancy”, a chicken caesar salad. And then, if you are east of the Pennines, there will be fried chicken “parmo” in a sandwich or not, with garlic mayonnaise on the side, obviously. Everything comes with fries, including the fries.

I tired of this menu by the third day. This, coupled with a fall I took on a rainy day (because of course) on top of a hill leading down to an abandoned slate mine in the Lake District, made me despair of my choices. I admit to taking to drink, finishing and leaving empty mini bottles of whisky from a trip to Scotland the week before in a string of B&B rooms across the country. Yet my friends and family soldiered on, even as I took my “break days”, no matter how tired or angry it made them. I couldn’t understand why they would do this; had they made some sort of vow to the tour company? Was there a magical dwarf who would spirit away their firstborn if they rested?

Some B&Bs were kind, even if the surroundings were humble. Some places were not. I remember nearing the very end of the trip and staying in an inn that reminded me of the “Master of the House” inn in “Les Miserables”. By the time we reached Robin Hood’s Bay, I had done half of the walk, presumably to keep my pregnant friend Trude company (but really she was keeping me company). I saw the jubilation on other people’s faces who had finished and thought to myself, “So that’s why.”

By the time I returned to Thailand. I was ready to rest for good. Unfortunately, there was a thing called “work” that I had to do. So a day after I arrived from Manchester, I flew to Champion to do some research for a guidebook. There were hikes in my future, but, in typical fashion, I was hoping my friend Andrew would do them without me.

It turned out that neither of us did much hiking. But we did drink a lot of beer, and ate a lot of food (I am noticing a pattern). One of our favorite discoveries was a recommendation from the owner of Chumphon Cabana Resort, Khun Varisorn, who said the kitchen at this other resort had really fresh seafood and very few people. This seemed like a wonderful and unlikely combination to me.

It was called Lung Rom Resort, and it was the sort of place that we would never have found on our own. While approaching the restaurant, I’ll admit we felt some trepidation, and it made me think of the sinking feeling you get after 8 hours of hiking across rolling English hills to a dilapidated inn on a hillside smelling of cat pee. But Khun Varisorn did not steer us wrong.

Our garrulous host, Lung Rom himself, recommended the hoy waan (sea snails), muk dat diew (sun-dried squid), and a grilled fresh mullet. We didn’t feel very hungry, so we agreed and sat down to what we thought would be a quick lunch. The snails were meaty and fresh, and the plastic bits at the end thoughtfully plucked. The seafood dipping sauce was obviously handmade and full of flavor. This was not pureed leek soup made from water and a can of beans upended on bread. It was something else.

The “muk dat diew” was not the dish that I knew of, anywhere else in the country. There, the squid is dried to concentrate the flavor, and it’s accompanied by a Sriracha sauce. Here, this may possibly be what has happened, but the chef has then dipped the squid in a rice flour, fried it to make it crispy, and plopped it on a plate amongst similarly crispy basil leaves, chilies and garlic. Think “calamari”, but way way better. It is a revelation, and a dish I’ve never eaten anywhere else.

The fish, a whole mullet which took 20 minutes because it had to be grilled over charcoal, was as fresh as anyone could make it, and while most places would make do with the using seafood dipping sauce again, Lung Rom brought us a thick tamarind sauce with chilies and fresh shallots. “Put lots of it on the meat,” he advised, and we did.

If we had regrets after our meal, it was that we did not have enough space to sample the whole menu. But if you were to find yourself in Chumphon with an empty stomach and a hankering for seafood, you could do much worse than going to Lung Rom for lunch. Take it from the Hobblit.